Xbox Live gold members can head over to the game demos section and download a free playable demo of Band Hero, the latest offering in the Guitar Hero Family.

Band Hero is built using the same basic engine as Guitar Hero 5, the look and feel of the game is very similar. The big differences between the two games is the target audience, Band hero caters for a more diverse audience, it is easier to pick up and play than some Guitar Hero titles and the music is more mainstream with more pop hits including tracks like Walking On Sunshine (Katrina & The Waves) which is included along with two other decent tracks in the demo version.

Don't think that just because the playlist is not entirely Iron Maiden, Metallica and Megadeath, it is a lame game for kids, yes this will be easier for younger players to get into, but it does not mean that the game will be 'beneath' any of your more experienced players. The playlist included in the console version goes like this:

- 3 Doors Down - "When I'm Gone"
- The Airborne Toxic Event - "Gasoline"
- The All American Rejects - "Dirty Little Secret"
- Alphabeat - "Fascination"
- Aly and AJ - "Like Whoa"
- Angels & Airwaves - "The Adventure"
- Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals - "Steal My Kisses"
- Big Country - "In a Big Country"
- The Bravery - "Believe"
- Carl Douglas - "Kung Fu Fighting"
- Cheap Trick - "I Want You To Want Me (live)"
- Cold War Kids - "Hang Me Up To Dry"
- Corinne Bailey Rae - "Put Your Records On"
- Counting Crows - "Angels of the Silences"
- Culture Club - "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me"
- Dashboard Confessional - "Hands Down"
- David Bowie - "Let's Dance"
- Devo - "Whip It"
- Don McLean - "American Pie"
- Duffy - "Warwick Avenue"
- Duran Duran - "Rio"
- Evanescence - "Bring Me To Life"
- Everclear - "Santa Monica (Watch The World Die)"
- Fall Out Boy - "Sugar, We're Goin' Down"
- Filter - "Take A Picture"
- Finger Eleven - "Paralyzer"
- The Go-Go's - "Our Lips Are Sealed"
- Hilary Duff - "So Yesterday"
- Hinder - "Lips Of An Angel"
- Jackson 5 - "ABC"
- Janet Jackson - "Black Cat"
- Jesse McCartney - "Beautiful Soul"
- Joan Jett - "Bad Reputation"
- Joss Stone - "You Had Me"
- Katrina and The Waves - "Walking On Sunshine"
- The Kooks - "Naive"
- KT Tunstall - "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree"
- The Last Goodnight - "Pictures Of You"
- Lily Allen - "Take What You Take"
- Maroon 5 - "She Will Be Loved"
- Marvin Gaye - "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"
- Mighty Mighty Bosstones - "The Impression That I Get"
- Nelly Furtado - "Turn Off The Light"
- N.E.R.D. - "Rockstar"
- No Doubt - "Just A Girl"
- No Doubt - "Don't Speak"
- OK Go - "A Million Ways"
- Papa Roach - "Lifeline"
- Parachute - "Back Again"
- Pat Benatar - "Love Is A Battlefield"
- Poison - "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"
- Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue - "Kids"
- The Rolling Stones - "Honky Tonk Women"
- Roy Orbison - "Oh Pretty Woman"
- Santigold - "L.E.S. Artistes"
- Snow Patrol - "Take Back the City"
- Spice Girls - "Wannabe"
- Styx - "Mr. Roboto"
- Taylor Swift - "Love Story"
- Taylor Swift - "Picture To Burn"
- Taylor Swift - "You Belong With Me"
- Tonic - "If You Could Only See"
- The Turtles - "Happy Together"
- Village People - "YMCA"
- Yellowcard - "Ocean Avenue"

There are some great songs in there even if they are not ear-bleeding guitar solo tracks, they will make a great playlist at any party and should go someway to combining the (and this is not a sexist view just personal experience) mainly female played Singstar, and mainly male played Guitar Hero. Just imagine finding a game that you and your girlfriend can enjoy at the same time - what a novelty!

One of the most welcome bits of news included in this Band Hero announcement is the inclusion of the song import function. As you can transfer tracks from GHWT to GH5, you can also transfer the GHWT songs and GH5 songs into Band Hero or vice versa.

