Because of the many special considerations
necessary for a guitar that is also a game con-
troller, this Strat has a number of proprietary
features. The unique truss rod is adjusted with a
mechanism located in the treble side of the neck
near the neck joint. In place of the neck pickup,
there’s a pop-up string mute that allows the
game to better track picking during gameplay (a
necessary addition given that the game rarely reg-
istered the low strings correctly when unmuted)
but which can be popped back into the body for
playing sans-game. The guitar also features dual
outputs for a standard 5-pin MIDI jack and a
standard ¼" output jack. The two can be used
simultaneously, meaning you can play through
an amp while you’re playing the game—which
is entirely unnecessary but completely fun. The
MIDI output also makes the guitar useable as a
MIDI controller using a standard MIDI cable
(included) and your preferred DAW.
The single hex pickup in the bridge is a
special design for this instrument, as is the
polymer fingerboard, which has embedded
position sensors that track extremely well and
numbered position markers on both sides of
the neck. Nestled in the array of knobs and
buttons used for gameplay is a volume control—the only control for the guitar itself. The
game controls include a T-shaped directional
pad, Start (left arrow) and Select (right arrow)
buttons, and four tiny, color-coded buttons
that correspond to the four standard game
controller buttons. The guitar can be used
with Xbox 360, PS3, or Wii, as long as you
have the correct Mad Catz MIDI converter
(separately by Mad Catz for $39.99). The
gaming-related side of the guitar runs on three
AA batteries, but battery power is not required
for just plugging into an amp and playing.
What’s It All About?
If the point of the guitar is to bridge the gap
between gamers and guitarists—to guide a
Rock Band 3’s Pro Mode
This guitar exists because of a new game mode introduced in the latest Rock Band game, and is
therefore not compatible with previous versions of the game. Pro Mode breaks out of the previous
five-button format to present the entire fretboard across six strings. Currently, Pro Mode is only
playable using this Squier or a 102-button plastic Mad Catz Fender Mustang replica controller.
Like the original game, the note “bubbles” come toward you conveyer belt-style, this time
with a number attached to indicate the fret. Open strings are noted with a “0” and muted strings
with a blue “X.” Chords follow a new convention: the low note shows a fret number, while a note
“bubble” stretches across the subsequent strings at different thicknesses on each string to indicate
how many frets away from the root that string should be fretted at.
