Daniel Sussman, Peripheral Producer was critical to the staff at Harmonix, many of whom are musicians in real rock bands of their own, that the Rock Band instruments have a more authentic and realistic look and feel to them than we'd seen with prior music games.

We really wanted the play experience to be as accurate an emulation of playing music as possible, and to pull this off requires peripherals that are true to the real instruments.

We've partnered with Fender and modeled the guitar controller after the Stratocaster. We're really pleased with how the peripherals are turning out. They're really gorgeous pieces of hardware.

The Fender Guitar

We designed the Rock Band guitar peripheral to look almost exactly like the iconic Fender Stratocaster. The Rock Band guitar controller also has a toggle switch similar to the one on a real Fender Strat that allows you to manipulate sound through reverb, flange, wah, delay, etc. We also made the Rock Band guitar lefty compatible!

We put the button colors on the sides of the neck rather than on the top of the buttons. The new solo buttons at the neck of the guitar let you finger tap your way through guitar solos (no strumming required!) Choose your own showboating audio FX by using the five-way FX switch. Unlock new FX as you go, including flanger, wah wah, echo & chorus.