Would you play this kit? 👀

My first kit was a PDP EZ. It sounded like cardboard and went out of tune if you breathed on it wrong.

This proves the biggest thing I personally learned when I started drumming. The difference in a $400 kit and a 4k kit is noticable. But the difference between cheap cymbals and Good ones is incredible.

Any drum set can sound amazing, it all depends on how well you tune it. I was once given the opportunity to tune a $200 drum set, and when done the owner could not believe it was the same kit.

There’s something oddly comforting about that blue sparkle wrap.. anyone else? If Mr. Rogers was a rock star drummer...

Birch shells, proper tuning and good playing- can't sound bad.

This mans playing has improved tremendously over the past couple years, good shit dave!

Your engineer did a great job with the sound to be fair.

I am pretty impressed with the snare sound. A lot of cheap sets that I have played the snare rings a lot more. This one sounds pretty tight.

Just in time for Eastar ! I'll shut up now 😂

"L-Arm Systems are by far the most superior way to mount a tom" Pearl ... *sweating"

david, i’ve been watching for a number of years and i can’t help but be impressed by your playing progress. keep it up dude.

FYI per Amazon seller. “ Question: Why does the image say the drums are made of 8 layer horizontal birch and the descriptions says they are poplar? Answer: Dear Customer, the product material is poplar, please refer to the product description. We are sorry for the wrong information displayed in the product picture. We have reported this problem to relevant departments for improvement. By Moukey SELLER on April 3, 2021”

4:20 - This moment is the best demonstration of the drums in a mix. They sound good. Great playing, David.

1. I've gigged with way worse than that. 2. Killer tuning, recording etc 3. Sick grooves, sick tune, major Stanton Moore vibes. I kinda forgot this was a review video and focused on that music. Good job!

That thing is amazing for $400, absolutely. My first was a Remo five piece with half the hardware missing. Black and blue zebra stripe, whick honestly looked pretty cool. The two mounted toms were exactly the same, you just had to tune them differently. I was incredibly grateful for it and put a couple thousand hours on it but having this one would have been fantastic.

Way better than my first kit. I started off with a CB700 in high school It was made with that wood composite material, like particle board. My parents bought it for me as a graduation present. So of course, I appreciated it and played the heck out of it for years. :)

Damn, I wish my first drum kit sounded this good. I have a feeling a lot of kids will be getting this kit for Christmas or birthdays this year.

Everyone talking bout the sound of the drums, but no one gon talk about david's great drumming?

Boy does this video bring back memories. Your $400.00 drum kit sounds absolutely fantastic. And, it has truly amazing hardware for it’s price point. My first drum kit was a four piece “Starlight” I received for Christmas in 1965. I was 12 years old. I didn’t realize how bad it sounded until I saw “Cream” live in 1967. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t tune the Starlight kit to sound like Ginger Baker’s Ludwig double bass kit. It was that failed drum tuning experience that awakened the love of drumming in me. I literally learned to play the drums by endlessly listening to “Fresh Cream”, “Disraeli Gears”, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” and “The Who Sell Out” slowed down to 16 RPMs on my parent’s stereo console. Thanks!

In my country we got a saying: "The indian is more important than the arrow". Instrument quality is important but more important is to have good musicians making good music

OKAY WITH THE FOOT/HAND SINGLES!! I see you bro!

Huge upgrade in quality from what "beginner" sets used to be. There are so many quality used sets available cheap right now though, seems silly to buy something like this new.

My son and I have been looking for a starter kit and I think we found it. Thanks for this video David!!

