Sunday, October 26, 2008

Starting them young

I generally have three problems when it comes to playing the drums in Rock Band. The first is that I'm just not very good. Not much I can do about that, really.

The second is that, when I play on my own, it's after the kids are in bed. Beating on the drums makes a lot of noise, and the 360 is set up in our family room.

I decided to try to muffle my Rock Band drums by taking some self-stick foam and colored felt (something I've seen mentioned on "teh intarwebz"). I haven't yet had a chance to try them out, since I've been spending a lot of time in the land of Albion playing Fable II, but the worst case scenario is that I'll just have to peel the foam and felt back off if the drums don't work.

The third is that, when I try to play, our not-quite-two year old wants to get involved, which means grabbing the drumsticks, beating on the drums while I'm playing. My wife tried to solve this by getting him his own set of "drumsticks" — a set of bamboo knitting needles (as they function about the same and are much cheaper than anything labeled "drumsticks"). Unfortunately, at best, it only means he comes to bang on the drums with his drumsticks while I'm trying to play, which doesn't do me a whole lot of good.

Well, my wife got another idea. Using the leftover colored felt, some sour cream containers, black felt, and a lot of hot glue, she made my son his very own set of Rock Band drums.

Front view Top view Back view

Initial tests are positive — he loved playing with it. Hopefully, it'll keep him distracted when I'm playing my set. We'll find out — whenever I manage to make my way out of Albion.…

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