THE GEAR SHOP ·
From a first kit to DW, every stick and mallet, the whole percussion section, cymbals, e-drums, recording and beat making. Each one explained, with links to buy.
From a first kit to a lifetime instrument. The shell wood, sizes and hardware change the sound and the price.
DW's custom kit, built to order in California. Maple shells with a choice of sizes and finishes. A professional's lifetime kit.
DW's US-designed maple kit at a lower price than the Collector's. Studio and stage quality.
A step between the Design and Collector's Series. Maple shells, full-size professional hardware.
Ludwig's professional maple kit, the modern version of the sound on countless rock and pop records.
Gretsch's American-made professional kit, a classic jazz and studio sound.
Birch shells with a focused, punchy studio sound. A long-time session favorite.
Tama's professional line, used across rock, metal and fusion.
A mid-price kit with small, jazz-friendly sizes. A great second kit.
A reliable mid-price birch kit that stays in tune and sounds good in any room.
The best-known complete starter kit, sold with hardware.
A compact four-piece with a 16" bass drum. Small rooms, apartments and quick gigs.
The snare is the voice of the kit. Depth, shell material and snare wires decide what it's good for.
Brass shell, loud and fat with a long ring. The classic rock and studio snare.
Aluminum 14" x 5" or 6.5". One of the most recorded snares ever made; works in almost any style.
Shallow maple or mahogany, tuned high with coated heads for crisp comping and brush work.
A shallow 3" to 4" snare. High, cracking and articulate for ghost notes.
6.5" to 8" deep. Big low backbeat that projects in loud bands.
Cable or gut snares and a precise strainer, so soft rolls stay crisp in a hall.
High-tension Kevlar heads and a very deep shell, built to carry outdoors.
A made-to-order DW snare in the depth and shell you choose.
What you hold changes the sound as much as what you hit. Here is every common one and when to use it.
Light and thin. Jazz, quiet rooms and fast, delicate playing.
The all-rounder most students start on. Pop, rock at moderate volume, practice.
A bit heavier. Louder rock and more sound from the drums.
Heavy. Loud rock, and building strength on the pad.
Nylon tips give a brighter, more defined cymbal sound and don't chip.
Balanced for soft, even rolls and precise articulation in the orchestra.
Bundles of thin dowels. Softer than sticks, louder than brushes. Acoustic sets and small rooms.
Sweeps and taps for ballads and swing. The sound of jazz at low volume.
Brighter and more durable than wire, popular in pop and worship settings.
Medium felt, the everyday timpani mallet for most passages.
Harder felt or wood core for articulate, dry notes and clear rhythms.
Yarn-wrapped rubber heads, from soft (warm low notes) to hard (clear high notes). Players carry several.
Hard plastic or brass heads. Brass is the brightest and is used sparingly.
Rawhide or plastic hammers for tubular chimes, struck at the top cap.
Large, soft beaters for the concert bass drum: legato for sustained notes, harder for articulation.
Soft yarn for cymbal swells; heavy beaters for gong and tam-tam.
Steel beaters in several thicknesses: thin for soft, thick for loud.
Every instrument from the orchestra's percussion section and the world of hand drums.
Latin, funk and rock. Mounted on the kit or held in the hand.
A set of tuned hollow blocks with a rounder tone than a wood block.
Concert tambourines have a calfskin or synthetic head and fine jingles for shakes, rolls and taps.
A professional orchestral triangle rings long and even. Hold it by a clip, never your fingers.
Spanish and orchestral repertoire. Machine castanets are easiest to control.
The orchestra's pair of cymbals clashed together, sold as matched pairs.
Egg shakers and tube shakers lay down sixteenth notes in pop and Latin music.
Afro-Cuban hand drums, usually played as a pair or three.
Metal-shell drums played with sticks in salsa and Latin jazz.
The pitched instruments of the percussion section, and the big drums behind the orchestra.
Steel bars with a bright, bell-like tone. Student bell kits come with a stand and case.
A professional glockenspiel with a fuller range and better bars.
Wooden bars with long resonators and a deep, warm tone. The solo instrument of the section.
Aluminum bars, motor-driven resonators and a sustain pedal. The jazz mallet instrument.
Professional orchestral chimes: 1.5" tubes, 18 notes (C to F, a range of an octave and a half), with a damper pedal and wheeled frame. The standard for orchestras and universities.
Yamaha's professional 18-note chimes with 1.5" tubes, damper pedal and a frame built for the stage.
Rawhide and plastic hammers; players keep a soft and a hard pair for different dynamics.
Kettle drums tuned with a pedal. The foundation of the orchestral section.
Professional pedal timpani with copper bowls, played in orchestras worldwide. A standard set is four drums: 32", 29", 26" and 23".
Ludwig's professional pedal timpani, a long-time American orchestra and university standard.
Yamaha's professional pedal timpani with copper bowls and smooth, precise pedals.
Lighter fiberglass or aluminum-bowl timpani for schools and first sets.
Tuning gauges, head covers, drop covers and a mallet bag for a full set of drums.
A huge drum (usually 32" to 36") on a tilting stand for orchestral depth.
A gong has a definite pitch; a tam-tam is the big unpitched crash of the orchestra.
Choose by sound: dark and complex for jazz, bright and loud for rock.
Dark, complex rides, a jazz and studio standard.
Bright, clear and loud, the classic rock ride.
