New drum kit recommendations

[gnomethrone]

My wife is starting to shop for a new drum kit and looking for any suggestions people may have. All our local shops are guitar oriented so there aren't a lot of kits in stock and hardly any setup to test out. Here's what she's interrested in:
Narrow and deep kick & floor tom with lots of punch
Mahogany shells
Kit should have hardware included

Preferred brands: dw, ludwig, maybe tama, maybe yamaha
She's had a pearl and a pdp and doesn't want those again but its not necessarily a deal breaker.

Her main complaint with past kits is having to always fight with unwanted resonance. Pillow in the kick, those little gummy dampening things on all the heads, etc.

As for a budget it's pretty open right now. Affordable is good but if she finds "the one" we'll figure out how to make it work.

Thanks!

Oh yeah black or dark purple are the preferred colors lol

[Olin]

My wife is soon going to be in the exact same situation too so I'm following this thread attentively.

Iman, where you at?

[PeteeBee]

2018: the year we all start laying drums and piano.

I’m looking for a small but real drum kit for my girls and myself.

[JonnyAngle]

2018: the year we all start laying drums and piano.

I’m looking for a small but real drum kit for my girls and myself.

Would buy as well

[gnomethrone]

She was messing with one of these questlove breakbeat kits at guitar center the other day and it sounded good to me but I don't know anything about drums. Seems like it would be cool for a kid to learn on since its small but not just some janky toy. Pretty cheap too I think.

[PeteeBee]

Yeah the questlove kit is at the top of my list. I’m not looking for any big metal sounds or anything, just a little classic kit for indie bedroom rock.

Edit: sorry for the distraction from the actual point of the thread!

[manymanyhaha]

I bought a Questlove kit a couple years ago but am only currently using the kick and snare. It's my first kit. I bought it to turn into a stand-up kit for me to make beats with my arms (no feet) and loop instead of programming drum machines. I'm glad I did it too, it is so much fun and so much easier and sounds such much more real.

It sounds pretty good but I think I have yet to figure out how to tune it. I grew up loving the drum sounds of Shellac, Slint, Girls Against Boys, Neurosis, Quicksand, Fugazi etc and I've yet to figure out how to get that thud snare sound and no resonant kick sound that I enjoy.

Maybe one of you actual drummers could help.

Apologies if that helps the OP none . . . . . .

[gnomethrone]

No worries dudes, I just wanted to get some drum chat going so I can hopefully learn a little. Feel free to share any and all drum stuff / weird gifs / cocktail recipes. Manymany: your looping setup sounds super fun. We used to play in a thrashy two piece together and would cram ourselves and all our gear into a prius. I'm secretly loving this small kit idea cause it would mean more room for my guitar crap if we ever start gigging together again

[Chankgeez]

I don't know anything about these kits, but just saw one on Reverb and thought it looked cute. :



Sonor Martini

Will keep an eye out for dark purple kits!

EDIT: Just looked on the Sonor website, shells are poplar.

[gnomethrone]

Thanks chank! I'm not sure how critical the type of wood is to her and that kit seems like the style she was talking about so its great to just see what options are out there. My friend has one of these travis barker signature kits and its real punchy. Cherry wood I think...

[infamousalien]

The Questlove kits are pretty good actually. I don't own one but have played them. I've never played a mahogany kit, just maple and acrylic, so I can't help there. For punchy sounds I've found Aquarian Super Kick II on the bass drum and Remo coated Emperors on tops of toms and coated ambassadors on bottom with the bottom head tuned a bit tighter than the batter head work pretty well. YRMV.

[cogweh]

- Narrow and deep kick & floor tom with lots of punch
- Her main complaint with past kits is having to always fight with unwanted resonance.

- Mahogany shells
- Kit should have hardware included
- Preferred brands: dw, ludwig, maybe tama, maybe yamaha
- As for a budget it's pretty open right now.
- Oh yeah black or dark purple are the preferred colors lol

First, lets touch on the first two items:

Having a punchy tone has more to do with tuning and head choice (batter/reso both matter) than drum size. Also the kind of punchy tone that you like is subjective to your own ear and what kind of music you want to play. Same thing goes with unwanted resonance. Also take into account proximity and sympathetic tuning. You may have your drums to close to one another or tuned to closely to the same pitch or both. Lots of experimentation (heads/tuning/positioning) here can fix these issues, but it can happen and thats what moongel & muffling et al. is for. There is no such thing as a kit that will magically not have these issues . Also don't forget that just like with guitar, "tone is in the fingers". Awesome players can make a super cheap kit sound amazing.

Now lets talk about recommendations for a kit:

Obviously the sky is the limit price wise. When you say "hardware included" does that mean you want cymbals, stands, throne included or just hardware just for the kit? Most kits don't come with hardware. It's usually some kind of special retailer deal and when they do it's usually really cheap anyways. You mentioned the Questlove kit before, it does not come with hardware it's just a shell pack. It also comes with removable lugs which are a whole different thing to deal with (not as nifty as you would think, IMO). Comparably there is the Daru Jones DJNY kit that does come with hardware but I don't think from your other descriptions you're interested in that. Neither come with cymbals through.

Coming back to a recommendation for an intermediate player? This would be my knee jerk mid-priced starting point and then go from there.

Gretsch Catalina Club, Mahogany and can get it with or without a snare included. (18" or 20" kick. I know they say the "rock" version has 24" but nobody needs that unless they know they do) You can play any kind of music with this kit.
DW 3000 HW Pack or similar range pack. Go ahead and invest in one good HW pack and then if you upgrade drums/cymbals you always have good hardware.
Need Cymbals? I'm really digging the Meinl Mike Johnston Pack lately. It's a steal price/quality wise.
Want to get a separate snare. Ludwig LM400 (most recorded snare in history) and be done with it, unless you get the snare collector bug.

You can find most of this stuff on the used market too for cheaper be sure to google up some videos on what to look for when buying used drum gear. e.g. cracked/warped cymbals, poor wrapping, etc.

[gnomethrone]

Yeah I'm probably misquoting / misunderstanding her and I don't really know how to talk about drums so sorry if this post is an eye-roller for somebody who has actually spent the time to learn. By hardware I meant just the stands for the drums but after shopping around a little more I'm realizing that the nice setups they put in the picture and what you actually get for the money are very different things. That gretsch kit you mentioned was where google brought me but I was hoping for an actual human's advice. I'll definitely mention your recommendations to her. Thanks cogweh!

[Chankgeez]

Also don't forget that just like with guitar, "tone is in the fingers".

I think Ellington put it a little better:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWxRwzMBIJM[/youtube]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWxRwzMBIJM

[cogweh]

Yeah I'm probably misquoting / misunderstanding her and I don't really know how to talk about drums so sorry if this post is an eye-roller for somebody who has actually spent the time to learn. By hardware I meant just the stands for the drums but after shopping around a little more I'm realizing that the nice setups they put in the picture and what you actually get for the money are very different things. That gretsch kit you mentioned was where google brought me but I was hoping for an actual human's advice. I'll definitely mention your recommendations to her. Thanks cogweh!

It's all good. Drums are a completely different animal from guitar rigs. All the stuff I listed gets recommended quite a bit in drum focused circles/boards. On the HW, most shell packs do come with the correct hardware to set up whats included in the "kit" so it's not usually talked about in the hardware context.

I think Ellington put it a little better:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWxRwzMBIJM[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWxRwzMBIJM