Looking back recently, I realised that I have now been strumming away on guitar controllers for the best part of two decades, which explains why the genre holds such a special place in my heart. Back in the summer of 2006, I received the recently released (in Europe) Guitar Hero for my birthday, complete with miniature Gibson SG controller, and gaming has never been the same since. In the years that followed, I amassed enough guitar, drum, and other bespoke gaming controllers to form multiple bands, but gradually, as consoles and games moved on, most of these fell out of use.
Fast forward to 2026, where I'm still regularly playing Rock Band 4 and dabbling with Fortnite Festival using my trusty Mad Catz Fender Stratocaster from RB3, but what I really want to get into is Clone Hero on my Steam Deck. However, it seems that some strange alchemy is required to get the majority of old guitar peripherals working correctly on PC, and every one I try from my extensive collection (that hasn't already succumbed to the effects of aging) has at least one fret button that either doesn't register or counts as multiple inputs at once. I needed a fresh solution, and this is where the CRKD Pro Edition Guitar controller came in.
