Review: Slingerland Expresso Cocktail Drum Kit
Steven Stix
Posted 2002-01-06
We’ve had a few drum kits come through the office here at MusicGearReview.com and although most of them have been entry level kits or electronic kits, we’re always amazed at the quality that companies are building into their sets. Whether it’s the hardware, stands, shells or heads it’s evident that today’s high quality choices for drummers make it a consumers market out there.
Our latest adventure began with the arrival of a Slingerland Expresso kit from our friends at MusicYo.com. The Expresso kit is actually a cocktail kit, something that’s even more rare to see in percussion shops these days. As a matter of fact, when I visited the local drum shop to get a set of Paiste cymbals for this kit, the owner was amazed that I was looking for a cymbal set for a cocktail kit. He actually started to tell me that they are very rare and many are worth quite a bit of money these days – until I surprised him with the fact that it was a brand new kit from a reputable manufacturer like Slingerland!
Putting the kit together took less than an hour and pretty soon I had the heads tuned up nice and tight and started working through some different cadences, beats and other percussive potpourri.
To be totally honest, this was my first time on a cocktail set. I'm quite the aggressive drummer and the small size of the set made it move around a tad on the floor here of the test studio. Once we threw down a drum mat, though, things started to groove just nicely.
One of the first things I noticed when beginning to test was the resonant quality of the floor tom, which as you can see from the picture above is what the kick pedal strikes in the absence of an actual kick or bass drum. Once I tuned the floor tom a little tighter though, some of the resonance went away and the drum provided a nice hard attack with less decay.
It was now time to bring in the rest of the boys. Chris and Mike came in, cranked on the amps, and soon enough we were having a merry old time. We jammed to tunes from ACDC, Def Leppard and Metallica to Jimmy Buffett and John Mellencamp. I'm a big Kiss fan as well, so of course a few tunes from the makeup boys were in order. I felt like I was in the *ARMY* all over again. Finishing off the jam were a few rounds of 12 bar blues and whatever jazz we could muster up and fake. The Expresso kit performed well in all situations and none of us could believe the level of volume we were able to achieve. Of course, the Paiste 302’s didn’t hurt either.
The drum kit held up well to this extended jam and several more that were held in the following days. About the only thing I had a problem with was going through sets of sticks – no fault of course to the Slingerland kit we were testing – we were just having too much fun!
The last round of testing the kit endured was a miking experiment where we attempted to mic the Expresso kit for some digital recording. We used a Shure KSM27 condenser for the crash and ride cymbals and another close to the snare, tom and hi-hat. We then used a Shure SM57 for the floor tom. The results were surprising and very successful. If you’re looking for a small inexpensive kit to drive recording of acoustic drum sounds for a home or project recording studio, you just might want to consider this kit – as long as you don’t need advanced tones available with a more feature laden set.
Bottom Line:
For a price point of around $350, the Slingerland Expresso drum kit is a minor investment for a smaller set that will provide you years of enjoyment. The Expresso kit can literally fit in the corner of a small room and is the perfect jam set for you and your fellow musicians if you’re looking to keep a kit around to bang on. Don’t sell the Expresso kit short, though. You can attain serious volume levels from this set, probably enough to drive a gig at a small club. As mentioned above, you can also mic the kit for some great recording where you don’t need an entire drum kit with all of the bells and whistles or if you’re playing a larger venue and need to mic and run your skins through the PA.
With the excellent construction and quality, the Slingerland Expresso kit provides a great value for drummers looking for something a little more portable or space hungry.
