October 31st, 2004, SHFBBM wrote:
Overall, I must say that this is a great kit. It looks great, it sounds great, and althogh I didn't buy it, it's great value for money. For the price, this is a seriously kickass kit.
This kit looks fabulous. It's in 'white sparkle' finish, and in a word, looks d**n sexy. Kind of sleek and sophisticated. And because it's white, if you put it under stage lights, it looks more like the colour of the lights, so I suppose the colour's customisable. (Note: I haven't tried this myself, but this kit was used by the people supporting Thomas Lang on his UK leg of the clinic tour, and when I saw it then I swear it was orange/yellow. I was really surprised - and a little disappointed - when I got the kit home, and took it out of the cases and saw it was white, but that's what the lights do to you. And the disappointment soon wore off when I realised how beautiful it is.)
I haven't tuned the kit yet (with the exception of swapping out the signed snare drum head), but it sounds fantastic as it is, with stock heads and all. Whoever tuned it for the clinics did a good job (although they did put a little gaffer tape on the toms, which suggests that they had trouble controlling the ring).
The toms sound great, really melodic and resonant. The bass is really punchy, quite powerful and a good amount of low end and not too boomy.
As I said, I haven't tuned the whole kit myself yet, however when I swapped the batter head on the snare I did notice that the bearing edge wasn't quite perfect. There were a couple of small nicks visible which surprised me, but nevertheless the snare sounds great (I'm not very good at describing sounds, but I think it's warm, a good response from the snare, and much nicer than the Steel Pearl snare on my old kit). Anyway, the nicks are nothing that a bit of candle wax wouldn't sort out.
Rim shots sound great too, and it seems like you can get an infinite amount of sound out of the snare depending on how you hit it. This is great for me, as my steel Pearl sound was much more limited, it felt like the only sounds I could get from it "loud, ringing and annoying" for normal hits and "very loud, ringing and your ears have never felt pain like it" for rim shots.
Ok, this next bit is about features which the drums have, which I think are good but don't know enough to really comment myself. Thought you might want to know though.
The hoops on the snare are 2.3mm, whereas on the toms they are 1.8mm. I assume this means it gives more equal tension around the snare drum, as its a thicker hoop it'll maintain the same tension in between the lugs?
The snare also has 10 lugs, so you have more control when tuning than if there were only 8? Also the lugs seem to have a thing inside which means that once you tighten them to a certain point, they suddenly become really smooth to tighten, and it feels like you have a lot more control over how tight it is than with other lugs (n.b. I think this is on all the drums, not just the snare).
The shells are 9 ply, 3 maple and 6 basswood. I don't really care though to be honest, as the drums sound great, and that's all that matters.
Ok, that's it for the things I don't really understand.
The T.A.R mounting system is a suspension mounting system, which seems to work great as the toms sound just as good when mounted as when I hold them. It consists of three brackets, two attached to adjacent lugs and one attached to the shell, and a plate attached to them with the actual mounting bit on it. You can take the plate off with an A-key, but I don't think you can take the brackets off without removing the hoop. I don't think this is a problem though, as the brackets don't stick out, so if you needed to take off the mount to fit it in a case, you could just take off the plate.
The hardware is great. Very solid and stable. However, I found that the boom arm needs to be tightened more than I would think necessary to hold it securely into position without slipping (as I found out when my ride cymbal spun upside down during a band practise, narrowly missing the floor tom).
[I have found this to be a common problem with boom stands, and on my Canon boom stand had to tighten it up so tight on the same day that I couldn't undo it without some drumstick leverage. Frutsrated by this, I took the clamp apart to try and see if there was an obvious problem - there wasn't, but after I put it back together it held really firmly without overtightening. Maybe this is all I need to do the the Sonor stand.]
At first, I really didn't like the bass drum pedal. It seemed really unresponsive and sluggish, even when I messed around with the spring tension and beater angle. It also seemed to be lacking power. After a while of being frustrated with it, I changed it for my old cheap Premier pedal for a bit, then decided to give it another chance and swapped it back. And then, without changing anything, it felt much better. I have no idea why, but all the things I hadn't liked about it were gone. Unfortunately, it's now been consigned to a box in my loft and replaced with my Iron Cobra double pedal.
However, I have big critiscisms for the hi-hat clutch. Firstly, it comes loose when I'm playing, and on several occasions the top hat has dropped onto to bottom and I've been unable to control it with the foot pedal.
In addition to this, I don't feel like it's protecting the top cymbal much at all. My first attempt at writing this was an incomprehensible rant, but I'm going to rewrite it so hopefully you understand my problems with it. Also, I've done anything really stupid, like put the clutch together wrong which might explain my problems, please enlighten me.
Basically, the felts are really thin and flimsy and don't seem to give much protection at all. At the same time, the bit of the clutch where there isn't any screw thread (where the cymbal sits) seems too big. The combination of these two things means I can't hold the cymbal tightly enough to feel sufficiently protected (I know you don't want it too tight, but having it too loose is bad too, isn't it?).
I've replaced the top felt with a thicker, firmer one, which makes the problem a bit better, however I'm still not happy. In addition to this, the nuts which control the tightness, keep moving, so it becomes looser as I play it. I have to constantly adjust it (and tighten it to the pull rod, see above). Also, the pull rod keeps loosening as well, so I have to tighten that (althought it's not as bad as the other things).
My top hat was already slightly keyholed when I got it. If you have any suggestions to stop it getting worse (other than get a new clutch, as I'll be gettign a drop clutch soon anyway) please share.
I'm disappointed to find that I need to get a Sonor drumkey to adjust some of the memory locks, as the bolt is recessed and my other drumkeys won't fit on there to unscrew it (this is the same problem I have with my Iron Cobra beaters, hopefully I will be able to find one drum key which will undo both of them. However, it's a small price to pay for a free kit.
I'd also prefer that I could move the(bass-mounted) toms closer to me, as I have long legs so the bass drum is further away than most people's would be. However, after adjusting them a little I can reach them fine, and whilst it's not my perfect set-up, all I'd have to do is invest in a clamp and mount them to a stand to get them exactly where I want.
In conclusion, this is a great kit, with few faults. If you're looking for a professional sounding/looking kit with a mid-range price tag, definately check it out.
