CES 2008: Professional Rock Band Drums

One of the highlights of the Ion Audio booth at this year’s CES was the Rock Band video game. Now, Guitar Hero and Rock Band were probably featured in about 50 booths this year—many companies faced the fact that a video game was far more exciting than their own products—but Ion had a unique take on it.

Ion made a professional drum kit for use with Rock Band. This kit not only has higher quality drums than the ones that come with the game, it also has separate cymbal pads you can use for authenticity. (The game doesn’t know about the cymbals specifically, but each one is the same “color” as one of the lower drum pads.)

Ion makes “real” drum kits—electronic drums that can trigger samples—and here they’ve adapted one of them to play Rock Band. This was a prototype, but with any luck they’ll turn it into a real product. The only potential issue is that electronic drum kit prices start at about $300, but they can probably get the cost reduced. I’m sure there are a few Rock Band fanatics out there who will want it regardless.

[That’s Dan Amrich of the Official XBox Magazine playing the drums. I tried them myself, but Dan is a Gaming Professional and did a much better job.]