Five-Fret Corner: CRKD Reveals Olive Drab Pro Edition Guitar, Ditches the 9-Mode Dial for Good
Hey guys, Franz here. Five-Fret Corner usually belongs to Zak, who has spent the better part of the year building out one of the more thorough running accounts of the plastic-guitar renaissance anywhere in games media, complete with an ever-growing personal collection and a clear point of view on strum bars, fret necks, and everything in between.
This week, I'm filling in, and it's worth admitting upfront: coming into this scene fresh is a little like walking into a guitar shop having only heard others play guitars and never actually playing one. I had a guitar once. I gave up on it when a string broke while I was plucking it, and I stuck with Guitar Heroand Rock Band ever since. So, that's the background I have, and admittedly I'm not as well-versed in this space as Zak is, but I'll still try my best to give you my best impressions of CRKD here at Five-Fret Corner.
Everyone already has opinions about Hall Effect versus clicky strum bars, and there's a whole vocabulary (Riffmasters, Tribal necks, Key Jam Mode) that regular readers of this column already take for granted.
Still, the news itself doesn't require insider status to appreciate. CRKD has announced the Olive Drab Pro Edition Gibson Les Paul Guitar Controller, and despite the name, there's nothing drab about it. It's a subdued, military-toned colorway that stands apart from the brighter Cherry Sunburst and Alpine White finishes Zak covered earlier this year, and it's exclusive to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC.
That platform exclusivity is a detail worth flagging for anyone outside the five-fret bubble, too. Most of CRKD's recent Les Paul releases have shipped in both multiplatform and Xbox-only variants, and per our earlier reporting, converting between the two is usually just a matter of a single adapter for anyone who knows the workaround. The Olive Drab, by contrast, ships Xbox and PC only, with no multiplatform version currently planned. PlayStation players hoping for this specific colorway will need to look elsewhere or wait.
The Dial Is Gone
The more consequential change here has nothing to do with color. CRKD has removed the physical 9-mode dial that appeared on previous Pro models, the switch players used to toggle between platform modes. According to the company, the decision followed "many hours of playtesting," with the goal being a faster, more streamlined plug-and-play setup out of the box.
None of the underlying functionality disappears with the dial. Game presets, controller remapping, profiles, firmware updates, and deeper customization are all still available; they simply live entirely inside the CRKD companion app now rather than on a physical control on the guitar body. For a newcomer sizing up the hardware from the outside, that reads as a reasonable trade: one less physical point of failure, at the cost of one extra step through an app menu for anyone who preferred flipping a switch by hand.
The More Things Change, The More Things Stay The Same
The Olive Drab keeps the two features CRKD's Pro line has built its reputation on: EZ Glide Mechanical Fret Buttons and the Hall Effect Strum Bar with Haptic Feedback. Zak's original hands-on impressions flagged some minor issues with strum bar shape and occasional slippage during fast play, alongside genuine enthusiasm for how the haptic feedback feels compared to older clicky Guitar Hero strum bars. Nothing about this release appears to change that underlying hardware, just the color and the interface around it.
Connectivity is unchanged too: wired USB-C, low-latency 2.4 GHz wireless with an included dongle, and Bluetooth. The guitar is compatible with the full current five-fret lineup, Fortnite Festival, Rock Band 4, Clone Hero, and YARG, with an additional nod to compatibility with the upcoming Stage Tour, a game this column has been tracking with real anticipation for months.
Price, Scarcity, and What It Signals
The Olive Drab Pro Edition is priced at $134.99 USD (€149.99 / £129.99), shipping now while supplies last. CRKD has confirmed only one batch of this colorway will ever be produced, with no reprint planned once it sells through. For a company that has released a steady stream of new colorways, neck styles, and button packs over the past year, that kind of one-and-done scarcity is a departure, and it's the sort of detail that tends to move product fast among collectors already invested in the ecosystem.
CRKD describes the Olive Drab as "the first step in the ongoing evolution" of its guitar lineup, and that framing lines up with everything else the company has shipped recently: Les Paul redesigns, a Gibson SG throwback, new fret neck styles, button packs, and a drum controller still in development. The streamlined interface introduced here also reads as groundwork for Stage Tour's eventual launch later this year. If CRKD wants its hardware to be the default entry point for that game, cutting friction now is a sensible bet.
For anyone approaching the five-fret scene from the outside, the Olive Drab looks like a genuinely strong pickup for Xbox and PC players, provided the platform exclusivity and one-batch scarcity don't rule it out first.
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This story was originally published July 4, 2026 at 3:41 PM.