My first drum set was a Slingerland 5-piece red sparkle that had been sitting for who knows how long in the back of a nearly forgotten storage room. Yeah, something like this might have been nice, back then. It was Christmas, 1986, I think; I would have been a freshman in HS, and all I wanted was a drum set (I'd been learning through school band for a few years)! My parents had gone to the only real musical instrument store in the area, and couldn't afford anything they had on display, or that they could order; not that any orders would arrive in time. Due to their work schedules and other issues, my parents hadn't been able to make this specific shopping foray until less than a week before the 25th. As my mom would tell it years later: (yes, this is pretty much how she described it) she was visibly heartbroken that they couldn't get me what I wanted. The salesman was sympathetic, but couldn't do much. After a few moments of my mother just staring at the sets on display, things she really knew nothing about, trying not to break down, and my dad just standing quietly, looking at the floor, with his hand on my mom's shoulder, feeling that nagging sensation of failure that a man might feel at a time like that, the store owner stepped out from his office, walked over to them, and softy said, "Come with me," and led them down to the back, back, back of the basement storage, where he opened a door to a room that clearly hadn't been opened in quite some time, with cob webs everywhere. He and my dad went in and started looking around. Among the odds and ends and other relics, they found the Slingerland shells, stacked together, no heads, and missing some hardware; it did have the "Set-o-matic" T-style double tom mounting hardware. Even though it was now past closing time, the owner took everything to the workshop where he cleaned things up, and started piecing together lugs and rims and felts and whatever else it needed. In fact, he actually did not have a wooden hoop for the bass, and ended up putting a standard metal rim on it! He then had to jerry-rig a way to connect the pedal, which was actually kinda ingenious, as I recall! He threw everything together with some well-traveled used cymbal and hi-hat stands, along with a 4-pc box set of Zildjian Scimitars (new, still cheaper than even the used stuff he had, I guess), and gave it all to them for a price that I doubt did much to move his books into the black. Oh yeah, and he included a well-cared-for used Ludwig stainless steel snare that I wish I still had! So, Christmas morning comes, and all the gifts had been opened, and there was no sign of the one thing I had really asked for! My mom asked me what was wrong, and I tried to put up a brave face. She told me how she and dad knew what I had had my heart set on, but, that they just couldn't afford any of the sets that the salesman had shown them (not a lie), and how horrible they felt. I tried valiantly to be mature about it, saying I understood, and that I really appreciated what they HAD gotten me, etc., etc. Thankfully, they didn't torture me for too long, as very soon, I began to hear the sound of drums coming from the other room! My older, then-college-aged brother, who was a bit of a multi-instrumentalist back then, was playing them, at least, until I ran in and kicked him off of the throne! That set served me all through high school and beyond, including with a couple of short-lived bands that actually did a few performances, and when I played in the pit for a few community theater musical productions (GREASE and WORKING are two of the ones I remember)!! So... no, I don't wish I had had anything OTHER that what I did as my first drum set!!

Damn... that’s actually a really nice kit. Especially visually

As a drum teacher, I can safely say I’m now recommending this to new students. If it’s that good for the price, it’s a done deal

You can get a great sound out of (almost) any kit with the right heads and tuning, but to get a sound as good as this with stock beginner heads is pretty good! Cymbals are another story - cheap cymbals will always sound cheap, but at least you can start practicing from the get go. I'm impressed!

Dude your playing has gotten so much better after the last few years. You’re so polished now 🙏 love your videos :)

I grew up starting with a CB700 kit in the early 80’s. It was more expensive and didn’t come close to this. I believe one important part of this kit you’ve demoed is the birch shells. This kit sounds great. Thanks for sharing.

My first set was Ludwig, black lacquer with the gold strip around the middle. I bought it from an old man who was retiring from drums. I was 13 at the time and now at 69, I'm contemplating retiring mine.

but can we just appreciate how nasty his groove is?? well done bro 👌🏼

Why didn’t kits like this exist when I was a kid?? You get this quality for less than $1K??? That’s a STEAL

When I was a kid in the 80's you ether had mega expensive pro kits, super expensive mid level kits or... affordable junk with laughable mounting systems and hardware. The drums sounded like Tupperware. $400 bucks will give you an amazing amount of quality now a days.

For a low-end kit, that kit sounds like a beast! The toms sound great for an inexpensive kit. That is a value for a beginning drummer or an intermediate drummer as a practice kit.