In conclusion, this should be a great game and a welcome addition to your now towering pile of Guitar Hero titles.

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We wrote an article a while ago with a great deal of help from one of our visitors showing you how you can use your e-drums as a Guitar Hero Game Controller. This was a very popular article with lots of interest.

Now the cleaver guys over at pctutorialsonline.net have written the software and created some great tutorial videos showing how to connect your Guitar Hero World Tour drums to the PC and use them like a real professional e-drum kit. So now we have the best of both worlds, whatever skins you own can be used for gaming and creating music!

I mentioned a while ago that I would create a how to video on using your Guitar Hero World Tour Drum kit on your PC. Thanks to Magnus’ PS360MIDI Drummer software, the ability to use the GH:WT drum kit on PC became possible. To think that you could turn a gaming controller into a high quality midi controller is amazing. Something like a Yamaha DTXpress costs $800 AU + .

I realize you can’t compare the GT:WT drum kit to fully decked electronic drum kit, but for less than $150 , the Guitar Hero World Tour Drum Kit does a pretty awesome job. Watch the videos below on how to setup your Guitar Hero World Tour Drum Kit on PC

I encourage you all to pop over and have a look at what they have created, it is quite amazing!
Link to original article

As you may have spotted from the pictures around the internet Activision's Guitar Hero 5, which is due to launch on 1st September, will feature new instruments (as if you don't already have enough plastic toys littering your life!)

Guitar

The guitar features a new slider/ touchpad which will send signals digitally improving responsiveness and lag and apparently improving feedback to the player. Other features are an improved strummer mechanism for better reliability and of course the new look colour scheme. Oh and the strummer will be dimpled to aid grip - ooh!

Drums

Because we have no new technical details about the drums we can only comment on what you can see in the pictures from the official Guitar Hero Store Blog

As you can see the big changes are the cymbal being round and not wedge shaped, like you might see in a lot of higher quality e-drum kits, the 'Rockband' style bass pedal which clips onto the frame, this is supposed to keep the thing in position and stop it moving around but I, like may others, like putting the pedals out to the side so it will be interesting to see how many fans this move wins...

Other things to note are the front position of the controller unit which also has its pro's and con's; you will be able to use the buttons to navigate the games menus easier and hopefully be able to plug in your wired headsets and not have the wire trailing over the drums while you are trying to play, but on the other hand how many of you are convinced you will end up hitting it in a fit of drumming genius?

Apart from the cosmetic changes we will have to wait and see what performace improvments come with the new kit, hopefully Red Octane have fixed some of the issues the GH4 kit had without making it feel too much like a game controller. Oh the other thing to point out is that these 'pictures' are actually 3D renders so we have yet to see the first kit in the skin.

What are your thoughts on the new instruments? Looking forward to getting some more or are you happy that you have now finally got your GH4 instruments the way you want them and are not prepared to fork out for new ones?

Well if there is one thing the Guitar Hero series knows how to do well it is hype an upcoming game and although they are making a lot of noise about Band Hero and DJ Hero it is the GH5 drum that has been beaten the loudest.

GH5 introduces new party and battle modes that allow people to drop into and out of songs when they feel like it and also change things like difficulty mid-song which will not only make the game more accessible to your friends who maybe have been a bit sceptical, but also allow you to really push yourself by turning the difficulty up when you can, knowing you can turn it back down and not ruin it for everyone else if you fail. Talking about failing there will also be new ways out of that too with a Rockband-esque revival move whereby your starpower can bring you friends back into the game after they have failed! Sweet!

The thing that really makes or breaks these games though is always the setlist and this one is looking like a good one:

Latest announced tracks

* AFI - "Medicate"
* A Perfect Circle - "Judith"
* Billy Idol - "Dancing With Myself"
* Brand New - "Sowing Season (Yeah)"
* Bush - "Comedown"
* The Derek Trucks Band - "Younk Funk"
* Duran Duran - "Hungry Like The Wolf"
* Eagles Of Death Metal - "Wannabe In L.A."
* Gorillaz - "Feel Good Inc."
* Gov't Mule - "Streamline Woman"
* Grand Funk Railroad - "We're An American Band"
* Iron Maiden - "2 Minutes To Midnight"
* King Crimson - "21st Century Schizoid Man"
* No Doubt - "Ex-Girlfriend"
* Peter Frampton - "Do You Feel Like We Do? (Live)"
* Public Enemy Featuring Zakk Wylde - "Bring the Noise 20XX"
* Rush - "The Spirit Of Radio (Live)"
* Scars On Broadway - "They Say"
* Smashing Pumpkins - "Bullet With Butterfly Wings"
* Spacehog - "In The Meantime"
* Sunny Day Real Estate - "Seven"
* T. Rex - "20th Century Boy"
* Weezer - "Why Bother?"
* Wild Cherry - "Play That Funky Music"
Previously announced tracks

