Product Description

Rock out as hard as you want with no cords or restrictions with Nyko¿s FrontMan Wireless Guitar Controller for Playstation 3. The FrontMan is fully compatible with Guitar Hero III and Rock Band. Designed for the inner rock star in everyone, the FrontMan features a unique hard rock styling with a custom body shape, customizable color scheme with interchangeable pick guards and durable design. Featuring wireless technology for cordless play, the FrontMan provides 25 feet of freedom while performing your favorite songs. The FrontMan also features a high quality, precision built bi-directional strum bar, fret buttons, whammy bar and effects switch for Rock Band play.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1121 in Video Games
• Color: White
• Brand: Nyko
• Model: 83056
• Released on: 2008-04-08
• Platform: PLAYSTATION 3
• Format: CD
• Dimensions: 4.20 pounds

Features

• Rock out with the FrontMan on both Guitar Hero III and Rock Band
• High quality wireless chip set provides a secure connection from up to 25 feet away
• Using only 3 AA batteries, the FrontMan is capable of up to 80 hours of continuous playtime
• Fully functional built-in tilt sensor allows for easy, button free input
• Bi-directional strum bar. Responsive and durable fret buttons. 3 interchangeable pick guards in designer colors. Unique directional pad design for convenient menu navigation. Effects switch for Rock Band play.

Customer Reviews

Getting it to work (Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero)
I have read so many comments about people having "defective" guitars that I had to write these instructions. First off, Nyko provided very poor instructions but the guitar does work. So before you return your guitar have a read of the instructions below.

Instructions Overview
=====================
To get it to work with Rock Band 2 or Guitar Hero you must first sync or link the guitar with the red Pedal. Then turn the select button to Guitar Hero on the Pedal. (Part of these instruction was borrowed from Jim C. from Chicago post. Thanks Jim.)

Detail Instructions to make the guitar work
============================================
1. turn off ps3
2. connect red pedal
3. turn on ps3
4. press Nyko button on guitar (goes into slow blinking mode)
5. press pedal button (pedal goes into fast blinking mode)
6. press Nyko button on guitar (goes into fast blinking mode)
7. make sure both are blinking fast, then press Nyko button one last time

Turn the button on the pedal to Guitar Hero and keep it there regardless of you playing Rock Band 2 or Guitar Hero.

You see, Rock Band 2 recently provided an update to allow Guitar Hero World Tour instruments to work with the game. The updates cause problems with the Nyko guitar playing Rock Band 2. You get crazy button presses if you select "Rock Band" on the Nyko pedal. To fix the problem, just switch the button to "Guitar Hero" on the Nyko pedal and the guitar will work for both games. That it.

Overall Comments
=================
The guitar is offered at a very good price compare to OEM, especially if you just want to try out Guitar Hero or Rock Band. I just don't like the look so much but it does work well. If this is half the price of an OEM its a good deal for a new or spare instrument. It was on sale here for one quarter the OEM price during their Black Friday sale and Gold Box deal which makes it a great deal. Hope this helps.

A warning to those with smaller hands
I hardly ever write reviews, but hear me out on this one if you're planning on buying this guitar.

The short version: If you have small hands, this guitar is not for you. Not sure how this would be if you had larger hands, but I don't have that perspective to give.

The long version: This is all from the perspective of someone with "small" hands, I can hold a basketball with one, but barely. I'm 23 years old, so not kid hands. To give an idea of "small," there's about 2.5 inches left between my middle finger and thumb when wrapping around a 1 liter soda bottle before they touch.

I bought this mostly because I needed a guitar for Guitar Hero 3 and GH Aerosmith. It was also to be a nice addition as a bass for Rock Band when more than 2 other roommates were out in the living room when I was playing, or when someone got sick of singing.

Does this guitar work? It didn't for me in terms of being able to play a game productively. I personally prefer the Rock Band guitar, so that is my bias. The fret buttons respond to their pressing, but in no way was I able to actually play. The frets are small and need to be pressed on roughly in the center in order to register. If you have the habit of slipping to the side, it drops registration and you lose or miss the note. The strum bar works perfectly, but with the frets not picking up my presses it was pointless.

To give a comparison, I average 85-98% on Expert in Rock Band with the RB guitar. With this guitar, I struggled on Hard and couldn't pass beyond 22% on Expert before failing for the first song of GH Aerosmith. The registration was just not there for the sides of the buttons, which is all I was able to press due to the thick neck that made it so hard for someone with smaller hands.

The biggest problem with this guitar is that it was physically painful to play with. I hadn't played more than 20 minutes (failing the very first song on GH Aerosmith 4 times in a row between 10-22% completion and then moving on to a lower difficulty to struggle through 3 songs just to hear them) before my wrist hurt more than it ever had. Every guitar I had used has caused some kind of "burn," but this was very extreme, and I stopped due to it feeling like it was about to cause physical damage. As of right now I can use the Rock Band guitar for roughly 2-3 hours before feeling anything in my wrist anymore, my other hand usually tires from strumming before also, but this guitar managed to cause great pain (not just discomfort) in a very short time due to how it had to be held in order to press the fret buttons with any kind of accuracy.

So, if you have small hands, this guitar is definitely not a good choice. The neck is so wide that it becomes very difficult to press the fret buttons and be able to play quickly and accurately, and managed to cause me a great deal of pain in a very short time. I actually packed it up and had dropped it off at the post office to be returned in less than 2 hours of it showing up at my front door.

Other minor notes: It is quite neck-heavy, in that in the relaxed position the neck will hang pointing downward. Really weird and awkward, and may influence playability when having to support the neck the entire time with the hand that has to reach all over for the frets.

Syncing it with the wireless receiver is a pain. I noticed posts online here and there saying the instruction manual is worthless and there are "tricks" to getting it to sync, so if you do manage to order this guitar I'd look for those online. I actually sat with my roommate for 5 minutes trying to re-sync it after I got it to drop its connection.

Great 2nd guitar
Since not too many of these reviews are updated, I thought I'd share some "new" information on this guitar. In Rock Band mode, it works perfectly in Rock Band 1.(I'm sure it works great in Guitar Hero 3 as well, although I don't own the game) To use this on Rock Band 2, you actually have to put it in Guitar Hero mode. (It doesn't work in Rock Band mode for some odd reason) This just makes it so you can't use the effects switch. It works perfectly with Guitar Hero World Tour as well as the Guitar Hero Aerosmith demo.

These points aside, I've had this guitar for one day, and from what I can see it's pretty solid.I took off one star for the following:

I find the guitar neck to be a bit too fat, as I'm used to the Stratocaster controllers. Those used to the Guitar Hero controllers might not see this as a negative, as the GH guitars are also quite fat in the neck. My left hand tires out more easily on this guitar.

No effort was made to make this guitar look good. This guitar looks like straight up plastic compared with the nice finishes of the RB strat and GH guitar. It's kind of hard to tell from looking at the screenshots, but its quite hideous.

Also, the fret buttons are a bit small, and I find myself missing notes that I could easily hit on the stratocaster.

The dongle is huge. It is easily as big as 4 of the rock band dongles combined. I'm sure its this big because they had to combine dongles for both GH and RB, but I thought this should be pointed out in my review.

I would recommend this for a 2nd guitar.