cheap drums with a great sound

[sejuba]

Yesterday I had a chance to try out 2 of the new Mapex Meridian Maple (they are made in China). One was a 8x?, 10x9, 12x9, 14x14, 1616, 22x18 and the other
10x7,12x8,14x14,16x16, 22x18 (snares weres of a different brand).

I tuned both kits and they all sounded very consistent. the toms were incredibly good. heads were mainly G2 coated.

i took my 12x9 gretsch new classic tom cuz i wanted to compare them and I much prefered the mapex one. although I like my kit a lot, the mapex sounded very open (something I still struggle to achieve with my toms). hopefully we´ll record something on saturday.

my friend who owns one of the mapex´s just got back fom Italy where he bought this really cheap "jungle kit"...the hardware is absolute crap, but the
little bastard actually sounds very musical. we recorded a small clip of him playing with a bass player. i began to mix it last night, so there´s still a few things to correct. bass guitar doesn´t sound good though. i must add that the recording was done with cheap gear, but i like his room. check it out:

http://soundcloud.com/duboski/drums-and-bass-groove

now i can´t stop thinking about these Meridian kits...

[bstocky]

I think almost any drum will/should sound good if the player gets to use their preferred heads and knows how to tune. I get compliments all the time on my Westbury teaching kit's sound and they're garbage drums.
The steel Yamaha snares sound great to me. I have two 5x10" snares and they don't sound out of place when played with my much more expensive drums.

[sejuba]

Yesterday I had a chance to try out 2 of the new Mapex Meridian Maple (they are made in China). One was a 8x?, 10x9, 12x9, 14x14, 1616, 22x18 and the other
10x7,12x8,14x14,16x16, 22x18 (snares weres of a different brand).

I tuned both kits and they all sounded very consistent. the toms were incredibly good. heads were mainly G2 coated.

i took my 12x9 gretsch new classic tom cuz i wanted to compare them and I much prefered the mapex one. although I like my kit a lot, the mapex sounded very open (something I still struggle to achieve with my toms). hopefully we´ll record something on saturday.

my friend who owns one of the mapex´s just got back fom Italy where he bought this really cheap "jungle kit"...the hardware is absolute crap, but the
little bastard actually sounds very musical. we recorded a small clip of him playing with a bass player. i began to mix it last night, so there´s still a few things to correct. bass guitar doesn´t sound good though. i must add that the recording was done with cheap gear, but i like his room. check it out:

http://soundcloud.com/duboski/drums-and-bass-groove

now i can´t stop thinking about these Meridian kits...

i don´t wanna get flammed so a small correction goes a long way:

I didn´t mean to say Mapex Meridian drums were cheap (in the sense of being poorly made). they are inexpensive

[bstocky]

The only maple drums I've ever played that sounded bad were Dixon snares. They were terrible, absolute junk. I think any kit close to 1000 dollars will sound great with proper heads, tuning and playing.

[bensdrums]

I think any kit close to 1000 dollars will sound great with proper heads, tuning and playing.

Wholeheartedly agree with this.

[DSOP]

I had a tiny Tama set that cost less then $500 NEW, and it sounded incredible once I put on good heads.

[electrizer]

I play Sonor Force 3005, put G2 over G1's on them and I couldn't be happier!

[Matus]

I used to play a Pearl Forum kit in 20",10",12",14" sizes and it was amazingly good with proper heads and tuning. A student of mine was totally in love with the bass drum sound. I toured on that for two or three years.
I also had a Pearl Rythm Traveller kit and the bass drum, with little muffling and a decent head and some tweaking, was surprisingly big sounding.

[Julián Fernández]

The biggest problem with cheaper drums is the hardware not the shells (imho).
I was checking the Vision series from Pearl and it´s amazing the quality in that price range...

I´m glad the kids starting on drums have the chance to start with a decent kit...

[Matus]

The biggest problem with cheaper drums is the hardware not the shells (imho).
I was checking the Vision series from Pearl and it´s amazing the quality in that price range...

I´m glad the kids starting on drums have the chance to start with a decent kit...

Great point. I'd rather fit any kit with Yamaha 700 series hardware than any other brand out there, just because the quality/price/durability/weight factor is far above anything else.
Case in point: those Pearl kits had Mapex 900 series hardware, which is their top of the line series. They're heavy, have noisy wing nuts, not too stable for the weight, etc. When I got my Absolute kit, I got mostly CS755 stands and you only had to ask the roadies on tour about the change in weight and stability. And they're significantly cheaper than the Mapex 900s.

PS: I know it might sound biased but I have no particular gain with this, I honestly love these stands and would still use them if I switched brands.