Best Drum Brands

There are a lot of drum brands out there, and everyone seems to have an opinion about which drum brands are the best.  I guess drums are kind of like cars.  If I were to say I have a Mercedes, then the assumption is I have a nice car.  The same would be if I said I had a Porsche.  When it comes to drum brands, the general consensus is that Drummers Workshop (DW) makes great drums.  There are even a lot of drummers that will tell you that DW drums are the best of all the drum brands.  There are also a lot of drummers who will argue that drum brands such as Ludwig, Gretsch, Pearl, and Yamaha are the best.

When it comes to drum brands, the best brand is really a matter of what is best for you.  For instance, even though DW drums are great drums, in my 35 years playing drums I have not owned anything made by DW, and I probably won’t own DW.  This is because I am not rich, and I like the sound of Yamaha drums better.  So, I think Yamaha is the best of all of the drum brands.  That is just my opinion though.   

Just for kicks, I did a google search on “drum brands” and found a top ten list which looked like this:

1. Ludwig

2. Pearl

3. DW

4. Gretsch

5. Premier

6. Mapex

7. Slingerland

8. Sonor

9. Tama

10. Yamaha 

Below the list there were all sorts of comments where drummers re-arranged the order of the drum brands, but most agreed on those ten drum brands.  Maybe those are the best drum brands, but if you are on a budget you can get drums made by PDP, Crush, and ddrum that sound great, the hardware is good and they cost less.

Here is my list of the top five drum brands for drummers on a budget.

1. PDP – Drums are actually made by DW they are just their low end drums.
2. ddrum – I have never played them but a lot of people like them and they come in cool designs
3. Crush – These are great sounding drums for the price!
4. Sound Percussion – Good for beginner to intermediate players.  Less expensive than the previous 3 drum brands.
5. Gammon Percussion – Can’t beat the price.

Electronic Drum Sets

Every once in a while I will run into parents or friends who have gotten their kids electronic drum sets.  For kids and non-professionals this can be a very good decision.  This is because electronic drum sets do have their advantages.  First of all, electronic drum sets don't take up as much space.  If you look at the features that are on even the cheap electronic drum sets they usually include things like a headphone jack for silent practice, dozens of drum sounds, built in cymbals, and built in metronomes.  For these reasons electronic drum sets can be a good investment.

For gigging drummers electronic drum sets have a few drawbacks; especially the cheap electronic drum sets.  The biggest drawback is that electronic drum sets wear out.  Electronic drum sets are made of drum pads that have electronic sensors in them which transfer signals to the “brain” when the pads are hit.  The electronic sensors in the pads are typically made from small, thin sheets of metal or plastic, which have wires soldered to them.  Since these drum pads are being constantly hit, the sensors tend to weaken, and the solder points break.  A couple of the other draw backs to electronic drum sets are that on the cheaper ones the bass drum pads are so small the move around too easily.  Also, if you don’t want to play through headphones then you need an amplifier for them.

For those of you who are still considering electronic drum sets, Roland and Yamaha electronic drums sets are generally considered to be the best choice if you want to use them for gigs because they will last.  An adequate electronic drum set will start at about $1000 dollars.  If you are looking at electronic drum sets as to serve as a practice drum set then there are alternatives for between $500 and $1000.  Alesis, Yamaha, and Simmons are making some decent electronic drum sets that are in the 500 to 800 dollar range.  Anything that regularly sells for less than $500 is probably  not even going to last very long and it will be difficult to position the pads correctly.  

Electronic drum sets have come a long way since they were first used in the mid 1970’s, but the technology is still more expensive than acoustic drums.  For drummers who are limited in space, and need silent practice electronic drums are good solution; however if your budget is less than $500 you might consider getting a practice pad drum set.

Gammon Drums Are A Great Deal

Gammon drums are becoming more and more popular with entry level and intermediate players.  This is because with Gammon Drums you tend to get more than what you pay for.  If you are looking for a new drum set, and you are on a tight budget Gammon drums are one of the best deals out there.

First, all sets of Gammon drums are sold with everything that you need to play.  This means they come with all of the drums, drum heads, cymbals, and hardware, including the drummer’s throne.  Gammon is the only drum company out there that is including everything that you need to get started.  Typically drum companies do not include things like both a ride cymbal and a crash cymbal, and drummer’s thrones with their drum sets.  All sets of Gammon drums include drummer’s thrones, and many of the full sized sets include both a ride cymbal and crash cymbal.

 

Second, Gammon drums hold up well by comparison to other beginner drum sets.  In most cases, the drum hardware on beginner drum sets is very cheap and flimsy hardware that falls over easily, and breaks easily.  On Gammon drums top selling full sized drum sets, all of the hardware is double braced, and both the bass drum pedal and the hi hat are chain drive.  This drum hardware is made to last.

