As much as I love the drums in Guitar Hero: World Tour, I suspected there was something weird going on. Something beyond the fact that I suck at drumming. In my case, it was the orange cymbal pad, which needs to be seriously whacked in order to register a hit. Developer Neversoft calls it "sensitivity issues", which can mean a wide range of things.

You can go here to download tuning software that will let you jigger the sensitivity of the different drum pads up or down, but it requires a special USB to MIDI cable that you probably don't have. Fortunately, it seems that Neversoft and Activision know it's a widespread enough problem that they're willing to eat the cost of sending you the cable. Start here to pass along your mailing information.