All user reviews for the Gretsch Catalina Club 16"

I bought this drumkit there two years already and it sounds great.

most: light, compact (all starts on a devil), colors (Payette money!), very powerful (to play in club or in a room without peter ears), hanging toms, bass drum sounds ...

Cons: the acastillage is a bit lightweight for long screws on the bass drum and floor tom (frieze are some slight but disappear by stuffing the shells), the snare is average, the small tom is hard rules, and if it is too banana skin chard in no time.

basically it is a good investment if you want to have a kit light and not too powerful.
I experienced two settings:

toms rather relaxed: its not bad but not quite defined
toms more tense: the jazz though net (so that the drumkit sounds the best)

skin: I put my remo renaissance, I also played with a single thickness sanded did too.

The Gretsch Catalina Club is an extremely fun kit to play.  It is so small, but can produce considerable volumes with proper technique and tuning if necessary.  I first played this at my friends house, and this was the first kit he ever owned.  We had a lot of fun putting on new heads and tuning it up.  Because it has such small sizes, and is primarily a jazz kit, we put fiberskyn drum heads on all the drums to produce a richer jazz sound.  The result was perfection.  The toms sounded super warm and ringy, in a good way of course.  The bass drum had just the right amount of punch, and the snare cracked like it was 30 years old.  The drums were so responsive to brushes and hot rods witht he fiberskyn heads that they were all I wanted to play. 

The hardware is reasonable stable, nothing amazing.  One small issue I had with this setup is that because the drums are so small, if you are used to playing with a lot of space (like I am), the distances of the drums from eachother seem immense.  This isn't a really big deal, especially if you like tighter set ups anyways.  The kit that I played had the ebony crystal shells, and it was truly breathtaking.  All the different shell variations have great, retro looking wraps.  I am a huge fan of all Gretsch drums, from the beginning up.  However, I think that this is my current favorite because of the affordability and uniqueness.  For anyone looking to get into jazz, this is the kit for you.  If you play this, it makes you feel like Joe Morello whether you like jazz or not.  Truly one of the most entertaining kits I have ever played.  It is also so small and convenient to travel with that it can serve the same purpose as other small gig kits.  The Taye go kit is an excellent option for portability, but for a lower price and better jazz capability this is a great option.