OV9

I suppose this is the best place for this, I'm buying an electric drum kit for the boy, as he has been having lessons for two years through Rocksteady now and it seems to be a proper interest rather than a fad.

I'm not going nuts money wise on this, so I reckon £4-500 will get something suitable for a 7 year old, I've been watching many, many reviews, and it seems I'm between the Alesis Nitro Max and the Yamaha 452k.

He uses a Yamaha kit at his lessons, but the Alesis is seemingly a better kit to play, and appears to be a more 'natural', if that's the right word, kit to play.

I know as much about drums as I do about gardening, or fvck all in other words so I'm all ears to any help/suggestions.

Limited experience myself on this, the full noise options are much more my wheelhouse. In general, eKits that are recommended tend to either be Yamaha or Roland, Alesis don't get much of a look in for long. That said, my exposure to that has been from people wanting to replace the real drum kit experience with something electric. (More on this below.) Your price point though, suggest the more budget end of what's available, so buying new I think Alesis at that price point will be offering stuff that Yamaha don't, purely because Yamaha will be viewing it as a very cut back version of their high end kits. Ergo, if you are buying new at that price point, maybe speak to someone at a decent drum shop for their opinions. Drummer's Only in Glasgow, Highwood Music in Wakefield, Graham Russel Drums in Fareham are the UK stores I've engaged with successfully.

If you're buying second hand, consider looking out for the higher end Rolands and Yamaha, then avoid ones which look like they've been kept in a barn and have any hints of malfunctioning electronics, and instead look for adverts from people who've bought them then upgraded to the silly money versions.

To come back to idea of replicating the real drum kit experience, there are now eKits which look like an actual kit with electronics inside - the only ones that are any good are 'this or a car' kinda money. But if the idea is to have the real kit experience but be quieter, you could look at a normal kit with mesh heads and low volume cymbals. A lot of drummers convert a normal kit this way for playing in apartments etc. The feel isn't exactly the same as the real thing, but on par with most eKits.

Cheers, we don't really have room for a proper kit at home, without doing a lot of clearing out and moving round rooms.

I want a new kit ideally with warranty etcs, Wakefield isn't too far away, I've been chatting with a friend who buys all his guitar stuff from PMT in Leeds so I'm going to head there on Friday hopefully, so if that's no good I'll pop to that place in Wakey as well.

The fella to speak to at Highwood Music is Chris Johnson. He's so good at his job he's almost a meme on the UK drum groups - the answer to any "I'd like to buy..." is always Chris Johnson.

That said, I personally haven't seen him talk about eKits much, but he'd steer you in the right direction either to stuff he sells or the right person to speak to.

Thanks a lot, good to have some knowledge about something I have no idea about!

We have the Alesis Nitro for our boy. That's what the drum teacher recommended as being the closest to the real kit he has his lessons on at school. It's a nifty bit of kit that we probably use about 1% of the abilities of but I guess that means it should have some longevity if he sticks at it

He had it a couple of years now and it still looks fresh

nuttinnew wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 7:12 am

The violence that will follow...

As if we’d ever.

ZedLeg wrote: Sat Dec 07, 2024 10:04 am As if we’d ever.

I know a guy who plays for Top Secret in CH. very

I knew she could play but doing a bit of YouTube-ing, she could really play… at least to my untrained ears

She was absolutely awesome on the drums. Even more impressive when combined with the ability to sing at the same time (much easier said than done)

nuttinnew wrote: Wed Oct 22, 2025 6:37 pm

I can't begin to tell you how difficult that is.