Ok, so I am a huge tonewood freak and have played just about every option out there for acoustic guitars. I see a lot of kits are either birch or maple. Maple in an acoustic guitar provides a very bright sound. Does it do the same in a kit? Does it make for a tighter sound?

What are some of the different options for tones/tonewoods for a drum kit?

Matt - you may want to check out the "Why Maple" thread from late last year...has a lot of info about maple that helped me.

From what I understand - maple has resonant qualities that many other types of woods don't posses. I feel when choosing the type of kit you want, it's all about the tone - resonance - and tune-ability of a drum kit.

To give you a reference - the Mapex kit I play is maple and the OCDP kit I play is cheap basswood. You and I know it is a HUGE difference!

Maple falls in the middle when it comes to both hardness and tone. The pitch is higher than mahogany's, yet it is considered "warm" when compared to birch.