Third, Gammon drums come in all kinds of cool colors.  Of course they have your standard black, red and, blue, but if you are looking for something a little unique they also have colors like green and purple.  They even have pink if you want it.

Probably the biggest complaint about Gammon drums is the drum heads that are shipped with them.  The drum heads are single ply and cheap which makes any drum difficult to tune properly.  This can be easily fixed with a better set of drum heads.  With decent  

heads they tune up fine, and they sound pretty darn good.

When students tell me that they want a set of drums, but they don’t have enough money, I tell them to check out Gammon drums.  I have even recommended them to some of my gigging friends.  Gammon drums are a great alternative to taking a real expensive drum set out on the road, where it will get all banged up.

 

The Advantages to Cymbal Packs

It is never easy to choose cymbals for your drum set, but today the cymbal manufacturers have made the experience a little better by putting together cymbal packs.  Cymbal packs are a sets of cymbals that have been matched together based on their sound and their type.  If you are a beginning or an intermediate drummer cymbal packs are an excellent option for you.

 

Back when I was a kid cymbals packs did not exist.  If I wanted to buy a new cymbal for my drum set I had to make sure that it matched my other cymbals.  In order to match cymbals I typically had to stay with one brand for cymbals, because different brands just did not match other brands.  I knew of three major manufacturers of cymbals at the time.  They were Zildjian, Paiste, and Camber.  For the most part professional drummers were only using Zildjian or Paiste cymbals. Camber cymbals were for beginners and intermediate players because they were inexpensive and they were slightly better than the starter sets that were included with most drum sets at the time.  Generally, players would choose between Zildjian and Paiste based on the type of music they played.  Drummers who played “Heavy Metal” chose Paiste cymbals because they had both a cutting and explosive sound.  There were two types of Zildjian cymbals; there were “A” Zildjians and there were “K” Zildjians.  “A” Zildjian cymbals were considered a good all around cymbals for “Pop”, “Orchestral”, and “Country” music because of their bright and controlled sound.  “K” Zildjian cymbals typically had a darker, more sustained sound which made   them the perfect choice for “Jazz”.

These days, Zildjian and Paiste are both still going strong, and there are also a few other cymbal manufacturers that have emerged, such

as Sabian, Meinl, and Crescent cymbals.  All of these manufacturers are making cymbals for all kinds of music, and they are also producing different blends of metals, to produce a wider range of sounds, and make them more affordable.  They are all also producing cymbal packs which make it much easier to choose cymbals that sound good together.  Some of the most popular cymbals packs are the Zildjian ZBT cymbal packs, the Sabian B8 Cymbalpacks, and the Paiste PST Cymabl Packs. 

Replacing Drum Set Hardware

If you play the drums for long enough you learn that drum set hardware eventually wears out or breaks.  This is why I always take a roll of duct tape with me to gigs.  Duct tape will hold just about anything long enough to get you through the gig. 

Typically on a starter set, the first piece of drum set hardware to fall apart is the bass pedal, and it is usually closely followed by the high hat stand.  With a starter drum set the drums are usually decent, but the drum set hardware is rarely worth repairing when it breaks.  Instead, you are better off saying "goodbye" to that starter drum set hardware, and buying brand new.  So when that first piece of drum set hardware goes, consider replacing all the other pieces at the same time.  Many of the drum manufactures will sell drum set hardware packs.  Almost all of them will include a bass pedal, hi hat stand, a snare stand, and one or two cymbal stands.  Since they are bundled together you can get them for around half the price that they would cost if you were to buy each piece individually.

For some reason, on the high end drum sets the first piece of drum set hardware to break tends to be one of the a cymbal stands.  This is probably because there is a huge difference between the quality of the pedals that come with a high end drum set and what comes with a low end drum set.  With cymbal stands there is not as big difference in quality between low end and high end.  For this reason when I need to replace a cymbal stand I usually look for the least expensive cymbal stand that is the type I want.  In some cases I may need a straight stand, but most of the time I prefer the flexibility of a boom stand.  Since I haul my drums around and set them up in different venues every time I play, I need light weight drum set hardware that breaks down small.  Unfortunately, I end up paying a little more for the light weight and compact drum set hardware.  If you don't have to move your drums around a lot, the medium weight, double braced cymbal stands are often the best deal. 

Your bass drum pedal is a piece of drum set hardware where you probably want to invest more money.  You don't have to get the DW-9000, which many consider to be the smoothest and best bass drum pedal on the market.  It also carries a very high price tag, with an MSRP of $499.00; however, as a rule I try to stay away from single bass drum pedals that have an MSRP of less than $125.00 and double bass drum pedals with a MSRP of less than $175.00. 

