How to connect a Rock Band® or Guitar Hero® guitar to your PC

One of the cool things about the majority of Guitar Hero® and Rock Band® guitars is that they use the same USB connection as your home computer. Over the years people have found a number of creative ways to use their guitars on the PC, usually with applications that map joystick inputs to keyboard inputs. Needless to say, this was a non-trivial exercise for the techie-novice.

For iRok2, we were aiming for a process that had the following steps: 1) plug in your guitar, 2) play. And we wanted to support as many guitars, operating systems and browsers as possible. The iRok2 browser plug-in was created with this in mind. It works in Internet Explorer 7+ and Firefox 3+ in Windows, Mac and Linux. We expect most people, once they’ve installed the plug-in, to connect the guitar dongle and play. However there are a couple exceptions - aren’t there always? Depending on your console and guitar you could have one of the following experiences:

• It just works. Plug in your guitar, play. Example: all wireless guitars for the PS2 and PS3, almost all guitars for Rock Band®.   or…
• You’ll need to purchase an adapter. Once you’ve got that it’s a simple plug and play process. Example: all wireless Xbox 360 guitars.   or…
• You’ll have to do some work. We don’t directly support Bluetooth connections so you’ll need to install third-party software and purchase a Bluetooth dongle if your computer doesn’t already have one. Example: all Guitar Hero® for Wii guitars

Compatibility chart:

For more information visit our knowledge base which contains more information on the compatibility chart as well as a guitar connection FAQ.

What if your guitar isn’t on the list or you want to remap the buttons? The Guitar Configuration screen supports non-standard guitars and gives you the freedom to map your guitar to iRok2 any way you please.