DW Drums

The PDP Pacific by DW CX Drums Include: - All-maple shells - True-Pitch tuning - STM Pro tom mounts - F.A.S.T tom sizes - Wrap finishes - Matching bass drum hoops - Remo heads First off, I will say that I got a SMOKING deal on this set, however, I would be willing to pay 2 to 3 times as much for it, after hearing it. My set is the fusion configuration in Royal Onyx with 10x8" & 12x9" rack toms (I've also added an 8x7" tom), 14x12" floor tom, 22x18" kick and a 14x5" snare. I've been wanting one of these sets for years, and I finally got the chance to pick one up for an amazing price, and I'm glad I did! The craftsmanship on these drums are great, it's no wonder DW discontinued them! I've got Evans G1s on the bottom and G2s on the top and these toms sound HUGE! They are full of life and nicely balanced and pack a big punch. Tuned low or high, the toms sound great! In a blind test, with a more expensive DW set, I'm willing to bet that many people won't be able to tell the difference. The kick drum is an absolutely monster! I've got an Aquarian Super Kick II on the batter head with a Remo Falam Slam Pad on it, and the original head on the resonant side, cut with a port in it, and WOW does this kick deliver! Most metal drummers trigger their drum kick sound, which I'd thought of doing before... but the sound of this drum is PERFECT how it is, and I don't want to cut it out of my sound signal. The kick has the perfect harmony of a deep, rich tone, and a nice click that cuts through nicely live. The snare is gorgeous - woody and organic sounding with a huge tuning range. I've currently got it loaded with an Evans Hazy 300 on the snare side and a Genera Dry HD on the top batter. This is the first wood snare drum I've ever played that does require muffling to get rid of the annoying ring on it. The Genera Dry HD head chokes the ring out of it nicely, while still retaining its tone. I tune this baby fairly high (with a DrumDial - 70 on the resonant head, 85 on the batter), and it sounds great! My only complaint is, I wish it had a bit more "pop" to it. The snare, even when set ultra tight, still resonates a bit too much for my liking, but in a mix, you won't notice it and it sounds full and sits in the mix perfectly, not too overbearing or too subtle. Great dynamics as well! Before this kit, I actually owned a Tama Starclassic Performer 5-piece kit (birch) in the rock sizes (14" snare, 12 & 13" rack toms, 16" floor tom, 22x16" bass), and these PDPs sound BETTER! The Tamas sounded great, don't get me wrong, but they suffered from a lot of boominess, and were pretty sterile. These PDPs sound great for everything! I would definitely recommend these to anyone, beginner to professional, jazz to metal; these drums sound excellent, especially for the price.

The DW 5000 is a very well built and designed kick drum pedal that I have seen used many times. You can purchase the DW 5000 single bass drum pedal for around 190 to 220 dollars online or in your local stores. Of course this is the TD3 version of the pedal, there is also a AD3 which to me doesn’t really hold weight to the DW 5000 TD3 because the TD3 is just flat out a lot faster than the other one. The TD 3 has built in adjustable spurs and non skid Velcro so the pedal won’t start moving on you while playing. The quality of the 5000 TD3 is better than most of the other DW lines including the 4000, 7000, and maybe even the 9000 line. Plus TD3 could be more affordable than those other versions from DW. I feel that clean across the board the TD3 could be the best DW pedal on the market even though it has been out for a few years now but it is still being used on so many DW machines. The TD3 provides you with a more easy kick or stroke to the drum, while the AD3 will give you a more powerful punch to the drum. So when it is all said and done it will come down to how you feel about the pedal. It will be more about how you like your kick to feel, the best bet for any one considering this pedal would be to go try them out first, that way you won’t make the wrong decision and you will get what your personal taste likes. But both the DW 5000 TD3 and the AD3 are both great pedals, they are very well built and will last a long time. Since they are pretty standard pedals now, almost any DW kit you check out in the store will have one of the pedals that I described so you will be able to see which one you like. Great value and price with the TD3 line and a very fluid feel to it. I recommend it!

I'm a drummer. I'm originally from Brazil. I play for a band called Glint. DW is definitely one of my favorite drum products manufactures. They always blow my mind. I purchased a DW 5002 kick drum pedal 4 years ago and I'm still in love with this beat machine. One of the big characteristics of every single DW product is that they are designed to fit every drummer's own style, you don't have to adapt to use them the products adapt to your playing. The DW 5002 is no exception. With a lot of customizable features, this pedal will fit your specific needs. Another cool thing about the 5000 series is that you can also find two other version of this same pedal, the 5000ADH which features a heelless pedal, and the 500ADS Solid Footboad pedal, accommodating even more your footwork techniques. You will find this product in the market for a price around $380. <a href="http://www.glintonline.com">http://www.glintonline.com</a> The DW 5002 has a great feel. With a bunch of different tweaks it makes easy to match your footwork style. They are extremely durable. I have mine for 4 years now and it still works like a brand new. It come with a really nice hard case. The DW 5002 come with double chain, base plate, delta ball-bearing hinge, adjustable toe clamp, 101 beater and universal joints with memory locks. This is another great DW product. Customizable, making it easy to match your drumming style and its durability makes worth every single penny spent on it. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

