The paradox of expensive drumsets

Trigger

Trigger

Senior Member
I had a funny thought the other day, bare with me...

When buying a high end drum kit, you can spend a decent amount of money, let's say, 6-10k. Let's imagine you're getting a 5 or 6 piece kit (which are probably the most common)

Now it's likely if you're spending that much money on a kit, you've probably already got a few nice snare drums, so you're just getting a kick and toms

Now, i think we've all figured out that a kick is a kick is a kick. They all sound broadly the same (obviously there are little differences, but again, humour me)

So in the end, you're pay a lot of money for... toms. The most unused part of a drum kit. Unless you're doing tom fills constantly, or you're Danny Carey, toms don't get played nearly as much as the snare or kick, so you're spending a bunch of money on something that barely gets played, comparatively.

Kinda weird when you think about it. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
 
I don't agree that a 'kick is a kick'. I've played quite a few lame kicks and it is often the most heard part of the kit, equal in importance to the snare.
I don't think I've ever spent 6-10k on drums. I bought two stunning Pork Pie kits used for $1k each during the pandemic (three toms and a BD). You can pick up a used N&C for $3-4,000.
I have to repeat this often on drum forums. The more you spend the smaller the gains. The difference to your pleasure (or success) in playing a $6000 kit over a $3000 kit might be just 10% (nicer, 'better). If I can afford it I will go for any advantage, even 10%. If you don't have the budget most mid-priced kits sound fantastic. If you want to go 'high end' it's worth it if you can afford double the money for 10% better.
I always recommend buying a ten year old high end kit over a brand new budget kit, if the price is similar. Both my PP kits are over ten years old.
 
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Thing is expensive drums don't make you a better player and add to that tuning/head choices they don't necessarily make you sound better either. I've seen far too many drummers who've gone down the throwing money at it road instead of learning to tune and learning to play which takes you much further. I always remember a kid I saw with a DW Collectors that was gaffer taped to death with a laundry basket in the bass drum and I've heard budget kits sound light years better.

If I was going ridiculously high end I'd go used and wait for a steal.

Bozozoid said:
I'm still in therapy as to why I think midpriced kits sound better. I seem to prefer (filler) woods somewhere in the build. I think drum companies should put the higher priced tags on the midpriced sets so I'm not so confused as to why I like them better.
Click to expand...
Mid-range is professional quality build and sound in all but price. Only thing you might have to do is swap the heads out.

Expectation also plays a big part. You walk in with a £5k kit and people expect the best thing since sliced bread. Walk in with a well set up Saturn, Starclassic, Masters, Stage Custom etc and people are blown away with how good they sound.
 
Buy high quality used when you find a deal. If you've never had high quality, you don't know what you're missing.

Kicks aren't all the same. Hardware isn't
either. I have a reputation for thrift. When it comes to drums I've always said, some things are worth spending money on.

I've got a couple Pearl Export kits. I cant make them sound as good as the Premier Maple Signia kits and I don't even have to try hard with the Premiers.
I'm not a good technician on tuning so the fact that my drums easily sound good and tune easily is due to quality. Signia and Genista can be bought for a bargain. They're 6mm undersized shells, and man that makes tuning excellent, especially for someone like me.
 
I think this is a kind of paradox indeed.

I own a high end kit myself and am enjoying every minute I play it. But ...... once I had a gig in a very small music café in a Dutch town. They said: You don't need your own drum set because we have a good one and it fits our tiny stage perfectely. Usually I always prefer my own gear, but this time I thought: What the f*ck, I am a bit lazy, let's do the gig on the café' set. I just took my own cymbals and my own snare with me.

Next thing happened was I arived at the café and was confronted with a total worn out 3 piece Mapex Tornado with stock heads that looked as if a cat scratched them (and possibly did some other things on them wich I will not share with you :) )

And now I come to the point of this little story of a once and never again too lazy drummer: after my first anger, dissapointment and feeling stupid because of my own wrong choice, I decided to make the best of it. After all I had not enough time to get back home to fetch my own kit. I cleaned the bass, the rack tom and floor tom. Tuned the crappy looking heads as good as possible and played. I played as if it was my own kit and enjoyed every second of the gig. The public was very enthousiastic and the band played great. We got loads of compliments afterwards.