Have you tried Vater Drumsticks?

It wasn't until just a few years ago that I discovered Vater drumsticks.  I was in a large music store looking though the Vic Firth drumsticks trying to decide whether I really wanted to spend $10.00 per pair for drumsticks.  I really liked the Vic Firth sticks, but with the amount of gigging and teaching that I was doing, I was shredding lots of sticks. As I pondered, I noticed a sign sitting on the glass counter that said “4 Pair of Vater Drumsticks for $19.99”.  Under the sign on the floor in front of the glass counter was a bin with Vater drumsticks that had been bundled together into packages of four pairs of drumsticks per package.  I picked up one of the packages and examined it because I figured $5.00 per pair is a pretty good deal if the drumsticks are the right size and relatively straight.  As it turned out, the sticks in the Vater drumstick bundle were the size I wanted (5B), and they looked a lot like the Vic Firth drumsticks that I normally used.

This is the Vater drumstick.




This is the Vic Firth drumstick



Since the Vater drumsticks were completely sealed in plastic wrap, I would have had to tear open the packaging to try them out in the store.  So, I asked the clerk behind the sales counter, “Do you have any loose pairs of these Vater drumsticks so that I can try ‘em?”

The clerk said, “Sorry man, we just got those in and we only get them in four packs.”

I asked him if he had a problem with me opening the Vater bundle to try them.  He hesitantly agreed to let me try the Vater drumsticks as long as he opened the package.  When I got a chance to try them I was pleasantly surprised!  For years I had been using Vic Firth drumsticks because I liked the way they were balanced, and the flat finish which keeps them from getting slippery.  The Vater drumsticks had the very same feel as the Vic Firth drumsticks, so I bought the four pack.  I have been using Vater drumsticks ever since.

After doing some research on Vater drumsticks I learned a few things about Vater drumsticks;

• The company was started in the mid-1980’s by Jack Vater.
• Jack Vater had a drum shop in the 1950’s where he would make custom drumsticks.  One of his best customers was Buddy Rich.
• When Vater Percussion started in the mid-1980’s they were not making “Vater Drumsticks”, they made drumsticks for “Vic Firth” and “Zildjian”.
• Vater did not put their own name on their drumsticks until late 1988.

These days in addition to Vater drumsticks, the company makes brushes, mallets, stick bags, and other drum accessories.  I like the company because their products are great quality at a lower price.

A Great $400 Drum Set

This the story of  my search for a good drum set that fit my budget.

About four years ago I was desperate to find a new set of drums.  This is because I had recently sold my 16 year old Pearl BLX seven piece drum set, which I had paid around $2000 for in 1989.  This was an awesome set , but at that point in my life I wasn't getting much use out of them so I decided to sell them.  Not too long after selling my drums, I saw that a local band that I liked needed a new drummer, so I decided to audition and I landed the gig!

Now, I had a problem because I needed a drum set and I did not have much time.  The "Groove Percussion" drums that I auditioned on were great for practice but there was no way they were going to cut it playing gigs.  To make things worse, I didn't have $2000 to spend on  new drums.  My budget was more like $400, and just kept thinking where am I going to find a decent drum set for that price.  The first thing I did was search Craig's List.  I had no luck there, for anything decent they wanted close to the price of brand new.  At that point I had come to the realization that I would probably have to buy brand new, and I would probably have to come up with more like $800.  About and hour into my online search I found a set of Gretsch drums for $399 plus shipping.  Now I thought this must be a mistake because Gretsch drums have been around for quite a while, they are known to very nice  and they are usually quite pricey.  This particular set of Gretsch drums was black or charcoal in color and it had white accent patterns.  After reading the description I got a little nervous because it was clear that these were low end Gretsch drums.  Additionally, the drum set model was so new, that there were no reviews for me to read to find out if anyone else had an opinion as their quality.  Since they were "Gretsch drums", I decided to take a chance and I bought them.  As it turns out, I actually like my Gretsch drums better than those professional series pearl drums that I played for so many years.  The quality of the new Gretsch hardware is better than the 20 year old hardware that I had with my Pearl drums, they are lighter weight, and they sound great.  I can't tell you how many times I've been approached by other drummers who have said, "Man I wish I could afford a set of Gretsch drums like those!"

Okay, I will stop bragging.  My point is that the major drum companies such as Ludwig, Pearl, Yamaha, and of course Gretsch, have some really good stuff for all budgets.  Four years ago I found Gretsch drums, if I were in the same situation today I would probably take my chances on this cool set of Yamaha drums I found the other day.