Sound Percussion 4 Piece Drumset Black Reviews 4

Collectively, I've been performing for over 15 years: rock, blues, jazz, latin. I've played much of the percussion family (symphonic, marching, drumset), but I enjoy playing the drumset more than anything else.

I was in the market for a simple drumkit to play/teach lessons with; having a family keeps you on a budget! I bought my Sound Percussion 4-piece at Guitar Center in Austin, TX. The price was about 250+tax. No cymbals or throne.

The initial cosmetics of the kit are attractive; I've seen older photos of this kit, and they are pretty "low profile!" This must be a newer model I've purchased. Nice, small, rounded tension casings on all drums; the bass's tension rods are adjusted with a drum key (vs. a larger head on the rod). The set's sizes are my preference; I'm able to tune the kit to what I need it for (rock/blues, small combo jazz), and it sounds equally great in any situation. The 13" snare is very versatile! The hardware is very decent; easily adjustable; has memory locks on the tom holder and hi-hat stand. Unless you're needing to mount more than one tom and a cymbal on one stand, the included cymbal stand should be enough to hold a larger ride cymbal (my 22" fattie). Good action from the hi-hat stand. The double-ply batter heads on the toms sound great when tuned properly; nice tone and long resonance! If I needed to pull a jazz gig, I may consider getting some 1-plies; they're a little too thick to be tuned higher; the toms really start to lose their resonance. There's no reason they should be 'dented' easily, unless the player's technique is suffering!

True, the bass heads leave a lot to ask for; you can't expect a great sound with factory bass heads! I put in a small blanket at first. Soon after, I placed some felt rings all the way around the edges of heads from the inside, similar to a certain Aquarius bass head design. This really helped eliminate a lot of high overtones/ring. The only thing left is experimenting with tuning to get the bass sounding good. The snares on the bottom of the drum need a little adjustment; once you play with the tuning on the bottom and top heads, this clears up, for the most part. The snare throw lever is a little loose on mine; I have to watch it while I'm playing for a while so that it doesn't turn off.

The quality of the construction seems to be good; I couldn't find any major flaws in any of the drums or hardware. It's put together very well. Even the tension rods are easy to put in place. I've had problems with higher-end drums having 'dry' tension rods out of the box. I expected this with the Sound Percussion kit, but was pleasantly surprised to find out otherwise.

For a "low-end" kit, the Sound Percussion comes through as a really great bargain. Construction, sound, and aesthetics of the drums outweigh any other drumset I've seen under $400. True, you can get a really beautiful, crafted kit that 'sings' when you play it, but unless you don't know how to properly tune and care for the drums, it won't make much difference. With the right heads and tuning, the Sound Percussion kit could easily sound like a higher-end kit in a blindfold test. If you need something functional with easy portability and pretty decent looks, this set is a winner.

Snake rated this unit 4 on 2007-02-12.

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