What amazes me most is your progress as a drummer. You've gotten pretty good over the 4 years I've been watching ;)

Ah man, the number of stencil kits I got just to learn techniques and tuning - great way to get your fundamentals solid!

Damn brother. Sounds better than my $600 set!

There's so many great kits out there now for around this price range. It'd be nice to hear this out of the mix and without an EQ, just raw. Especially when advertising it's really a must.

Particularly impressed with how good you got that snare to sound. Well done!

Damn man these drums sound so good. I blew my mind open when you played this kit. And surprisingly, this kit is just $400 for one whole kit. Satisfying.

Great video! Been noticing you’re uploading a lot more in the past year and a half and I just wanted to thank you for taking the time and effort to share with us!

The drumming is excellent, of course, but that kit does sound great. It articulates really well in all the registers, even with the ghost notes on the perimeter of the snare. Sounds excellent. Don't think anyone could ask for more than that sound as a budget set.

I've got their unique clamp style drumstick holder clamped to my hi-hat stand and it stays rock solid with no vibrations, rattles, etc. Holds the tools I need for whatever the tune calls for at a moments notice. Like you, I love the 'entry' level drums of today, people beginning their journey don't realize how well they have it. Besides poplar, birch is simply an amazing wood for drums. A poplar/wenge/birch trio would be killer.

Yeah, this is miles and miles away from my first drum shit...uh, I mean KIT. Amaaaaaazing quality in this no name drum set. As usual, your playing is above and beyond. Thanks for another great video!

I didn't know what to expect, but this was much better than whatever I expected.

My first kit was one of those groove percussion kits with the huge rack toms. I’m on a Saturn IV nowadays and I love it, great for playing gojira

Got my first set in the mid-50's, when you had your choice between Ludwig, Gretch or Rodgers. I got the Rodgers for the "ball and socket" hardware. All top quality brands, a number of years before the lower priced/quality sets came out. Only downside was that I had to save for a helluva long time before I had enough money to buy!

18" deep on a 20" kick? What is this? 2005? I thought we figured out that super deep bass drums kind of suck like 10 years ago.

My first kit was a Ddrum Dominion limited edition. I got it for 450 with some yamaha solid drive double kick petals. I was working at Burger King at the time and had to separate the payments on it I think 3 times? I bought it off of someone who was moving and had way to many drums that he didn't want to take with him. I still have this kit and honestly don't know if I'll ever play another.

It doesn't matter who made the drums or how good they look. It's all in how you tune them and MAKE them sound! My set is made of of a bunch of mix & match pieces picked up over several years/decades. It's now a 14-piece set (15, if I include the piccolo snare) whereas, it used only be a 12 or 13-piece set. At least twice, I've walked into a venue for a gig with this crazy looking set (some are silver, red, blue, woodgrain, white pearl (badly ripped up) and even 2 of them have contact paper on them with strawberries printed all over it) and the sound guy or someone else would start laughing and making fun of them. My right bass drum is a strawberry 20", my left is a woodgrain 22" but, I tune the 20" to the 22". In every case where this happened, the same guy would come to me after the show and tell me how amazed he was and how great they sounded!! Maybe, some day, I'll find a way to include the Simmons (5-piece) and V-Drums (13-piece). At one point, I even had a tympani, a 4-pad Synare and a set of 6" 8" and 10" Roto-Toms. I don't care WHAT they look like, as long as they do their job and sound good! I'm NOT there to look pretty, I'm there to play drums!!

Great video. My first kit was a low end Pearl from about 1979. I actually made it sound decent and used it into my college days in the late 80's. I even used it while playing in the jazz band in college because it sounded better than the late 1960's ROYCE kit they had. Oh yes and my own cymbals.These Amazon drums sound way better out of the box than what I had back then. I am from Louisiana and have gig'd all over the south and gave lessons for years and I always told my students that I could make a cheap set sound good if I wanted to but this set sound great for the price,,,,,,less the cymbals.

