Each of the peripherals on each of the platforms will have an RRP of $399.95. That’s more on one instrument than the entire instrument+game pack for Guitar Hero 5. The PS3 version is out now, the Xbox version will land late October and the Wii version lands in late November.

While I’d love to take my music rhythm gaming to the next level, somehow I don’t think dropping $800 on instruments is the way to do it. With that kind of cash, I could buy real instruments and go on tour (at the local pub)…

[Logitech]

The phone itself was, alas, not on display at CTIA in San Diego, a phone convention increasingly known for its lack of actual new phones. But in these studio shots, it looks really good. If it didn’t have the Fender logo, I’d be like, “Hey, look at my sweet phone. Doesn’t it kind of remind you of a guitar?” But emblazoned as it is, the bearer is forced to apologise for it, like, “Yeah, I really liked how it looked, even though I know how corny it is to have a phone with my guitar’s logo on it. Will you forgive me?”

And the ghost of Les Paul played on… [T-Mobile]

If you are still with us after that price revelation, you might be interested to know that the Mad Catz guitar also features fast-action ‘Shredderz’ fret buttons — an exclusive addition that makes it easier to tear up solos. If that isn’t enough to improve your game, the optional Electro-Harmonix Overdrive Pedal, the back tuning button, the old-fashioned tilt mechanism, and a new touch sensitive pickup are thrown in for good measure. Expect to see it on store shelves sometime in the next few weeks. [Kotaku]

During his long tenure on this planet, Les Paul was something like the Thomas Edison of music—he is responsible for such groundbreaking inventions as multitrack recording, overdubbing, delay effects and, of course, the solid-body electric guitar. His work eventually earned him induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005.

Few names conjure up as much respect in an industry as Les Paul, and that doesn’t appear likely to change anytime in the near future. Nearly all of the musicians and music lovers around today owe a tremendous debt to this man. [Yahoo]

We’re big Guitar Hero/Rock Band fans, but buying a controller so that it can play the songs perfectly so that you don’t have to do anything? That’s taking it a bit too far.

If pretending to rock is so hard that you have to pretend to pretend to rock, you should just go and eat your way up to 350 kilos and give up on life. [eBay - Thanks Ben!]

Do you remember when you started to play guitar in your parent’s garage, then got into that rock band in college, got signed by a big record company, and sold twenty million records? Yes, me neither. [Likecool]

[Logitech]

The Price: Each module costs $US100, and you need at least two to make things happen, so you’re looking at $US200 or even $US300 to start. (Haven’t seen any combo pricing deals yet.)

The Verdict: It’s a unique set of wireless toys that is a lot of fun to play with, and would have been a must-have back when I used to play guitar in a band. But these things can be cool even in the home of a total non-musician, which is why I’m bringing them up at all.

Think of it as Sonos Portable. You set one of them to transmit, and start playing a song from your computer, iPod, any audio source at all really, including, mind you, a CD or DVD player with S/PDIF output. Set another one to receive, then attach that to earphones, a boom box or your home theatre system, and you hear everything with no latency. Well, with about 10 milliseconds of almost totally unnoticeable latency. In “broadcast” mode, you an add additional Pipelines—E-Mu says “any number of receivers”—so that many rooms, or many people, can catch your tuneage at the same time.

Of course, if you do play music, you can plug your guitar into one, set it for “pairing” mode, stick another one at your amp set to receive. In this scenario the latency is just 6.6ms, and you are suddenly completely unfettered.

I tested it in my house using prerecorded audio, and it sounded great. I stuck my computer with the source music down in the basement, and clipped a receiver to my belt with headphones plugged in, and wandered throughout the house. The signal faltered only when I was at the absolute farthest point away from the source, which probably was right around the advertised 15 meters (49 feet) of range that these babies can get.

Battery life is good, perhaps the big reason this thing even brushes the $US100 point: You get 10 hours in receive mode, and 5 while transmitting.

The only issue I ran into, if you could call it that, was the “DIP switch” setup, which you can see in the rear shot above. I am not afraid of a few switches, but it seemed a complex way to set the channel, the receive or transmit mode, and the audio preferences. Not sure what would have been better, and once you set them, you can almost forget them, but it was, initially, a bit of a pain.

These babies aren’t cheap, but setting up a way to wirelessly listen to music at home (like, say, piping music outdoors, syncing music between multiple rooms, or even walking around with earphones, listening to music playing somewhere else) seems worthwhile for $US200, and the one-to-many broadcast mode makes it quite a unique product. My only gripe is that it would be cool if E-MU made an even better priced unit without the battery, so you could pick and choose.

Regardless of that, if you jam in a band, you definitely need a pair of these buggers—though the rest of your band might suddenly hate you for getting all Angus Young on them. Of course, Angus did all that crazy guitar shit with cord attached, but that’s plain super human. [Pipeline Product Page]

It’s definitely solid. We tried it out quickly and the weight of it was comparable to an actual guitar. The keys were clicky enough without being overly clicky—like the Guitar Hero 2 controllers—and the strummer felt solid enough. It’ll take weeks of actual playing to see how well it stands up to use, but on the surface it’s good.

The smaller touches, like the Start button, the Select/Star Power button and the metal frets seem to indicate that it’s more quality than a standard Guitar Hero/Rock Band guitar. For $US200, it damn well better be. [Amazon]

Apparently, the guitars won’t be included with the game, but sold separately for $US99 each. Seriously, this is getting silly. [Kotaku]