Afterwards I asked myself: do I need an expensive high end kit tot perform well? Answer: not at all.
The other question I asked myself: shall I sell my expensive kit and buy myself a cheaper one, just to save money. Answer: hell no!

I feel there is more in a drum kit than just playing it. I believe that your drum gear is a way to show who you want to be on stage. And if you can and want to spent money on that, it is also a way to feel good as a drummer. Not to speak of the fun it is to collect drum gear, even if you do not need it :cool:

Just my humble opinion based on my experience.
By the way: sorry for my bad English
 
Trigger said:
I had a funny thought the other day, bare with me...

When buying a high end drum kit, you can spend a decent amount of money, let's say, 6-10k. Let's imagine you're getting a 5 or 6 piece kit (which are probably the most common)

Now it's likely if you're spending that much money on a kit, you've probably already got a few nice snare drums, so you're just getting a kick and toms

Now, i think we've all figured out that a kick is a kick is a kick. They all sound broadly the same (obviously there are little differences, but again, humour me)

So in the end, you're pay a lot of money for... toms. The most unused part of a drum kit. Unless you're doing tom fills constantly, or you're Danny Carey, toms don't get played nearly as much as the snare or kick, so you're spending a bunch of money on something that barely gets played, comparatively.

Kinda weird when you think about it. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Click to expand...
"I had a funny thought the other day, bare with me"
"Thank you for coming to my TED talk."
No problem. Can we get dressed again now?
 
Bozozoid said:
I'm still in therapy as to why I think midpriced kits sound better. I seem to prefer (filler) woods somewhere in the build. I think drum companies should put the higher priced tags on the midpriced sets so I'm not so confused as to why I like them better.
Click to expand...
It's called the relativity of high and low expectations.
(I should know, I just made it up.)
If they both sounded exactly the same, you'd be delighted with the mid-range and dissapointed with the high-end.
 
Dutch Drummer said:
I think this is a kind of paradox indeed.

I own a high end kit myself and am enjoying every minute I play it. But ...... once I had a gig in a very small music café in a Dutch town. They said: You don't need your own drum set because we have a good one and it fits our tiny stage perfectely. Usually I always prefer my own gear, but this time I thought: What the f*ck, I am a bit lazy, let's do the gig on the café' set. I just took my own cymbals and my own snare with me.

Next thing happened was I arived at the café and was confronted with a total worn out 3 piece Mapex Tornado with stock heads that looked as if a cat scratched them (and possibly did some other things on them wich I will not share with you :) )

And now I come to the point of this little story of a once and never again too lazy drummer: after my first anger, dissapointment and feeling stupid because of my own wrong choice, I decided to make the best of it. After all I had not enough time to get back home to fetch my own kit. I cleaned the bass, the rack tom and floor tom. Tuned the crappy looking heads as good as possible and played. I played as if it was my own kit and enjoyed every second of the gig. The public was very enthousiastic and the band played great. We got loads of compliments afterwards.

Afterwards I asked myself: do I need an expensive high end kit tot perform well? Answer: not at all.
The other question I asked myself: shall I sell my expensive kit and buy myself a cheaper one, just to save money. Answer: hell no!

I feel there is more in a drum kit than just playing it. I believe that your drum gear is a way to show who you want to be on stage. And if you can and want to spent money on that, it is also a way to feel good as a drummer. Not to speak of the fun it is to collect drum gear, even if you do not need it :cool:

Just my humble opinion based on my experience.
By the way: sorry for my bad English
Click to expand...
What???
Possibly the best English ever seen on Drummerworld*! 😁
*CM Jones excepted, obvs!
 
Yamaha Rider said:
It's called the relativity of high and low expectations.
(I should know, I just made it up.)
If they both sounded exactly the same, you'd be delighted with the mid-range and dissapointed with the high-end.
Click to expand...
That actually makes perfect sense!
 
Several weeks ago, we had a gig at a local venue, with a stage, backline gear and PA system supplied. The house drumset was a low end Ludwig. I stopped by a few days before to check it out. One look, and I decided I wasn't going to use it, I'd bring my DWs. The leader called me and practically begged me to use the Ludwig set, saying the soundman was a bit difficult, and would get weirded out if I brought my own drums, that he had the Ludwig set all mic'd up, blah blah. So, I said OK, I'll make the most of the house set. I brought my own snare, cymbals and bass drum pedal. Their pedal was a POS.

