Any Rock Band enthusiast who still plays the game in 2024 likely has a guitar or two that has lived long past its intended shelf life. The final game in the Rock Band series, Rock Band 4, released way back in 2015. And though Harmonix was certainly generous with their over 8 years of DLC content, they were less so in peripheral manufacturing. Originally partnering with Mad Catz for the launch of Rock Band 4, they later inked a deal with Performance Designed Products (PDP) for a second run of guitar peripherals in 2016. After that deal expired, also in 2016, no new guitar peripherals were created for the game. For years, Rock Band fans have been forced to deal with a predatory secondary market where used guitar controllers can sell for hundreds of dollars, and new ones for even more. But that changed recently when PDP announced a new guitar controller, officially known as the Riffmaster.
The Riffmaster retails for $129.99 – just a bit more than their 2016 peripheral, but comes equipped with a few added features. An analog stick sits comfortably on the back of the guitar neck, and menu, options, and capture buttons have been added to the body of the guitar near the D-pad. In addition, there’s a 3.5mm output on the side of the guitar for headphone/microphone input. The whole guitar folds in half thanks to a hinge at the bottom of the neck, which might make it easier for storage, but was almost certainly added for easier shipping and packaging. Long time fans of the Rock Band/Guitar Hero franchises may remember a guitar controller with a detachable neck that sometimes came loose and stopped recognizing button presses. I’m happy to report that this issue does not exist on the Riffmaster due to all electronics being housed within the hinge itself.
The Riffmaster is a quality product like you’d expect from a $130 peripheral from a manufacturer who’s already had one run at this type of controller. The buttons, strum bar, weight, and strap will feel intimately familiar to anyone who’s ever held a Rock Band guitar. I’ve noticed that the buttons and strum bar loosened up a bit on my original Rock Band 4 guitar over the last 9 years. But on the Riffmaster, they feel great and responsive. I was back up and playing in no time.
There is one omission in the Riffmaster that makes keeping your old guitar controller around kind of a necessity. There is no optical receptor on the Riffmaster that helps calibrate the guitar to your system. If you’ve already calibrated your system with Rock Band guitars, you won’t need to do so with the Riffmaster. But if you’re planning on hopping into Rock Band 4 for the first time with the Riffmaster, you might have a bit tougher of a time getting it just right.
Likely, this is because the Riffmaster was not created with Rock Band 4 in mind, but rather Fornite Festival – Harmonix’s Rock Band-like mode in Fortnite. The options for calibrating your system in Fortnite don’t include an optical option, and instead you’re forced to strum along to a bar on the screen. My results with this were less than ideal. After trying to calibrate manually at least a dozen times, I was never able to get it set just right. As a result, I was never able to play a song in Fortnite Festival that didn’t include a significant amount of input lag. Compounding my frustration was navigating through Fornite with the Riffmaster. With the addition of the analog stick on the neck, you can move your character around in the “back stage” area of the game. But if you want to go to your settings to calibrate, you’ll need an extra PS5/Xbox controller nearby because navigating that menu requires the right analog stick, which is absent on the Riffmaster. After about 30 minutes of trying, I found playing the Riffmaster in Fornite Festival frustrating and not worth the effort. A lot of that was just due to the lack of compelling content in Fortnite Festival. Most of the songs lean more into pop or hip-hop, so you’re not even getting the most of this mode by playing on a guitar peripheral.
It’s in Rock Band 4 that the Riffmaster really shines, and it’s nice to know that PDP’s out there cranking out niche controllers for gamers like myself who seem stuck in 2015. When my OG Rock Band guitar finally stops working, my Riffmaster will hopefully still be going strong. Yeah, calibrating will be more difficult, but at least I’ll still be able to play one of the greatest games of all time.
(Reviewed on Xbox Series X)
Mound of Wires 