#winning Digital Drum Sticks

Product Information

The extreme series is a little bit longer than a normal 5B size, which makes it easier to produce even more power with each note you play. In recent years, the trend for acoustic shells that incorporate electronics has emerged, and Millenium’s MPS-1000 kit brings this concept in at an extremely affordable price point. This, coupled with the increase in live drum triggering - when drum triggers are placed on acoustic drums and used to trigger pre-recorded drum sounds - means that actually, a lot of what you might hear at a gig is actually the same as you might hear from an e-kit. Now, for what you get with this kit, it’s a little bit too expensive, if you ask me. Compared to the Alesis options, you may be better off going in that direction. Most low-end drum modules only offer the ability to get a stereo output of a recording directly from the module. A nice feature. MIDI and USB connections

The TD-02 module also has Bluetooth capability for jamming to your music collection - a feature we've enjoyed seeing roll out to kits at the cheaper end of the spectrum - although you will need an adapter which comes at an additional cost.

This is definitely a nice feature, though it wouldn’t have been a deal-breaker for me without it. The plastic knobs and faders are just okay — I wish they were a little more robust feeling. Elsewhere in the beginner market, Alesis just announced a potential contender to the Nitro Mesh throne. The Alesis Nitro Max is another budget-friendly all-mesh kit, that boasts a sleek new module that features 32 drum kits from BFD, the leading drum sample library for Mac or PC. We cannot wait to get out hands-on one. Sounds are usually where cheaper kits suffer, so this one could be a game-changer. You can try your best if you wanna try some options out before buying, but I’m afraid you won’t find much to play around on.

The minimalist module - complete with touchscreen - is certainly a break from the mainstream and, despite some niggles we found with screen sensitivity and some pretty involved menu diving, there’s plenty to shout about too. We love how much sound editing capability there is at your fingertips while the on-board sounds, although quite limited, are fantastic and almost 100% usable out of the box. This allows for greater dynamic range and makes the electronic kit sound more realistic. Do you kind of get what I am hinting at? This could have been one way to keep the price tag down on these electronic drum kits. While this might not make a huge difference for “electronic-style” kits, acoustic drums with one velocity layer tend to sound pretty bad. Unfortunately, it seems Alesis is not without problems. Many users of the Strike Pro have reported the mesh pads failing after just months of use. You can use the built-in drum samples your module provides or use a drum plugin software like Addictive Drums. If you live in the United States, there may be a chance that you live near a Music Go Round. They are a chain of retailers that deal exclusively with used musical instruments.The TD-50X lineup of kits includes the TD-50K2 and TD-50KV2, the first having smaller shells/cymbals and the latter, well, bigger ones. Kit Variation You can buy an electronic drum set from any of the biggest specialist music stores, in-person or online. Places like Thomann, Andertons and Gear4Music, in the UK/Europe, and Guitar Center, Musician’s Friend and Sweetwater in the US all have huge ranges of e-kits from the big-name brands, as well as smaller ones - so you should be able to find an e-kit to suit your needs and budget without any hassle.