SD61-5 Electronic Drum Set 8-Piece Electric Drum Kit With Mesh Heads, Dual-Zone Snare and Cymbals With Choke, Black

I learnt to play drums about 30 years ago, with acoustic drums, to a reasonable standard. I am no longer in an environment where it would be fair to play acoustic drums, given the loud noise. I was itching to get back into playing drums, and I spent some time researching the possibilities.This kit has four mesh heads for its drums. The snare drum can be struck on the rim or the skin. If you strike it on the rim, you generate a different tone than when you strike it on the skin. You cannot, however, do side stick effectively with it (striking the rim while the end of the stick is on the skin). I was able to very easily produce a drum roll and the skins seem very realistic. The sensitivity is excellent and I do not find that any beats are missed.The kit has three cymbals, one of which functions as a hi-hat. These are all dual zone and produce a different sound when struck on the edge than when struck on the surface, nearer the middle. The sensitivity is again excellent. You can also hold them with your hand to stop the sound.The hi-hat pedal allows for simulation of the sound of a slightly-open pair of hi-hat cymbals. It is also velocity sensitive; you generate a louder sound if you push the pedal more rapidly, just as you would expect with an acoustic hi hat.The "kick" drum, or bass drum pedal as I would call it personally, is also an excellent simulation of a bass drum. It uses a beater and a skin; this one is not mesh, but I don't think there would be anything to be gained by it being a mesh. It is velocity sensitive as you would expect.In use, the kit is quiet. I have used it with headphones only so far. It does have a MIDI interface that allows it to be hooked up to a DAW; this uses a USB "printer"-style port, as do many electronic instruments and mixers. I have not tried this yet, but I understand that you can generate better sounds by using VST plugins.There are fifteen standard sets of sounds. One of them has a snare drum sound with the snare off, which is needed for many latin rhythms. Unfortunately the two top toms do not have a conventional sound with that kit. I do not know if it is possible to remap these sounds but that may be a solution if it is possible. This is a minor issue; I expect it could be solved by making use of a VST plugin on a computer. Many reviews I have seen on the net indicate that the sounds could be better. I think they are more than adequate.Another thing I would like to point out with this is that if you set it up with the arms close together, it will take far less room than an acoustic drum kit. This was another attraction for me as I do not have a great deal of space in my house to accommodate an acoustic kit. Hopefully the picture I have shown demonstrates this. Apologies for the other objects in the picture!You get a pair of 5C drum sticks with wood tips included in the package. You do not get a drum stool; I already had one of these. The drum sticks shown in the photo are not the ones supplied with the kit; they are nylon-tipped sticks and I performed all my tests with those.In summary, I am very pleased with this kit. It ticks all the boxes for me, including price.

Seller was very quick to respond to query and it helped perfectly. With the exception of 1 error I made, the setup was a breeze, only an hour - 2 hours from getting the box to playing. Shipped very quickly as well.5 stars, especially for the price.

Love the sound,feel and operation of the kit,the company Avatar has also been very helpful with very prompt customer service for any questions or troubleshooting I've had with the kit

Muy Bien! Excelente Vendedor!!

suis en panne sur le drum pad impossible de joindre qui que ce soit ... dommage

poco ingombrante, veramente divertente da suonare se dallo smartphone si riproducono tracce prive di batteria e si suona 'sopra'. ottima sensibilità delle pelli e dei piatti. contentissimo.

Positives: The frame, once assembled, feels pretty solid, and the snare has lots of adjustability to get it just right. The mesh heads, particularly the snare, are incredibly responsive. And as far as I can tell, there aren't too many kits priced this well that have a choke feature on the cymbals. Most importantly, is low latency.Negatives: The weakest point is the control head. There's 15 different drum kits to play, none of which sound amazing, but you can work around that by using the USB and a program like garageband. There are others out there too. However, when using the USB you'll find it misses hits due to sensitivity thresholds. If it's not hard enough, you it won't recognize it. I have not yet figured out if this is the control head or the computer software's fault, but seeing as it works fine from the control head, I suspect it's the software.Drum Kick: This is a potential weak spot. If you only play single kick you're fine, but if you use a double kick it means the strikers won't be centred in the pad and you'll have a greatly diminished bass kick sound. Even increasing sensitivity to full doesn't do the trick.Longetivity? It's too new to know for sure how this will hold up. It feels well belt, but the plastics on the fasteners and the cymbals get marked up very easily by the drum sticks. It's going to look pretty worn down after a while. The biggest concern is the cabling. Unlike other drums sets that use individual 1/4" audio cables between each pad and the control head, this one uses a single connector from the control head to each pad. That means if a cable quits working you'll have to repair or replace the entire harness rather than a single standard cable.Over all, it's really hard to beat the value for money. You can see where the compromises are to bring the price down, but by bypassing the weakest point (the control head) via usb, you've got yourself a genuinely solid performer.