DW and affordable don’t usually fit in the same sentence. However, I am a fan of usage before labelling, and thus, I took home an “affordable DW snare.” It features a renewable wood source of north American grown maple shells like most of DW’s recent offerings this millennium. I have found in the past, the maple DW uses provides warm sound that projects nicely regardless of dynamic room shapes. Also I find with this snare, it has a deep, punchy fundamental tone that goes real nice amongst the rest of my deep-dish set. . The stock head was a remo head and did not disappoint. My unit color choice I chose was a dark cherry satin lacquer finish, which I think accents my setup really nicely. But again, I am going for tone, sound, and not looks alone, although it would be foolish to argue that looks don’t matter, because they do. Mine is a 5x14 inch snare, and has nice silver hardware. I enquired about getting black finished hardware, but was told it would bump me up to a custom snare order, which would bump up my price another $200+, something out of the question. About the sound: it has nice sustain and amazingly great tone. I would go so far to say this is the best snare drum I have ever owned purchased new, that can do so much. I say this because I have realized it is a jack-of-all trades snare. When tuned tight the snare comes alive with an attack that goes amazing with pop music, more so jazz. That’s not to say it can’t do other things well, as I have tuned it looser to play rock, metal, blues, you name it. This snare comes through with a clear punch. What more can one ask for? Cheap, nicely made, looks great, plays amazing, can do a ton of different sounds, and can take a pounding.

I was reluctant to move from Tama to DW for my kick pedal, but I needed to as my iron cobra bit the dust about 2 years ago. What I liked about the unit is the fact that has a dual-chain drive, which is something that looks like overkill. but does the job well. The continued pressure/release motion of use means that the lubrication of the shaft is a must and a continued process. Without doing this maintenance, the unit will die prematurely. I learned this with my iron cobra pedal. I have since looked for a pedal with a dual drive shaft, as the pressure and resistance of metal on metal or metal on rubber, metal on plastic does wear less if more surface area is involved. Also this unit apparently sports a bearing spring rocker assembly, like most common kick pedals do today, but I will say the spring seems much more heavy duty than my previous pedal. DW claims it features a 101 2-way beater, which is standard these days in my opinion, and heavy-duty all metal construction, which i can attest to is really strong and will not break even when dropped or ran over by a minivan like mine was. My unit did not feature a drum key as advertised, but was not an issue for me or I am assuming any drummer who is of caliber to want such a pedal should have a stash of drum keys and not need an extra to add to the draw. As far as maintinance, besides a few drops of oil on the chain and an occasional dusting, the unit remains working as great as the day I took it home. I wish I bought the double kick, and will be looking forward to purchasing that soon, with a review update to follow.

Open sounding drums for me is used best when playing in bigger open spaces. For me I play drums in a small room for the most part, however and so I need to muffle a bit. After years of making due with standard pilow material as a means to dampen unwanted kick sound, I got fed up and ordered a drum pillow and muffling system. I tried every brand, back in the day I did everything from the pillow to a blanket to shredded up newspaper, and while I did see improvement over standard old fashioned retired house pillows, there were pluses and minuses to all types. This unit is no different. For my DW set I decided to stick with DW, and purchased this DW set. It is easy to use, and has allowed me to down tune my heads to a lower pressure that results in less kick back of the kick. This is nice, but it means it took me a bit of messing around to figure out the proper tension on the kick pedal. It has velcro fasteners, which means i have to never worry about breaking out an O ring on my resonant head. This is something I would do often with pillows or lose blankets. This brings me to the most imoportant great thing about this pillow. It is velcro’d down, so it won’t kick around when in transport. However, it does not do permanent damage to the drum itself which is nice, and allows for future change if necessary. The velcro make it easy to keep the thing from rolling around when i have it packed in a case and am transporting it in my truck or moving it to a new location to gig. I’ve recently begun using this DW pillow with and Evan head and noticed the sound is phenomenal. Top notch tone, and I hate to say it, but it is something I couldn’t have achieved without the purchase and use of this pillow. A common blanket or pillow wouldn’t have sufficed, and this is the real deal.

