Since Guitar Hero: World Tour features a full set of instruments that are nearly identical to Rock Band's, Activision decided that it was time to take the high road and make their PS3 hardware completely compatible with their competition. Great, right? Well it is, except for one minor catch: PS3 Guitar Hero drums are not working in Rock Band. Oh, and the Rock Band mic isn't working in Guitar Hero, either.

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Remember the '80s? You know, the decade that playing a beat on your chest passed as music? Just me? Wow...I am getting old. Anyway, you can relive those days with a high-tech upgrade thanks to this electronic drum kit shirt from Think Geek. That's right, you can actually play seven different drum sounds through a built-in speaker by tapping on different areas of the shirt. As you can see in the video, the effect is awesome—but the whole thing has reminded me of Bobby McFerrin, which has reminded me of that God-awful Don't Worry Be Happy song, which is now deeply entrenched in my head. Damn you, Bobby McFerrin...damn you to hell. [Think Geek]

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Seeing as drum machines are pretty ubiquitous in music these days, the idea of a machine that plays the drums doesn't sound all that groundbreaking. But what about a robot that plays the drums? Eh? Not impressed? What if I told you it played the most rudimentary beats possible? Now are you impressed? I thought so. [Impress via New Launches]

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A normal game demo features a kiosk, maybe a couch, and it's all a pretty ho hum experience save for the fact that you're usually playing a game that won't be released for anywhere from a several months to a few years. But when testing out Rock Band 2, it's set up on a stage with professional lights, mixing boards and speakers. And, of course, their add-on fog machine. It all reminded me how freaking expensive this whole music game madness has become, but also just how far it had come.

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I play Rock Band like a champ, and when I'm with my crew I'm usually on drums. I'm a drummer, and I love playing them, and the included drum controller always seemed just fine to me. Kotaku found this photo of the premium Rock Band 2 kit and I've decided I must have it. UPDATE: OK, so this kit doesn't ship with Rock Band 2, it's a US$300 optional purchase.

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The Gadget: Stitched drum covers for Rock Band from "Premium Rock Band Drum Covers", which give you five different levels of padding for sound dampening. They come in four-colour style, all-black, and four-colour with a white sidewall for the Wii.

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The folks at Kinetic Communications took the Rock Band Drum Kit, which totally isn't wheelchair accessible thanks to its bass kick pedal, and put US$20 worth of their own accessibility mod into it to make sure it is. All it took was a doorbell, a Y cable, a pair of pliers and some sweat and they made a Rock Band kick pedal that can be activated from on the drumsticks. Super cool, Kinetic. Hit up their site to see how you can do this yourself. [Kinetic]

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First we had Rock Band and their 5-button drum kit. Then we had the announcement of Activision's Rock Band clone (Guitar Hero IV) and its 6-button drum kit. Now, not to be outdone, we have word of Konami's Rock Revolution and its 7-button drum kit. And yes, it's all way too eerily reminiscent of "7-minute abs."

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Here's the first shot of the Rock Bandesque drum kit coming to Guitar Hero IV. Scanned from the latest GameInformer magazine, it looks like there will be three main drums, two cymbals and a bass drum. All in all, it's actually just one more drum/button than in Rock Band's kit (which will be incompatible with Guitar Hero IV, incidentally). So what do you think of it? I for one will not be investing in another set of faux instruments to fill up my living room. [Destructoid via CrunchGear]

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Cymbals! That's what was missing from the Rock Band drum kit. Not missing, since some of the pads changed to cymbals whenever necessary, but it didn't have two upper pads dedicated explicitly to them. No more. Game Informer says the upcoming Guitar Hero IV will have a six-padded drum set, but a custom-designed guitar due to the legal problems Activision had with Gibson. You'll supposedly be able to create your own songs as well, but we're not sure if you can just import an existing MP3 and go from there, or if you have to create it from scratch. And by "scratch," we mean copying your favourite songs as best you can. [Primo Technology]

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