I was brought up in a very musical family, just about everybody either played an instrument or sang and in some cases both, even now not much has changed. Usually there comes a time when the younger kids in the family begin wanting their own instruments. Now it's pretty easy to pull a guitar out of the closet and let your kid play it, in my family a guitar is pretty easy to come by electric and acoustic, unless you happen to be left-handed like me(is it a curse or a gift? Ahh... it's both). Drums on the other hand aren't usually just lying around, so when one of the kids wants to learn the drums it means someone will probably need to spend some money. The problem is even though you want to help expand your childs talents you are afraid they might just stop trying and give up or just move on to the next new thing. Now you have to decide how much your willing to spend and which set to buy, without draining your wallet or maxing out your credit card.
Thanks to First Act you can get a drum set which is both durable and affordable. I would recommend this as a great first kit so long as your child is able to sit on the stool and easily have their feet on the floor. If your child is ready for a drum set most should find this to be an excellent choice.
All the shells are made of wood about a quarter inch thick. The shells have a high gloss plastic sticker surrounding them, which is common on most drum sets. Straight out of the box you will notice a seemingly endless amount of hardware, if your familiar with building a drum set this should be cake if not you might be looking at a good portion of your afternoon. The entire kit is unassembled so be prepared to build it. One thing to remember is once you have it built take the time to make sure the drums are relatively in tune. The kit supplies the tuning key, which sort of looks like a wing-nut with a tiny socket on it. The drum heads which are provided actually don't sound too bad, but on the other hand they are sort of cheap and are somewhat easy to dent if given a good whack.
The cymbols aren't that great, they're somewhat flimsy and sound horrible if you take into consideration that I have been around and even played drums for a long time and am very picky over the sound of the cymbols, especially the high-hat. Your kids will never know the difference I'm sure. The high-hat stand has a fully functional foot pedal and clutch system.
This allows for the person playing the drums to open and close the gap between cymbols on the high-hat. I found the stand to be somewhat flimsy as well. The bass pedal was designed quite effectively. It has a chain drive, the axel piece rotates through a housing on two sets of bearings. It has a clamp to mount it to the bass drum and comes with a mallet. Aside from the fact that the pedal is made from cheap aluminum I believe, it functions beautifully. The biggest problem I have seen with the pedal would be it's tendency to come loose from its mount. Through constant repetative motion the screw eventually loosens and the pedal may be thrusted into the bass head and make a slice, this can be avoided with just a little attention from the person playing or the person supervising. The snare I thought actually sounded OK but with use over time the white paint on the snare head flakes off. You'll notice little sparkles and white dots probably on the floor and your childs clothes from this.
You'll find pretty much everything you need to set it all up. I suggest setting aside a about an hour to build this thing. It's really more tedious than difficult building it. There are a good many screws, especially when you take into consideration the there is a minimum of ten per drum. The hardware though somewhat flimsy is well worth the money. I noticed the arm which supports the tom drum is quite thin and the locking mechanism which holds the tom in place is poorly made. It does a sub-standard job in holding the tom in place. Really, this is a case of you get exactly what you paid for. At around $250 what more could you ask.
For anyone looking to learn the drums this may be the answer. It's very affordable with quality equal to if not better than the price. I actually own this kit for myself and have been playing it for nearly 2 years. I actually purchased it from Walmart so I could practice the drums more often. One of the first things I did was go out and get myself a real set of high-hats and cymbols. For most people I'm sure they won't need to do this. I have heard of the arms for the tom drums breaking easily but I have yet to experience this for myself. I'm very certain this drum sets hardware can handle a real beating, I say this from experience. The bass pedal is where you will see most of your problems originate.
Of all the parts this will be the one which will be moving the most, so it is only a matter of time before something comes loose. The next is the high-hat pedal, which may loosen(this is easily tightened back up). For the price you just can't go wrong, your kids will be happy, your pocket won't hurt so bad, and I'm sure your neighbors will be thrilled... yeah right. Seriously though, this is a nice kit for a nice price. It should provide years of enjoyment(or torture)for the child and parents.
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