Ever regret buying a drumset?

Definitely some drum kit purchase regrets
Gretsch USA Custom 2013 Espresso Burst kit - absolute horrid quality control

Ludwig Legacy Classic Liverpool 4 - just a one trick pony kit - snare was mediocre - just dull thumpy sounding drums

Yamaha Recording Custom Apple Sparkle fade lacquer - bought from a Yamaha Endorser - was just an ok kit to be honest .

Yamaha PHX kit- way too expensive for me . It looked and sounded nice but the shells are heavy and the kit really wasn’t suited for me .

Yamaha Hip Gig kit - really heavy when nested and I could never get the drums Positioned where I wanted them . The bass drum sounded horrible .
 
Buy as many kits and snares as I have and there will be regrets, though only one kit: a Ludwig Keystone Series kit, one of the first ones. I loved the mint oyster wrap but that kit had so many quality problems. Soured me on the brand to this day. Plenty of snares I’ve regretted buying and a few I regretted getting rid of.
 
1st gen Gretsch Catalina Maple.

The shells were decent, however the hardware was absolute crap. The isolation mounts for the toms did not fit properly and had to be bent into shape to get them to almost seat. Almost every wing nut on the kit, from the tom mount to floor tom legs, stripped out. They were not overly tightened at all; they just couldn't handle set up and teardown a few times a week.

The floor tom legs also had the thinnest plastic feet which seriously choked the drums. I replaced them with Pearl Air feet to much satisfaction.

The finish was cloudy from the factory and became worse over time.

It was a dog from top to bottom.
 
Sonor Bop kit. Very cool wrap, great hardware. Kit sounded great out front but sounded really horrible in the driver's seat. I'll never touch a drum set that is made of "basswood" again. The edges of plywood at Lowe's are smoother than the bearing edges on that thing.
 
Q drum kit. A friend of mine hyped them up big time and I bought into it. Mahogany/poplar kit with maple reinforcement rings. The drum quality was mediocre, no gaskets on the cheap bass drum claws, had a lot of small issues (frozen, grinding swivel nut/tension rods on a lot of the lugs, chipped re-ring, etc.) Customer service for me was poor as well. Soured on Q and the kit. Sold it straight away. I sold a DW collector's kit to buy the Q's. Bad move. I liked the DW's a lot, just wanted different sizes mostly. Now I play a Ludwig classic maple kit and couldn't be happier, so it all worked out in the long run.
 
I've bought and sold a lot of drum gear. I cant say I regret any of it. Its all been a big learning experience for me. One thing I did learn is that more expensive drums doesn't mean better sounding or better quality drums. I've stated here many times before that my PDP Concept Maple kit easily could hold it's own against my DW Collectors kit in sound quality. My Mapex Saturn kit is built with greater quality and attention to detail than my DW Collectors, Pearl Reference Pure or Yamaha Recording Custom kits. Do I regret buying any of those higher end kits? No. Are they bad kits? No. Do I still have them in my collection? No.
 
My first (ex) wife made me sell my first drum set, a 77 Ludwig. She said I needed to "grow up". So I did, but I missed playing for the years that followed.

My second wife told me to buy a drum set as my wedding present from her, to replace the one my ex had made me sell. It was 1989 and Ludwig quality was garbage, so I bought a Pearl Export. I hated it! Of course, I was envisioning the old Ludwig in my head, but even so, the Pearl wouldn't tune "right", the tom mounts never let me put the toms in the right place, and after a year later I never played it at all.

Over the years after, I tried Yamaha and PDP... the Yamaha Stage Custom set was okay, but when my second wife had our first baby, there was NO practicing any more until the kids were older! I liked my PDP set a lot, but nothing ever sounded quite right. Honestly I could have lived with it, but I was getting into middle age and wanted something to boost my ego.

Then after the second wife and I split up, I had the money to buy an old vintage set, and found my niche.
 
I've bought and sold a lot of drum gear. I cant say I regret any of it. Its all been a big learning experience for me. One thing I did learn is that more expensive drums doesn't mean better sounding or better quality drums. I've stated here many times before that my PDP Concept Maple kit easily could hold it's own against my DW Collectors kit in sound quality. My Mapex Saturn kit is built with greater quality and attention to detail than my DW Collectors, Pearl Reference Pure or Yamaha Recording Custom kits. Do I regret buying any of those higher end kits? No. Are they bad kits? No. Do I still have them in my collection? No.


That's interesting. I purchased a Mapex Black Panther Velvetone kit in 2011. It was my first "big" kit purchase since I had I only owned a Rockstar Custom kit for 10 years prior. I purchased it based on online videos and reviews. There aren't many drum shops anymore out here so I had to go online..

The kit itself was ok, but it has super sharp bearing edges that are all the way out to the outermost ply of the shell. The issue with that was that the sound of drums came almost entirely from the head, and there was waaaaay too much attack.

I bought the kit right after Mapex released them, only for Mapex to modify the series 20,000 times in the following months. I.E. Replacing the sharp bearing edges with the SoniClear edges, replaced the mounting system 3 different times, replaced the rom legs, etc.

The kit itself sounds good, but if I could, I'd re-do the bearing edges. That'll probably be the last high-end kit I buy from Mapex.
 
I bought a second hand Tama Rockstar DX.

Piano black, long lugs etc etc.

The bass drum was absolutely bloody awful.

The toms were lifeless no matter what I did to them.

Just a dreadful pile of plies and chrome.

Regret selling my Premier Genista......BIG time.
Premier drums exist in a weird dimension where the best built, best sounding drums have low resale value.
Rather sad and bizarre, but great news for buyers.
 
Premier drums exist in a weird dimension where the best built, best sounding drums have low resale value.
Rather sad and bizarre, but great news for buyers.

For the life of me, to this day I have absolutely NO idea why I sold those drums. I have actually cried once about them.

The British knew how to make UNBELIEVABLE drums!
 
Yes, but with my vast years of experience and buyers savvy those mistakes a far behind me. That is except for the totally pointless, why on earth did I buy this thing, breakbeat kit I bought a few months ago that I swear sounded good for about 5 mins.
 
Not so far! I feel like I'm still learning what I like and don't like about various woods and drum sizes, so every kit I get adds to my experience. I'm still not sure what my "dream kit" is, but I'm getting closer to figuring it out. Maybe the enlightenment I will discover is that there is no dream kit. Just like I haven't found that one perfect ride cymbal that I can use for everything.
 
Yes. My Remo Encore kit was Junk. Junk hardware, junk tension rods/housings/snap whatever, heavy shells and crap pedal. The best thing about them was getting rid of them.
 
Well, so far I've only bought 2 drum sets. The first was a starter that taught me what to look for (and avoid), and the second is approximately 98% of my drum set dreams.

So, no...not yet. :)
 
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I bought a second hand Tama Rockstar DX.

Piano black, long lugs etc etc.

The bass drum was absolutely bloody awful.

The toms were lifeless no matter what I did to them.

Just a dreadful pile of plies and chrome.

Regret selling my Premier Genista......BIG time.
That is the problem I'm going thru now. Long story short, I sold my older model Pearl kit to buy a mid level used set I had my eye on. But to my surprise some of my friends and band mates privately pitched in and surprised me with a brand new Rockstar set. I fully appreciated it. I have great friends, but the sound is........well, you know what I'm saying. And yes, no matter what heads I put on it, the kick drum sounds like paper. I'm so thankful for what my friends did but I have to get out from behind that kit without hurting their feelings.
 
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