16" to 19". Thinner crashes speak fast; heavier ones cut through loud bands.
13" to 15". The pair you play most, so it's worth getting good ones.
Hand-hammered cymbals with a wide range of dark and dry sounds.
A matched set of hats, crash and ride: the best value for a first set.
The stands, pedals and heads that hold the kit together and shape how it feels.
The most important piece of hardware. Height sets your whole posture.
Smooth, adjustable, and it lasts for years.
Two beaters for double-kick playing in rock and metal.
Height, tension and feel under your left foot.
Mount toms, cowbells and extra cymbals anywhere on the kit.
Warm with some attack, the standard for most snares and toms.
Fatter and more controlled, for rock toms.
Heads with built-in muffling for a punchy, controlled kick.
Plug in, practice silently, trigger samples, and connect to the Kit on this site.
Roland's top V-Drums kit: the most detailed module, large mesh pads and digital snare and ride. Pro stages and studios.
Roland's V-Drums Acoustic Design: full-size wood shells that look like an acoustic kit, with the TD-50 sound engine.
A high-end V-Drums kit with digital snare and ride, one step below the flagship.
Yamaha's top electronic kit, with sampled acoustic kits and TCS or mesh heads.
Premium electronic kits with wood shells and a very natural feel.
Full-size pads and a large sample library at a lower price than the flagships.
Mesh heads, a sound module and very realistic feel. The standard electronic kit.
An affordable complete electronic kit with mesh heads, perfect for home practice.
A full-size electronic kit with large pads that feels close to acoustic.
Roland's flagship sample pad for triggering loops, stems and backing tracks live, with more memory and outputs.
A tabletop pad for triggering loops, samples and backing tracks live.
A slim single pad that mounts on the kit for one sample or effect.
Eight pads in one unit, a compact electronic percussion setup.
Clip onto acoustic drums to fire electronic sounds.
A speaker built for electronic drums, with the low end a kick needs.
A larger powered speaker for playing e-drums with a band.
Flat, accurate speakers for mixing and practice.
Bigger woofers for more low end in larger rooms.
Hear yourself and a click without the whole house hearing you.
Block the acoustic kit so you can hear music and click at safe volume.
Connects an e-kit or pads to a computer, and to the Kit page on this site.
Everything to record your drums at home, from one microphone to a full multi-mic setup.
Eight Unison mic preamps and built-in DSP for recording through classic studio emulations. A full drum kit on one box.
A desktop Apollo with two premium preamps and DSP for overheads or a stereo room pair.
Very low latency, rock-solid drivers and many inputs. A studio reference.
Apogee's high-end desktop converters and preamps.
Eight high-quality preamps for a full drum setup at a mid-pro price.
Many inputs and outputs with MOTU's converters, for a full kit and a band.
Connects microphones to the computer. Two inputs are enough for a simple kick and overhead setup.
Enough inputs to mic a full kit: kick, snare, toms, overheads and room.
Another popular eight-mic-preamp interface.
A matched set of kick, snare, tom and overhead mics in one box.
Built for the low end and air pressure of a bass drum.
A classic studio kick drum microphone.
The workhorse dynamic mic on snare drums everywhere.
Condenser mics above the kit that capture the cymbals and the whole kit's image.
Small-diaphragm condensers, a classic choice for detailed, natural drum overheads.
The famous large-diaphragm studio condenser, often used as a room mic on drums.
A versatile large-diaphragm condenser, used as overheads, room mics and on toms.
A ribbon mic with a smooth, warm top end that tames bright cymbals.
A classic British ribbon mic, a famous choice for drum overheads.
The classic tom microphone: full, punchy low end with a clear attack.
A small clip-on tom mic that sits right on the rim.
A dynamic mic with a wide range, used on kick drums and snares.
A modern version of a classic kick drum mic, with voicing options.
High-definition drum microphones designed to capture the whole kit naturally.
Connect every mic to the interface. Buy a few spares.
Several headphone outputs so the band can hear the click.
Panels and bass traps to control reflections in a home studio.
A clear panel around the kit to control volume on stage and in churches.
Make your own hip-hop and pop tracks: an MPC or a computer, a controller, and your drums on top.
The flagship standalone MPC with a large touchscreen and 16 pads. A full studio without a computer.
A standalone, battery-powered MPC with built-in speakers. Make beats anywhere.
A compact standalone MPC, the most affordable way into the MPC workflow.
An MPC built into a 61-key keyboard, for writing chords, melodies and beats in one instrument.
An MPC controller that runs the MPC software on your computer.
A small keyboard and pad controller for melodies and drum programming.
Sixteen MPC-style pads for finger drumming into any music software.
Apple's pro laptop runs Logic Pro and large recording sessions with many drum tracks. Get plenty of memory and storage for music.
Closed-back headphones for tracking and mixing beats.
The small things every drummer ends up needing.
Where rudiments get learned. Quiet enough for any room.
A dedicated metronome with subdivisions and a loud click.
Flat-response earplugs that turn the volume down without muffling.
Gel pads that control ring on snares and toms.
Holds sticks, brushes and mallets and hangs on the floor tom.
Hear the band and click clearly on stage while protecting your hearing.
Links go to Sweetwater and Amazon. Some are affiliate links: if you buy through them, Amadeus School of Drums may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It helps keep the lessons free. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Prices and availability are set by the stores.