Forum | I hate you plastic instruments

In December last year I decided to take a gamble and buy the Guitar Hero World Tour pack. I got the set with the drums, guitar and microphone. It was a whole new experience for me and my friends playing the game and we all loved it. A second Gibson guitar soon followed and our little band was complete. It all seemed to good to be true.

Well it was. After a while the strumbar of the World Tour guitar started giving problems. It didn't recognize downstrumming any longer and we were left strumming every songs upwards. This proved to be a huge problem with songs like Assassin. We played like that for about half a year when the upward strumming started giving trouble as well. We now had to rely on the stupid Playstation button on the buttom right of the guitar to do the strumming. I decided to pre-order Guitar Hero 5 with a new guitar so that I would have two functioning guitars again.

The pre-order arrived and everything went allright for a while. After some time this new guitar started having the same problems as the first however and I now have two guitars that barely do any strumming at all. Also the yellow cymbal of the drums started failing whilst going for the Endless Setlist  on Rock Band 2. The microphone has problems as well. Sometimes it will not register anything at all and other times it's doing fine.

Does anyone else have problems like this and do they have any way of fixing it. I love playing games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band but these plastic instruments are really spoiling the fun because they break so easily. Advice would be great           /rant

I (well a mate who knows what he's doing) have had to resolder the green drum that was months ago and its still going strong.

My World tour guitar would only upstrum but a mate of mine had a 360 one that wouldnt power up so we nicked the switch and soldered it onto mine and it worked fine for a few weeks, now it double strums all the time and so does the les paul from GH3 so I know your pain. I am gonna try and repair the world tour guitar in the new year but I think its had it.

I take it your GH5 one is not under warranty anymore then?

They're all shitty quality, mass produced items. We have two guitars in our hall common room at uni (world tour one and another one) and the world tour one has the same problem yours has. Every song has to be played with upwards strums. The buttons on the other one are broken slightly so it might decide to recognise you're pressing the green button…or it might not.

I don't own any of the current gen kit stuff and only have the PS2 GH3 Guitar bundle. It's still going strong and seems to be a lot more reliable than the newer stuff I've used.

Can't see that there's anything you can do besides taking the instruments apart and checking to see if the switches still work or whether they're stuck or something. If they're broken there's not really much you can do apart from firing off some ranty emails. There's no hope about getting replacements of the WT stuff as that's ages old, but with GH5 I'd see whether you can get a replacement. Just email wherever you bought it from saying it's broken in under 4 months and thus is not fit for purpose.

Your first port of call should always be the retailer. Just swing them an email and say that something's up, could they please give you some advice on what to do. While you're waiting for a response (or maybe before you emailed them) check their returns policy. If the company has a retail side of things, you might be able to take things into the store and get an instant replacement. 

That's what happened when one of my DS3 controller's right stick wouldn't register clicking anymore. Since I'd bought it from Game's online store, I was able to just pop into their store, taking the controller, and the invoice it was delivered with, and I got a no quibbles replacement there and then. Needless to say, I was damn impressed by that.

But still, email the retailer, make your rights clear (EU law dictates the warranty from the retailer is 2 years, not 1, so should cover the WT stuff too), and ask for replacement pieces.

Post edited 11:29 pm – December 25, 2009 by LiquescentShadow

They've been difficult and taken their email addy off of the website. However, there are a few which people claim to work, the most popular being customercare[at]play.com

There also are some other addresses you can ping incase that one doesn't work. They're technically not meant for this purpose but you should be forwarded to the right section anyway:

terms[at]play.com

marketingteam[at]play.com

If you can't make any headway with that, you'll have to call them. Most companies have an alternative number for you to ring which is a normal landline and not the 0845 800 1020 given on the site, which is 01534 877595 for play.

Enjoy.

You bought it from Play? They have been the most wonderful online retailer to deal with when trouble's emerged. Seriously, you should be fine. Do report back. Be good to know they're still great.

Ok so I sent Play.com an email to tell them about my problem and ask them what to do. They sent an answer rather quickly but it seemed liked a auto-generated message they give to everyone trying to mail them:

So I assumed I needed the link about returning an item. I read the return policy and used the return item button. I was sent to my order history where I had to select the item I wanted to return and then continue. Maybe it's my mindnumbing intelligence  but I can't seem to find the right button anywhere. When I press Guitar Hero 5 Bundle blablabla I get send to information about the product and the review. Where the hell is thered button. You guys seem to know how to work with Play. Can anyone help me (again)