Okay, so for a while I thought it might be that I got a bum set of drums with my copy of Rock Band because I’m only able to get like 98% on Easy level.  I mean, I swear I’m hitting them right, but it’s just not registering.

To test, I went into practice mode and played a song segment that basically has no drums at all - so I wouldn’t get confused by notes being hit or missed.  I did a roll on each drum to see how it went and all of the hits were registered.  I also hit various combinations of two pads simultaneously and all of those hits were registered.  So I was/am encountering a combination of issues, all adding up to Bad News for Me:

1. The timing on the drums is utterly unforgiving.  If you’re playing guitar, you get a little plus/minus room for strumming and hitting a note.  Sort of a “close enough” buffer.  With drums, you’re either ON or you’re NOT.  No fudge room.  A millisecond or two off, and it won’t count.
2. The USB hub that comes with the game is pretty bad and seems to introduce a little latency.  Not a lot, but with timing having to be pretty precise, I notice a little better response when I plug the drums into the Xbox directly and everything else goes in the hub.
3. Calibrating the game is hugely important.  Sometimes the presets work; I manually calibrated mine and things seemed to be a little better.
4. I may just be a sucky drummer.  After checking out the responsiveness of the drums, calibrating everything, and plugging the drums right into the Xbox, I’m doing a little better but am still missing a couple of notes per song on Easy mode.  It’s usually during a spot where I have to hit two pads simultaneously and I think it’s that I’m hitting them close to correctly but actually hitting one pad slightly earlier than the other, so it doesn’t count.

I’m pretty good at Donkey Konga bongos.  I think playing drums with your hands and playing them with sticks might be two different beasts. I’m OK with that - knowing that it means practice is one thing; doubting yourself without knowing if it’s the equipment or not is a whole other set of insecurities.