Where have you gone, rock band heroes?

READ THIS, ROCK BAND FANS.

tl;dr - It’s more complicated than we thought to use these with Rock Band, and it may not be worth the hassle. We’ll email everyone who bought to clarify and give them the opportunity to cancel if they want.

Come gather round, children, and let me tell you of an age now lost. A time when friends gathered at the glowing hearths of their TVs to rock out on plastic instruments. Well, OK, not exactly instruments. But still, it was fun. Where did the fun go?

The swift and total collapse of Rock Band and Guitar Hero was a shock to anybody who watched them dominate casual console gaming in the mid-to-late 00s. The possible explanations are myriad: the songs got too expensive to license, the developers couldn’t figure out any way for the games to progress, the rise of dancing games like Just Dance, fans growing up and deciding they didn’t want a bunch of plastic instruments cluttering up the house.

But none seem quite satisfactory to explain why the fad rose and fell so quickly. In 2009, Rock Band dominated E3, the gaming industry convention, with news that they’d landed The Beatles. But by 2011, Guitar Hero was completely gone and Rock Band mostly was, limping along with the occasional new downloadable content until 2013. We’re still waiting for the triumphant comeback.

This Ion Redline Electronic Drum Kit isn’t just a drum-shaped game controller. It’s entry-level, sure, but you can actually create music with it. These are real electronic drum pads, with more than 200 sounds and USB MIDI output. You can do a lot more with them than just play along with some colored bars on a screen.

But… if you’re ready for a Rock Band encore, just add this $20 adapter (sold elsewhere) (and an Xbox 360) (and some version of the game Rock Band) and start pounding virtual skins in imaginary arenas. Unlike most music-game controllers, getting really good at using this one will actually make you really good at playing it as an actual instrument. That way you’ll have something to fill your time until the inevitable Rock Band revival.