Rock Band 3 Wireless Keyboard (PS3)

The wireless keyboard is a really well built piece of kit - it feels of a higher standard than the Rock Band guitar. It's more like a keyboard you'd expect Casio or Yamaha to produce, rather than a gaming peripheral. The Midi port built into the side of it shows that Harmonix intend the "keytar" as a fully fledged instrument, too, and the full size keys feel good under the fingers.Of course, it's primarily an accessory to open up a new skill to learn in Rock Band and that it does. I had assumed it would be similar to the guitar, but straight away the fact that you can't hold down a note until it arrives make success with the keytar even more timing dependent than the guitar is. It's a different kind of challenge, really, and quite satisfying to get right.On the keyboard there's a ridge on the left of the set of coloured keys so you can find your place again without looking, and there's an infrared sensor on the left hand side that you can use to "bend" the notes, like with the whammy bar on the guitar. Beside that there's a button for triggering overdrive - it's all very sensibly laid out. The usual PlayStation directional & symbol buttons can be found on the top right of the keys. You can use the keytar with the strap provided or sat flat on your lap or a table, so it's quite flexible in that regard.It comes with a wireless dongle that has a pass-through USB port in it - quite a clever little bit of design that means you can daisy chain the wireless dongle for the keytar and the guitar, drums or microphone.I'm pretty happy with the Wireless Keyboard - it adds an extra dimension to the game and, as the build quality is a reassuring cut above, at the price it is now I think it's a must-have for any Rock Band fan.

The first thing that struck me at the time of opening the package was how solid it felt. For a toy with such a low price it was of surprisingly high quality. The shape is that of a keytar (keyboard with a guitar grip), so you can just as easily hang it around your neck as you can place it on a table.The song support for this product is unfortunately quite limited, but to make up for that you are able to play guitar or bass as well.As accustomed to a keyboard as I am, the basic mode is a bit too easy for my taste, but there's where the pro mode comes in. With the pro mode you can actually learn to play the parts as on a real keyboard, though the somewhat limited range (just over 2 octaves) has forced the developers to do some workarounds. Still, if you take what you have learned from Rock Band to a real keyboard/piano, you should be able to figure it out.On top of that, the keyboard is fully MIDI compatible, meaning you can plug it into a MIDI sequencer or a PC (using a regular MIDI cable - sold separately) and actually make some real music.

So I'd seen the keyboard in use just once before, and thought it'd be a good way to learn what with Rock Band's range of difficulty settings. And I was right. While the keyboard is of the keytar style, in that you play the keys with just one hand and hold the slider and overdrive with the other, the ingame teaching tool is still informative and helps with getting used to the Pro Keys. With the option to plug it into a midi-system to use as an actual keytar (which I have no means of doing personally), it's a good accessory. And it allows for those epic Rock Band evenings to be even greater when even the keys can be taken in.

This is a good product and works well. However much like the guitar games it gets boring rather quick. I prefer playing the real keyboard instead of watching the TV screen.

It was sort of a mess to start using this device... the Keyboard created a mess with the device recognition in the PS3, I was forced to disconnect everything and start to connect again each one... it is supposed to be a plug a play kind of device but it is not, the max number of devices that can get connected in addition to the kind of instrument recognized by the game is not friendly at all.

Good item and well packed for the postage

Works good loving it

Pitty not all songs have keyboard support. Even so the ones that have add more fun because you can add another payer to your band. And you can also use the keyboard on your computer as a MIDI source!!