* Attack! Attack! UK - "You And Me"
* Band Of Horses - "Cigarettes, Wedding Bands"
* Beastie Boys - "Gratitude"
* Beck - "Gamma Ray"
* Billy Squier - "Lonely Is The Night"
* Blur - "Song 2"
* Bob Dylan - "All Along The Watchtower"
* Bon Jovi - "You Give Love A Bad Name"
* The Bronx - "Six Days A Week"
* Children Of Bodom - "Done With Everything, Die For Nothing"
* Coldplay - "In My Place"
* Darker My Love - "Blue Day"
* Darkest Hour - "Demon(s)"
* David Bowie - "Fame"
* Deep Purple - "Woman From Tokyo ('99 Remix)"
* The Duke Spirit - "Send A Little Love Token"
* Elliott Smith - "L.A."
* Elton John - "Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)"
* Face To Face - "Disconnected"
* Garbage - "Only Happy When It Rains"
* Iggy Pop - "Lust For Life (Live)"
* Jeff Beck - "Scatterbrain (Live)"
* John Mellencamp - "Hurts So Good"
* Kaiser Chiefs - "Never Miss A Beat"
* Kings Of Leon - "Sex On Fire"
* Kiss - "Shout It Out Loud"
* Love and Rockets - "Mirror People"
* My Morning Jacket - "One Big Holiday"
* Nirvana - "Lithium (Live)"
* The Police - "So Lonely"
* Queens Of The Stone Age - "Make It Wit Chu"
* Rammstein – "Du Hast"
* The Rolling Stones - "Sympathy For The Devil"
* Rose Hill Drive - "Sneak Out"
* Santana - "No One To Depend On (Live)"
* Screaming Trees - "Nearly Lost You"
* Sonic Youth - "Incinerate"
* Sublime - "What I Got"
* The Sword - "Maiden, Mother & Crone"
* Thin Lizzy - "Jailbreak"
* Thrice - "Deadbolt"
* Tom Petty - "Runnin' Down A Dream"
* Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - "American Girl"
* Vampire Weekend - "A-Punk"
* The White Stripes - "Blue Orchid"
* Wolfmother - "Back Round"

Added to these great tracks and new modes is a new, less linear, career mode. All of the songs will be available from the beginning and will not have to be played one at a time by each individual instrument but rather there will be gigs of increasing difficulty which can be played by any number of players on any combination of instruments on any difficulty, hopefully finding the perfect balance of fun vs challenge for all your friends.

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Well we knew it was coming but without much fanfare it is now here! Xbox 360 owners with an Xbox Live Account can now download the playable demo of Guitar Hero Smash Hits (also called Guitar Hero Greatest Hits on European downloads), featuring 3 playable tracks from the upcoming game.

The tracks, which can be played on all instruments unlike the first time you may have played them on previous versions of the game, are:

Rock and Roll All Night - Kiss

Take Me Out - Franz Fredinand

Woman - Wolfmother

Gamers will still have to wait until Jume 16th for the release of the full game but this should keep you warmed up in the meantime!

To see the full setlist for this game see this earlier post

E3, the games industries annual showcase for their latest and greatest creations, has given Guitar Hero fans a lot to get excited about.

We had the first look at Guitar Hero Van Halen - This footage was taken on a handheld so no sound sorry!

We got a look at the much hyped Guitar Hero 5, with it's many new play modes, allowing it to be more of a party game yet more accessible at the same time.

On top of all that goodness we also had the first real viewing on the DJ Hero controller and how the game will play - as an early sceptic I can now say I am truly excited!

Looks like there is fuel in the fire of the Guitar Hero franchise for a good while longer!

