We spend $30 on Mad Catz's Rock Band cymbals so you don't have to

3:21 PM on 12.10.2008   |   Nick Chester

39 comments

I almost made it out of my local GameStop without buying Mad Catz cymbal attachments for the Rock Band 2 drums. Almost. But when I caught them out of the corner of my eye on my way out the door, I couldn't help myself.

It must have been the $29.99 plus tax burning a hole in my pocket. That's what it cost for me to pick up the Double Cymbal Universal Expansion Kit for my wireless Rock Band 2 drums. (The cymbals work with all wireless kits, including the Wii version).

When MTV Games/Harmonix first announced they were partnering with Mad Catz to release the cymbals, I was intrigued. In theory and on paper, it sounds great. The package the cymbals came in puts it well: "Experience Real In-Game Cymbal Sound and Action." In layman's terms, this means it should theoretically enhance the drumming experience, making it more "realistic."

I had been in contact with Mad Catz's Global PR and Communications Manager about getting a set for preview or review. But when he stopped answering my emails because we're not cool/popular/good-looking enough, I had kind of forgotten about them. 

And now they have my thirty dollars. Hit the jump to see whether or not you should give them yours. 

While the cymbals are available in a few different configurations (including a single cymbal, as well as a three-pack), GameStop appears to only be offering the "double cymbal" set in their stores. What it comes with: 

• Two cymbals that bear the Rock Band 2 logo
• 2 clamps
• 2 minijack cords to connect the cymbals to your kit
• Two metal bars to place the cymbals on
• Three colored caps (blue, green, yellow) that you'll use depending on how you choose to configure your cymbals

Everything comes neatly wrapped in plastic, along with a set of instructions in both English and French. While the French instructions were impossible for me to understand since I don't speak the language, the English instructions weren't much easier to decipher. There's some odd diagram that only sort of looks like reality, and it took me a while to make the connections between what was on the paper and what I had in front of me.

Once I did, the setup was relatively simple. The little plastic clamp pieces snap on to the plastic that's attached to the drum pads themselves, with a little nut that you can use to tighten it to the set. The bars then slide into the clamps and are adjustable in the sense that when you loosen the nut, you can slide it up and down to your liking. The cymbals rest on top of the bars, and you'll use one of the three colored "nuts" to tighten it. Finally, you use a wire to connect the tiny jack underneath the cymbal to the back of the drum kit. 

While the cymbals can be set up in any configuration you wish (you can add up to three for blue, yellow, and green), I decided to go with the yellow (high hat) and green (crash) because it made the most sense to me. Surprisingly, the cymbals themselves are sturdy; they don't seem like they're going to fall off, and banging on them doesn't make the kit shake too much, provided you've tightened all of your nuts properly.

(Watch the video below to see the cymbals in action as I rock the most rocking song in Rock Band, No Doubt's "Don't Speak")

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Again, I have to go back and say that I think the whole idea of cymbals on a drum videogame peripheral sounds great on paper, as it should theoretically give you a better sense of what it's like to be behind a real drum kit. Sure, I'll buy that -- both from a physical and a mental aspect, it should. And in the case of Guitar Hero World Tour's setup, with its two cymbals built onto the drums by default, it sort of does in many cases.

But my problem with both the World Tour and Rock Band cymbal add-on setups is the same. First, it adds a lot of bulk to the kit; when space is probably already precious in your home, adding more to the already enormous kit seems odd. I will admit that the Mad Catz cymbals at least look cool when attached to the kit -- they're round, like you'd expect a common cymbal to be, versus the odd, half-moon, Fisher Price-looking ones found on the World Tour kit. 

My second problem is the biggest, however, and it's that playing the cymbals is an extremely loud affair. I had the same issue with the World Tour kit, especially when riding the "high hat" cymbal -- the cracking noise it makes (versus the softer sound on the pads) is loud and high-pitched, as well as extremely distracting. This is also the case with the Mad Catz cymbals, which are even more striking and loud than the World Tour kit; your neighbors will hate you if you buy these things. And if you live in an apartment, buying these things is like paying Mad Catz to receive an eviction notice.

One could make the argument that "drums are loud," and hitting an actual cymbal or a pad is going to make a loud noise anyhow. Maybe you could convince yourself that the loud cracking sound when you hit the cymbal is "more like real life." This is absolute bullshit, of course -- the only sound you're going to want to hear is a cymbal sound, which comes from the game itself, and not the sound of the peripheral. This cracking of the cymbals is made even more obnoxious when you consider how the officially licensed PDP "Universal Drum Silencer" pads -- a $19.99 addition that I highly recommend -- quiet the kit. (This is a good alternative to buying and cutting up mouse pads, or using -- of all things -- socks.)

As far for how they affect the game itself, they both do and they don't, depending on when you're using them. When it comes to the note charts, nothing changes. You can choose to continue to hit the pads or use the cymbals if you wish; no extra notes are added to the note highway. Outside of the horrible noise they make, the cymbals are kind of fun to play at first, but you'll run into a few problems. 

For one, the yellow pad is not always the high hat, so you'll have to have good instincts to figure out when and when not to hit it. What's particularly frustrating is that some songs will map the high hat to yellow on easier levels, but then switch the high hat to red on Expert. Take Beck's "E-Pro" for instance -- on Hard, you'll be playing the yellow pad for the high hat and the red for the snare. On Expert, this is reversed, as the quick high hat/snare combo would be difficult and feel "wrong" any other way. With the Mad Catz cymbals plugged in, this doesn't change, and the mapping stops making any kind of sense whatsoever -- you'll have to simply ignore the cymbal to play the song. 

(Watch the video below to see the Freestyle mode in action using the cymbals)

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Plugging in the cymbals does change one thing in the game -- how the pads work in the game's "overdrive" sections and the Freestyle mode in the Drum Trainer. With the cymbals attached, all of the pads become drums. This gives you more freedom and options in the drum fill sections of songs, but is particularly cool in freestyle training. In this mode, the cymbals allow you access to different sounds you wouldn't normally be able to hear or trigger, giving you a wider range to play with. It's nice to have access to some other sounds, and in the cymbals are definitely a nice addition. 

Outside of that, though, it's really hard to recommend the cymbals for much of anything. It wouldn't make too much sense to expect Harmonix to start adding notes or remapping charts for an add-on that only handful of consumers are likely to pick up, so that's understandable. But on top of that, the default four-pad-plus-pedal setup already works pretty well as it is ... I'm not sure adding more pads or cymbals makes the game any "better" or more fun. Add in the noise factor, and I'm starting to regret not saving my receipt (GameStop has a 7-day return policy for any accessory, even if the package is open ... try it!)

It should also be noted that after using the cymbals for a few hours, the one I had connected to the yellow pad completely stopped working. In fact, it stopped working when I was trying to make some demonstration videos for this article. Before then I had only used them on a handful of songs, too.

It honestly doesn't make much of a difference to me -- I had planned on taking them off my kit as soon as I was done writing this. It's unfortunate, though, because I was considering giving them away to a reader. (They're kind of like "The Monkey's Paw," now that I think of it.)

Does anyone want a broken pair of Mad Catz Rock Band cymbals?