You should do a video where you put a ridiculous amount of lugs on a Tom or snare to see how it sounds 😎

I am getting my first drums set today. It's a 5 piece full size adult Ashthrope set from Amazon at 400$. Watching all these drummers talking about cheap drums is very discouraging. Now I'm worried that they are going to sound like garbage. I'm broke, I cant afford to buy 1000$ drums. Sounds like tyhis is a very expensive hobby.

Absolutely killer groove you laid down there! Nice playing!

My first kit was a Rogers 508 (Black, natch'; 5-pc, 1 crash, 1 ride, 1HH), with Sabian cymbals. Didn't come with a throne...but my dad found an old beat up piano chair (?) that was probably made in the 30's, at the dump. Put some padding on it wrapped with denim from some old jeans, and presto! Free throne (and yes, it had a 'screw' base post where you could simply turn the seat and raise/lower the height of it...pretty sweet! :) ). .. In fact, I got that set back in, iirc, 1983...and I *just* sold it last year to a young girl just getting into drums (I'm 51, btw). It's nice to know that that old Rogers drum kit is *still* being used for a person to enjoy learning and playing the drums! :) I think I sold it for something like $350 (canadian), it was originally about $1200 back in '83...so "expensive" for the time! My parents love me, what can I say? ;) .. Now? Just got back into drumming a couple years ago afer about a 25 year hiatus. Living in an apartment, I bought some e-drums... Alesis Strike Pro 11-pc, that, even with severe fibromyalgia, I manage to play for 10 to 20 minutes every couple of days. TOTALY worth it! Smile on my face every time! What can I say? I'm obviously a masochist... ;)

Your playing rdavidr is a drum lesson in itself….I’d had my students watch this over and over! Superb

My first drum set is what I’m currently playing They’re electric ⚡️ Alesis nitro mesh They get the job done for solo playing along to drum less tracks I like learning from watching One thing I learned from you is to use the floor Tom with almost a semi ghost note with the left snare hand I am gonna try to incorporate this for sure! Thanks!

Lot of people don't realize that what's really important is the heads, the cymbals, and the person playing the drums. I'd take this kit out on a bigger gig and have everybody asking what kind of custom kit I'm playing lol. Great Vid!

Geez David! Your drumming has improved so much since I started watching you. Way to f-ing go.

would love to hear just room mics on it and also to see your daw for this recording. Sounds killer man.

Would love to hear them with better heads. I'm shocked that a company finally did what one could've done all along. Make a decent drum set for under 500 bucks.

My first kit was an Astro kit by Taye. Once I bought new heads and learned how to tune, it sounded awesome. Now I play a Mapex Meridian Maple kit, and It sounds great. Thanks for sharing.

I got this kit a few years ago when i was just starting. It sounds GREAT. Keep doing what your doing Eastar.

I love it I always wanted a drumset as a kid and never got the chance of owning one. Love your videos by the way

Wow with some minor upgrades it sounds great . I was surprised how nice the snare sounded not a bad kit it's a great starter

When I started drumming, I bought to of the same kits from Guitar Center so that I can have extra toms and two real kick drums. I put ebony two ply heads on and learned to tune drums properly. Two of each same size tom and I was able to make them sound like different sizes. Other people couldn’t believe I spent less than $600 for so many drums and they sounded that good. Knowledge is power and the power I had was learned how to do things right. Cymbals were a “try and see” experiment process. GC had a really good return return policy for being able to try things and swap back out for something else. (Don’t know if they still do that since I moved away from any GC.) 13 cymbals, 9 drums, and the kit sounded amazing. Learning to tune your drums is probably the most important aspect to making any kit sound great.

I had a decent toy kit when I was like 10, but my first real kit was a Tama Swingstar. It was a great first kit, and currently I rock a Mapex Armory Series kit with the Exterminator snare. I'm loving it! Great vid, Dave! The kit sounds pretty good 😎

I could gig in a cover band with a drumset like that all my life

It’s always a good day when rdavidr uploads :)

I have a mapex Bass wood kit. I took the wrapping of the shells stained cherry oak, with 7 layers of clear. It looks awesome and sound great. No one in my local scene has ever even questioned it's sound.

