went up to bestbuy last week and while browsing i noticed they had the stage kit for $35. my brother-in-law was digging the idea, so we headed up. i picked up the cymbal kit and he picked up a stage kit. online the price showed $45, the shelf label said $35, and it rang up at the register for $27. if your interested, just check availability online, then call the store for exact price.

it came with the fog/strobe machine, a bottle of fogjuice, and the lightshow controller/LED thing.

PDP - Rock Band Stage Kit for Xbox 360 - PL-3649

REVIEW-

this thing is AWESOME! you hook the controller/LED up to the rear USB port, set it on the floor, it has a flip down stand if you want to direct the lights or you can have it shoot up at the ceiling. you plug the fog/strobe into the wall AND into the controller/LED. on the back of the fog/strobe there are two power switches, one for fog and one for main power.

the controller/LED has a d-pad and ABXY, so you can couple it with the microphone.

once you have it set up and start a rockband song the show begins, literally! ever song has a different stage display routine, so some songs might start with the fog machine flooding the stage and strobing, sometimes it might just be the LED lighting up the ceiling. the stage kit responds with the songs of the games, best way to describe this is think of a wicked drum solo on a Metallica song, you know, the melt your brain throw out a shoulder type stuff... well, during this part, the fog fills the room, the strobe goes nuts, and the LEDs start flashing like crazy, its VERY intense!

i told my wife that in a few weeks im going to take myself back up to bestbuy and if they still have any im buying 2. you can only run one person system, but if you take a look around the webz, a little soldering and you can run two kits at once, AMAZING!! the fog out of the machine is insanely dense. my living room is very large, somewhere in the 15'x20' neighborhood and that machine had no trouble filling the room within just a few minutes.

i could play through it, but everybody else was bothered by the amount of smoke so we would turn the fogging feature off every other song. i did a little looking around and by running a lower density fogjuice, it seems as tho you can make it tolerable for everybody to run the fog on every song.

a few points that should be known.
- it will not work on anything but rockband, we tried with guitar hero 5 and the controller still works, but no lights or fog.
- the cables are a little on the short side, so extensions might be a must if you have a large room or your picky about placement.
- it only works if its plugged into the REAR usb port. supposedly doesnt work with usb hubs either.

some vids of it in action for the lazy folk...

stock setup, looks like they hung the controller/LED thing on the wall or something




DIY setup with 2 kits

That's awesome!! I had no idea that even existed.

after a little more research on the hacking end of them, im just going to buy one. i guess nobody has figured out a way to get both foggers to work at the same time. i dont really want an extra fogger laying around that cant be resold because it wont work without the LED/controller

talked to my brother last night about it, he said his bestbuy shows them in stock at his local store as well. 2/4 of my local stores shows them in stock, so maybe they are in more bestbuys than i thought.

I'm still emotionally scarred from the embarrassment of lugging out the massive Renegade Edition of DJ Hero from Best Buy on launch day, but have to admit after seeing that video - and for only $30 - I may have to endure the ridiculing stares at the checkout and pick one of these stage kits up!!


Hmmm - just had a thought of an add-on for DJ Hero - the Stripclub Stage Kit!! Plug it in and two holographic stripper poles pop up along w/ a bevy of downloadable dancers!!

ya, the broinlaw and i got some looks for sure, i was carrying around the cymbal kit, he was lugging the stage kit... what a couple of fruits lol.