Well after bringing you the story and teaser pictures of the forthcoming DJ hero game, more details are now coming in about exactly what it will consist of... and its looking good!

Thanks to the Red Octane blog we now know that the game will feature music and features from two of the biggest artists in the field - Jay-Z and Eminem. With these two pioneers of music lending their talents to the development of the game and providing exclusive music and special edition premium controllers for the game it is shaping up to be a good release, don't worry if you are a hardened rock god through, there will be element where the DJ (on his decks) and the Guitarist (on his GH axe!) can join forces to make sweet, sweet music together! Lets hope they also reveal the ability to add live drums into the DJ mix too!

Here is a small expert form the Red Octane Blog

DJ Hero immerses fans into DJ culture and a sea of music as they take turns with their friends, scratching songs, playing along to the hottest tracks and ruling the party. The game’s innovative turntable controller was created exclusively for the game and features familiar DJ tools including a fully-rotating turntable, sample buttons, effects dial and crossfader. Players master various DJ techniques as they play along to visual cues for scratching, blending, crossfading and sampling, and can also add their own creative spark by choosing to add a variety of effects, samples and scratches. Social expression is heightened with euphoric multiplayer gameplay where two DJs can battle competitively or have a player join in to emcee over any track in the game using any USB compatible microphone. Additionally, gamers can rock together as DJ Hero features DJ-guitar exclusive mixes played with a turntable controller and Guitar Hero(R) guitar controller.

With Activisions previous form of encouraging user generated music to be shared with others this really could be a way of making good music at home without too much trouble or technical knowledge! Who knows maybe  in a few years time they'll be topping the charts!

What do you think? Is this a good move for Activision and will it see genuine good content from players or is it just another gimmicky attempt at expanding the franchise?

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Red Octane have got a new product soon to be availiable from their online shop and it is called - Guitar Hero Drum Kit Deluxe Midi Tuning Kit! Catchy name eh?!

Could it be that now we expected to pay to have the drums set up correctly? I think it was a good move to bring out the drum tuning kit following the raft of complaints about non responsive drum pads but to now offer to sell us the same functionality? Should it not be included free as standard if they accept people have the need for such an item? What Do you think?

Red Octane have been good to us too with $10 coming off the Guitar Hero Metallica games and bundles and a free T shirt with extra microphones being purchased through the site, not to forget that they still have their voucher code running for 10% off until 19th June!

Just one thing then Red Octane - when you going to start worldwide shipping so the rest of the world can play too?

The next Guitar Hero game on the horizon is going to be Guitar Hero 5, which was first announced last week in a statement from Activision. The new game is getting ready to drop in Autumn this year, and will feature new ways of playing the game as well as the expected all new setlist. The news come from a recent interview with the Washington post, where Brian Bright (Project Director) revealed the games first details.

Songs Announced:

Tom Petty - Running Down A Dream

The White Stripes - Blue Orchid

Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil

Bob Dylan - All Along The Watchtower

Santana - No One To Depend On

Vampire Weekend - A-Punk

Johnny Cash - Ring Of Fire

Kings Of Leon - Sex On Fire

Stevie Wonder - Superstition (where the guitar is going to be playing the notes of Stevie Wonders Clavinet Keyboard!)

Iron Maiden - Unknown Song

The White Stripes - Unknown Song

Also it seems some gameplay modes are going to be more suited at parties with the ability for all four members of the band to pick which ever instrument they like (even all playing guitar / drums at the same time), leave or join the song individually without interrupting the gameplay for others (great when you need to get another drink mid-song!) and change difficulty mid song too. Another new game mode mentioned was the Competitive Fest mode where players compete against each other at home (up to 4 players) or online (up to 8 players) for the highest score, presumably this would all be on the same instruments too, so good if you have a competitive group of friends to play with.

We can't wait to see what else it has to offer!

3 Drummers at the same time? You'd better have a big lounge!

Red Octane have got a nice little voucher code for Fathers Day (June 21st, but you knew that anyway right?!)  giving you 10% off your final bill at the store with free shipping on orders over $99. All you have to do to claim your 10% off is head over to the Red Octane Store now, pick your goodies then add the discount code DADSNGRADS. This offer is only valid until 19th June so don't delay!