I’ve been wanting to get back to playing Rock Band 2 and start Lego Rock Band for a few months, but my trusty wireless Rock Band 2 guitar’s strum bar has gotten so loose that I just could not handle playing with my guitar. I generally play on Expert for songs up through the 4/5 difficulty ones.  When i get to the 5/5 difficulty I jump from guitar to bass to keep getting decent scores. I know I’m going to miss notes when I play but when I’m missing them because of the guitar’s faulty it is just too frustrating. Fortunately after some looking around the forums at ScoreHero.com I found some options for replacement strum bars. After reading some opinions I ordered a MaxAxxe RetroShhh replacement. The site looks a little flaky but the RetroShhh arrived when they said it would.

The actually installation was much easier than I was afraid it would be when I saw the two pages of instructions. Basically, you take the back off your guitar, remove the whole strum bar component, replace the strum bad and then put the new board on top.  Finally, screw it all back in and connect the wire.  Put the whole thing back together and you’re set.  It took all of maybe 15 minutes and that included the time to hunt down a suitable screwdriver.

After I was done, I fired up Rock Band 2 and played a couple songs I know I can gold start every time.  I was hitting every note and the timing was just as it use to be (before the old strum bar got all mushy and loose). The RetroShhh has a nice sold feel which is good because I tend to smack the strum bar when things get going fast.  I’ve been playing with it for a week and it still feels great. It makes a little more noise than I expected since the RetroShhh is suppose to be their quite one.  They also sell a RetroClick that has the feel of the Guitar Hero Xplorers. The noise is not a click like the Guitar Hero strum bars, but more just the noise from the component moving back and forth. I don’t really notice it when I’m playing buy my wife pointed it out. It is not overly annoying or anything. Just something to keep in mind if you are looking for a very quite peripheral.

Now that I’ve been playing with it for a while I’m really glad I picked up the RetroShhh.  I’m actually having fun playing Rock Band 2 again and I don’t have to worry about missing notes because of a faulty strum bar.