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.