I remember my first kit was a 5pc Enforcer back in 2002. After that was a used Slingerland 70’s era set I bought from a friends dad. Eventually bought a Mapex Venus series that I still play and love it!

My first drum set was $80... 3 years later I'm still playing on it.

I'm more curious how this sounds live in person the power of mic's and good mixing works wonders. But awesome on them for building them with birch tho

I have a $700 Yamaha Birch kit and with excellent tuning...it sounds professionally amazing! I was stunned how great it sounds. I would play!

i'm digging the glitter look. My very first kit was a Remo PTS..I still have my Remo Vistalite snare.

Heck yeah that sounded way better then my current 1st drum set

David low key went off on the beat in this video

My first and only kit is a CB drum kit. Used. I got it for $100. Because I'm a painter, I stripped the wraps and made my own custom stain, got new heads cymbals and kick pedal. I Kept the stock hardware . I'm always getting compliments on how good it sounds. I pretty much want a new kit because of the brand name behind it. Pearl , DW... But I haven't bought one because I can't afford it and also my kit sounds pretty good. Cheap kits CAN sound very nice! Thanks for the vids man! ✌️

For the price this kit is head and shoulders better than most beginner kits. My first kit was so bad I won’t even describe it!

You truly are an awsome drummer

That drum set sounds so good for it’s price

This is on par with a $500 PDP set, which was arguably the best kit to start out with when I was first looking to get a kit. Good to see that the sound is so much more accessible. Amazon of all places!

My first kit was an 8 piece mix of different no name brands, fully equipped with hihat + crash. Hihat was two different size cymbals and the crash was a very cracked 16” planet Z, and each bass drum had one spur. I got it from someone around the block from me through Craigslist. I still use the one tama floor Tom it came with to this day

Pinstripe style heads/Birch drums...cant go wrong.

That was the dopest demo I’ve ever seen for a drum set. Also, what’s the dimensions of that carpet???

My first kit was a Percussion Plus $200 2nd hand eBay kit. It came with symbals that sounded like smacking a skip bin and hats that were genuinely worse to play than my kitchen table, by god it was fun though. The first symbal I ever bought was an old 22” Sabian Medium Ride and 10 years later it is still my favourite sounding ride that I have ever played and I once performed jazz with John Morrison. The hats I got to replace the stock ones were Sabian B8s and they are still my go to hats when I just want to jam today. Currently on a 90’s, dark red, seven piece Pearl Export. And to think it all started with a $200 eBay buy.

I would have loved for this to have been my first set. My first drum set was ordered from Sears and Roebuck. This would have been around 1969. These drums sounded great!

Way better than my first kit and cheaper! Awesome!

I'd play any kit if I had to. I'm a drummer!

Hey, your playing has improved! This kit is light-years ahead of the first kit I ever had (Brand New, Powersonic brand).

What the heck I can't believe how good this thing sounds 🤯 I now have a new favorite drum set to recommend go my students, thank you!!

Can you try out the Sawtooth brand drums next? They cost a bit more than the eastar but they look good for being at the same price range as the eastars.

I thought you’d demo the cheap cymbals that came with? Cool demo regardless

Damn, Dave's gone skiing!! How much has this dude levelled up?! Great video as always, man. Brilliant drumming too!

My man. Stellar playing on this one fantastic group and pocket.. also just goes to show you how much opportunity can do to a drum set as well as head selections

So what’s the total cost when you added your cymbals and hardware, about $2000?

Try it unmiked and unmixed. That would be how they sound.

We're in the golden age of gear, wow. I wish there would have been cheap but good gear when I was a teen back in the 70s, damn. This drumkit even looks good; sharp glitter-blue finish going on. Looks very "Ringo-ey".

I'm blown away, actually. Great job, Eastar.