The drums sounded acceptably good. The bass drum was especially good sounding, in fact, and I was able to get the toms sounding decent as well. The gig went fine. And the soundman turned out to be a nice guy who knew what he was doing.

You don't need a high end drumset to make music, but it's nice having one, and ultimately, they're going to sound better with good heads and proper tuning. Years ago, I went to the Pocono Blues Festival in PA. All the drummers came out with Tama Rockstar or Pearl Exports. They all sounded OK, but when the drummer for the Fabulous Thunderbirds played his DWs, there was a very noticeable difference, at least to my ears. I'm sure the average concert attendee didn't notice or even care.
 
what stands out to me is say 15 years ago a top end kit depending on your size preferences minus snare could be had for 2000-2500$ new

so there's some type of Timing involved here- depending.
To be a younger age today ready for a top end set and looking at Hi end sets and seeing 3500- 4000-4500-6000-6500 dollar figures
Oh I feel for ya,

wonder if in another 10 years the entry into hi end will be 7000-8000.. It's ridiculous and I feel your pain
 
I don’t know about expense but I want a kick,snare, and my cymbals to sound pleasing. There isn’t a linear association of cost and sound- there is for quality and bells and whistles. I love my artisan SONOR snare but my cheap Pearl Sensitone sounds great too for 1/17 the cost. But quality wise miles apart.
 
It's just not a paradox, imo. There was a period 2-3 years after buying new Maple drums that I questioned the decision. My time not fiddling with tuning and replacing poor hardware is worth a lot. I like piddling with stuff, but it was a smart decision buying quality.

A guy at a collectible show commented that he had every piece except the blah-blah "...and nobody has one of those." My reply was that I have 11 of them. His jaw dropped open.
My point: guys, just buy 1 at a good price. You can sell it for about the same if you dont want to keep it. It applies to everything: lake property, hemi Cuda convertibles, whatever. Don't outsmart yourself. You deserve quality.
 
Hi Trigger......

I actually think that this is a real good discussion topic.

Look......I do honestly feel that there is some merit with high end kits.

They just have that "something" about them.

Chris Witten made a fantastic comparison in regards to buying used high end for cheap as opposed to buying expensive lower end new.

High end kits are simply worlds apart from name brand lower end kits, but the gap narrows with name brand mid range kits.

I feel that it's just kinda nice to round out a drummer's equipment arsenal with a half decent little bunkie kit for rehearsals that can get scuffed or banged around a bit.

Then have a mid range kits for the shows, gigs, festivals etc.

Then have that real flagship, the one that stays home, under armed guard that is just the special jewel which sounds like James Bond talking to you at a dinner party.

I have my Yamaha Gigmaker (friggin POS) as my everyday carry, my Remo Acousticon as my mid-range and my Mapex Orion as my high-end.

But then you enter the realm of boutique kits which are extremely expensive and personally I'm not totally sold on that high level gear.

My Remo Acousticon is the loudmouth, obnoxious mullet wearing bogan getting drunk and getting ready to brawl.

My Mapex Orion is the intelligent intellectual who is polite but forceful when needed.

I think the value for money is in the attention to detail (quality of bearing edges, wood types, isolation methods, lacquer finishes, hardware quality) as opposed to the quantity of drums in high end kits.

It's almost a given that you get less for more (new) with high end gear.

I can hear the difference between my mid range kit and my high end kit for sure.

Definitely worth it...... Mapex Orion.... second hand.

Oh, BTW, the guy selling it put "Mapex Onion" on the website.
 
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I agree that a good sounding snare and kick drum are crucial. I would rank floor toms as the next most important thing to get right. Rack toms less so but still important.

I have owned both high-end and midrange kits and found the midrange kits the most satisfying to own. 90% of the sound for 50% (or less) of the cost. I'm a meticulous tuner as well which squeezes out another 5% on top of the 90%.

I have never had them in a studio but I'll bet my $1000 DW's sound pretty darn close to $8000 DW's under the mic. I feel that for me, getting a smoking deal on a midrange drum kit equals the thrill I would get from buying a top end kit that I saved up for. Different, but equally satisfying.
 
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