From the day that Rock Band was released, people started having problems with the down-strum of the Fender Strat. This issue, detailed in our review, typically manifests itself within hours of gaming. Double notes start to happen, and the guitar controller is no longer usable, unless you care to up-strum through songs.

To make matters worse, the Les Paul from Red Octane, as part of the Guitar Hero III bundle, is not a compatible controller for the PS3 version of Rock Band (the Les Paul and X-Plorer work fine on the Xbox 360). The publisher has made a decision to only sell the bundle through the holidays, a decision that has angered many people.

However, EA has been replacing defective hardware. Response to the EA support has been very good on the official Rock Band forum, yet many have been looking for an official statement from Harmonix, and rightly so. From Harmonix:

PS3 Guitar Compatibility:

Some of you have contacted us about the PS3 edition of Rock Band--from issues with guitar compatibility to frustration that stand-alone guitars and drums for Rock Band have not yet hit stores. Please know that these issues have our full attention. We are listening and we read everything that is posted on our forums. We are committed to providing the best play experience possible and working hard to ensure that we solve these problems as soon as possible. We promise to keep you updated and, in the meantime, we thank you for your patience.

Rock Band Guitars:

As sometimes happens when new products first go into manufacturing, we discovered an imperfection with the strum bar in an early production run of guitars that were shipped at launch. We want to inform you that we have since identified and fixed the issue in all subsequent production runs of the guitars. If you are experiencing a problem with your guitar or any of your other Rock Band instruments, simply visit the customer support website and we will send a replacement immediately. Harmonix is dedicated to creating 100% customer satisfaction and to those of you who've encountered any hardware issues, we are sorry for the hassle.