You can take a man away from his drums, but take a man away from his sticks, and you will raise havoc. These are the words spoken from the mouth of my first drum teacher. I think I understand what he meant. These sticks are so different to any drummer who has played their careers with Vic Firth Americans, etc. I find that when it comes to drum sets, I’m always willing to try something new. However, drum sticks are the objects we interface with first and foremost. We spend every waking moment behind the set holding onto them, making sounds through them. They are extensions of us. These sticks are coated in a varnish that reacts with my fingers leaving my palms sweaty, my fingers red and raw, and the pigment of the clear coating on my hands. Who knows the implication of this long term, but I have a feeling the sticks won’t even last that long considering I broke my left handed stick within 20 minutes of drumming out to 1980’s Rush. 1980’s! the soft stuff era for Neil Peart, not even his harder rawer stuff, the slow, melodic beats… But this brings together the most important and greatest aspect of this product: there are 3 sticks bundled in each “pair.” 3 sticks per pair? Yes, and that makes damn good sense when you think about it. Any drummer knows, you walk into a store, go to the stick bin, pull out two pairs of same brand sticks, and you see they have size mismatches. This is nothing new, no computer guided laser precision, nothing has changed this. The only solution is to tough it out, or get these. This way, when one stick breaks, you have a matched third stick waiting. It’s a nice touch, and something that you don’t realize the implications until after the fact, but it’s a nice luxury none-the-less. I really tried my best to enjoy these sticks. But, in the end, you can only change something so much before the feeling of alienation wears off and anger ensues.

The DW 7000 is a single bass drum pedal for use within the context of a full drum set. It's a light pedal and is really easy to kick down on it hard without applying an excess amount of pressure. I'm primarily not a drummer, but recently did a recording session where the drummer brought in this pedal as an extra option to what we have at the studio. He ended up using this as most drummers like to use their own pedal to feel comfortable, even though we weren't using his DW kick drum. I did get a chance to play it a little bit and was really impressed overall with it's ease of use. The sound is always going to be good when it comes to a DW bass drum pedal, as they're all pretty well built and have a proper sounding beater for sure. I don't know if I noticed any major differences in sound when compared to the DW 5000, but that is a superior pedal. The DW 7000 is also really solid and in most cases will do the job just fine for players. Unless you've already got a top of the line drum set (and a back up), it's probably not going to be necessary for you to spend a whole bunch of money on something like the DW 5000. This DW 7000 offers up a really solid option for drummers who want a kick drum pedal outside of their drum set but don't want to spend a ton of loot outside of what they've already spent on the kit itself. This is really all about comfort as it's great to have a kick drum pedal that you feel totally at ease with. I think a lot of drummers will find this in the DW 7000, so give it a shot if you're after a new kick drum pedal.

I recently used a DW 22" Kick Drum from their Collector's Series drum set and if you're looking for a very tight sounding kick drum, look no further than this one. I'm not sure if you can buy this drum individually or if you need to buy a full kit to get it, but we only using the kick drum from the kit and for whatever reason didn't have the rest of the kit around. The session was for a metal band, and at first we weren't happy with the way the kick was sounding on the drummer's kit, so we switched this one out and it made a world of difference. Since it was for a metal band and we were looking for an extremely tight kick drum sound to kick through the mix, this drum fit right in place and sounded great. It didn't take too much tuning or messing around with it to get a good sound from it, as the drum was in great shape although I don't know the year it was made or anything like that. In my opinion, the 22" size is ideal for almost all types of rock music as it's big enough to get a wide sound but not too big where it still doesn't sound tight. As always, the drum is made extremely well thanks to the fine makers of drums over at DW. Since I don't know if this drum is sold individually or not, it's hard to say what sort of price the drum on it's own would command if you wanted it on it's own, but it's definitely not a cheap drum as DW only makes high quality drums. If you're looking for just a new kick drum or a even a full kit, it won't get too much better than a DW...

(Originally written by battsrad81/translated from Audiofanzine FR) First of all, the DW Workshop Series Drums is a very rare model because it was produced only two or three years. It's a very classy model by DW with all-maple shells without reinforcing hoops (no Keller shells). At that time it was only available in two finishes: Satin Oil or lacquer finish Chrome-plated hardware and oval lugs (no round lugs like on the Collector Series) with narrow thread for more precision. These lugs inspired the PDP models produced by DW later, which are different . STM suspension tom mounts and BDM slide track tom holder. Everything is perfect. I've owned this drum kit since 01/22/2002. I bought it new and it's just fantastic. The knowhow packed in this drum kit is impressive and makes it an exceptional instrument with incomparable sound. My model is the same as on the picture: 10*8, 12*9, 14*11, 16*13 and 22*18 bass drum (diam*depth) with lacquer finish in Sea Blue. The bass drum has no tom mount system (so there's no hole nor fasteners affecting the resonance) because all toms are suspended on stands or on a rack (I have a DR500), even the 16" low tom. The sound is powerful, accurate and rich with controlled sustain and overtones. It deserves to be rightly tuned (and without any damping...). In short, you always get the SOUND. The PRICE almost gives me a heart attack... I even kept the price tag (for the money I payed, I won't throw anything away lol...). And you only get the 10", 12", 14", 16" and 22", without snare and accessories. It's the price of excellence... Value for money: very good/very expensive... I'm one of those who thinks quality has no price... unfortunately it does. Of course I would buy it again. It's a pleasure to play this priceless instrument...