Ion IED07 Premium Rock Band Drum Kit for Xbox 360

I have been lusting over this product since I had heard about it. I started playing Rock Band drums when the second one came out and my wife got burnt out on them. There were several issues with the Rock Band 2 drums that made me desire this product. The pads eventually started bubbling up (red and yellow at first) and the pedals broke all the time. I have a Rock Band 2 set that is covered in duct tape and it still performs decently. When Rock Band 3 came out, that was it. I had to have this product. I recently graduated from college and my wife told me i could get whatever I wanted. After a month of thinking, I decided on this product. First of all, Amazon shipping is super fast. I got my product very quickly. As soon as this thing came in the mail, I had ripped open the box only to find many smaller boxes inside. My wife and I took out all the smaller boxes and examined all the components. I was super excited to see that all the parts looked like they were high quality. This set is massive, as mentioned in the other reviews. Also, it is very heavy and does take about 45 minutes to an hour to set up. After that, you will spend a great deal of time adjusting until you can hit the actual pads/cymbals and not completely miss and throw your drumsticks across the room. Let me just say that, for a few days, this kit was AMAZING. It was really the most fun I had ever had with Rock Band. I felt like I was playing real drums! I would wake up early just to play with this kit. The problems started a few days in. My wife had went to work and I had the entire day to spend with this kit. After about 1 hour of playing, I noticed that I was missing notes that I shouldn't have been missing. After some testing, I realized that the red pad would trigger all by itself...for seeming no reason. I noticed that there was a LOT of static buildup on the pads. They felt like a CRT TV when you put your hand up to it. Once I noticed this, the ION brain had taken some minor damage from the static traveling to it and it started to perform poorly. The whole issue with this kit (after researching) is that the pedal is made of solid metal and is connected directly to the brain. The kit is NOT properly shielded from electricity. I contacted amazon and they overnighted me a new kit. I was greatly disappointed with my toy at this time but hoped that it was a fluke. I saw so many videos on the internet of people playing this on carpet with seeming no problems. I did not understand why I could not do the same. I will say that it took me forever to package this thing back up. It really felt like I was playing Tetris trying to get all this stuff back in the box. Also, there was a slight sting I felt from wanting this product for so long and then immediately being disappointed by it. Once the new one came, I took my time noting the position of all the boxes. I did not want to have the same problem packaging it back up. After putting the new one together. It had even more problems. The cymbals were double hitting and the red AND yellow pad would trigger for no reason. At this point, I sent both of them back and got a refund. Thank you Amazon for being so awesome. I am very happy that I got my money back. Most of the people on the internet were instead suckered by ION's awful support. I read a common trick of theirs was to have you send back a portion of the kit that was deemed defective. I read that it was very common for it to take up to 6 months(!) for the person to receive a new part. This made the kit unreturnable because it was outside of Amazon's return period. Do not get trapped like a lot of the people on the internet did. Do not buy this product. If you have just recently purchased it and are having problems. Send it back. It won't get better. ION's support will not help you. Just send it back and heavily modify your Rock Band 2 or Rock Band 3 kit and you will have just as much fun without the pain of this awful kit. I wish everyone the best of luck.

I received my set via Fed Ex yesterday. Everything was very nicely packaged and labeled in the box. Instructions were included but I feel could have been a bit more detailed. Not that I needed the help but I could see where some people new to setting up electronic drumsets might be a little confused or possibly set it up wrong.Setup took maybe 45 minutes and they supplied a tool to tighten all the bolts on the stand. One thing to note: There is an adjustment at the top of the cymbal stand to keep them from rotating. This adjustment is an allan wrench which they did not provide for me. Luckily I have my own set.Another thing to watch for... the cymbal holders are held in place with a metal loop with threads on the end. The wingnuts they supply are very large and the threads are not that long so I found myself stripping the very end of the threads trying to get the wingnut on. A trip to the local hardware store fixed this where I bought replacement nylon wingnuts. They are a lot more shallow and tighten down much further on the threads.After putting it together and getting everything plugged in I noticed right away that the pads were amazing. Great rebound and very quiet. Single and double stroke rolls are a breeze. The cymbals felt pretty good but didn't quite have the same rebound. The kick pedal is really made to simulate a hi hat pedal so I was a little off-put at first but it still works quite well and is lightyears beyond the original stock RB1 pedal. I'm thinking about upgrading to either a Rock Pedal or an Omega Pedal soon. I've read that these will work just fine with the ION.My first impressions of the kit with the Rock Band 2 game were very good. The pads never miss hits but unfortunately the cymbals still drop notes quite frequently. I have read others are having the same problem and I haven't quite figured out yet how to correctly position and hit them to make them more reliable. Some people suggest hitting the edges of them with the stick, some say tighten them down very tight and some say remove the felt padding beneath them. None of these have worked for me yet. It's for this reason that I'm considering removing the yellow hi-hat completely, unfortunately. It's not fun playing it when it consistently drops hits. I'm considering changing it to a blue ride.I'm an expert RB drummer and usually score around 95-99% on most songs and after a few runs over songs that I'm quite familiar with I find myself having less trouble with those passages I couldn't quite get right because of controller conditions. My first try at Tom Sawyer on my new kit yielded gold stars and put me in the 16th spot on the leaderboard. I was nicely surprised with this seeing how I'd never been in the top 500 before.This is an excellent buy if you have the money and want to take your Rock Band drumming to the next level and possibly move on to a real kit.Edit: 9/23/08 - Well the Nylon wingnuts held for one or two moves but I ended up replacing the nut within the plastic wingnut. A simple 6mm 1.00 hex nut fixed the problem. I will probably replace all the stock nuts just to be safe. Still LOVE this kit! I've tweaked the setup a few times but I think I finally have one that I like.