Reviews

Drumeo's $149 triple-driver IEMs deliver full-range warm sound and excellent isolation for drummers, with a tour-grade cable and a great case. The one catch is a wide fit you may have to force in.

An e-kit that looks like a drum kit. The 5X hangs full-size cymbals off real wood shells and skips the rack entirely, and at $3,999 it undercuts every flagship it resembles.

Roland's former flagship is one of the best used buys in e-drums. The TD-50K's triggering still beats kits shipping today, if you can live without Bluetooth.

HXW sent me their budget sampling pad. It undercuts the Alesis Sample Pad Pro by $100 with extra inputs the SPD-SX lacks. Stock sounds and build are weak, but for triggering backing tracks live the value is hard to beat.

HXW sent me the SD201-C in 2020. Great mesh pads and a surprisingly good hi-hat, held back by a clunky module and inconsistent rims. Now discontinued.

Pick-your-own sample libraries, deep per-mic customization, and a groove library that makes great drums easy. My go-to drum sampler.

The most popular sampling pad ever made. After years of touring with one, here's what it does brilliantly, where it falls short, and why the SPD-SX Pro is now the better buy.

Alesis's discontinued flagship from 2019. Full-size wooden shells at half the Roland price, undone by hi-hat and piezo QC issues. A tinkerer's kit on the used market in 2026.

The Nitro Max packs 8 mesh pads, Bluetooth, and BFD sounds into a $449 kit. It is a solid starter, but the Simmons Titan 50 might be doing it better now.

Years on, still the best value multipad for gigging drummers. 8,000+ samples, the best I/O on any pad, and about $300 less than the SPD-SX Pro. The interface is a bit clunky, but the value is not a question.

The drum VST I reach for when a metal demo needs to sound finished. Guitarists, songwriters, and producers chasing modern heavy tones should start here.

The touring standard for electronic mallet performance. I ran one in Vinyl Theatre for years to play keys parts through Ableton. The pads are superb and it is bulletproof, but the internal sounds are poor and it is a serious investment.