What is your main music focus or genre (rock, jazz, country, etc) and budget? What are you going to do with the kit – personal entertainment, studio, tour, local clubs, etc?
Every brand has mid-level kits that are constructed with maple shells – and the prices vary from brand to brand and dealer to dealer. I personally prefer
DW - in your case you look at the lower level
DW Pacific Brand - the hardware isn't as nice, and there are a few shell differences. But the
Pacific Maple Shell kits sound great.
I hear
Mapex gives a lot of bang for the buck - on this brand consult with Butter (on this forum). I’ve played a couple of
Mapex professional kits as part of a Backline, but really don't know much about them.
Then there is
Pearl,
Tama,
Yamaha,
Ludwig,
Gretsch, Rogers,
REMO (which I don’t care for) – for my money I would stick with
Tama, (DW)
Pacific,
Pearl or
Mapex –
Yamaha, Rogers, and
Gretsch tend to be a bit pricey, and
Ludwig can be inconsistent. And there are also many small companies out there, but most companies (big and small) use Keller Maple Shells.
Linear Mode
