Hi all my 12 your old son wants to start drumming. He’s had some practice at school. Can anyone recommend a good starter setup? Thought I’d get a second hand set locally if possible but no idea what setup to get, good quality brands etc.

Did the same for my 12 yr old daughter. Thing to remember with drums and it may seem obvious they are loud very loud.

We have them set up in the garage and inside the house is pretty insulated from the noise but on the street outside youre at the concert when they get going in there ( theres also amps and guitars for the other kids).

As for type I bought some flat one ones a full set that were about £600 new for £100 of gumtree. They work fine but it was luck more than judgement. If youre going second hand see whats for sale then google it. Good luck and be nice to you’re niebhours.

I’d start small, cymbal, ride, snare,one fill and bass from one of the decent brands. Pearl, Aria etc. If he really likes it you can add fills at a later date and as his skills increase.

At least with a known brand it might hold value of he doesn’t stick at it and you need to move it on. Remember that they are seriously loud. That might seem obvious, but stopping the sound from traveling and annoying neighbours is seriously tricky

Insist they wear ear protection too even when only practising for a few minutes. A friend of mine is a professional sound engineer and guitarist and won’t not use them when he’s working and his kids wear them all the time when they are practising – he’s seen too many people with tinnitus!!

Something like this should suffice.
But Yeh what funk master said.

These days you may as well look at electronic kits as they are miles better than they used to be and you can pick up kits like alesis nitro and forge (second hand) for not too much. These will allow the child to practice away for decent amounts of time with much less noise than acoustic kits. Plus most fit into quite a small space and some fold away easily.

I have an alesis DM10 kit with mesh heads and it’s pretty good and even quieter than the rubber pad kit I had before.

Buy him a practice pad, a snare stand, a pair of sticks and a book of rudiments. Once he can play everything in the book to a half decent tempo then buy him a decent second hand kit. Yamaha’s mid range stuff is good and can be found cheap second hand.

Edit:

FunkmasterP sed> “doesn’t stick at it”

Harharhar.

These days you may as well look at electronic kits as they are miles better than they used to be and you can pick up kits like alesis nitro and forge (second hand) for not too much. These will allow the child to practice away for decent amounts of time with much less noise than acoustic kits. Plus most fit into quite a small space and some fold away easily.

Seconded!

I love acoustic drums but for home practice they are terrible (unless you live in a country estate and have a dedicated soundproofed studio with excellent acoustics).

Roland V-drums. Fun for all the family.

Practice pads

Thanks all. Will take a look at some electronic ones.

To hijack slightly – apologies OP – since the right people will read it…we got a set of Roland V-Drums recently. A couple of the pads have a really horrible rattle/buzzing sound when struck. I’ve tried tightening them, loosening, tightening the brackets, everything I can think of. The boys drum teacher reckons it might be a loose spring inside one of them. Anyone had or heard of this? It’s very annoying.

I’ve got a Yamaha electronic kit, fairly basic but does the job. I’ve been playing for 25 years and now that I’ve not got the space, time or inclination to play properly the electric kit is enough to practice on and keep my hand in.

Been to town – came home with the Roland TD1K. Just need get some sort of amp now!

Good work…. he’ll be made up and tap taping away to his hearts content.

Thing is you can also have a sneaky play and not need to worry about the dreadful din.

100w marshall/Fender/Mesa/Dr Z/Magnatone head and a 4×12 cab.

That way you won’t need to buy another amp for your guitar.

I just use headphones 99% of the time, run through Ann old guitar amp on very rare occasion. You can normally run you’re music as a line in to the brain to play along to music. I’m not 100% sure on the Roland’s but I’d be amazed if you couldn’t.

^yes, I have a 7 hours play list on Spotify, plug the iPhone into the head unit and away I go. I always use headphones because I am a responsible citizen.

Huggis- you probably want some sort of FRFR amp(full range flat response).

Have a google, in the meantime, get some decent FRFR (or close) headphones.

I’m not a drummer (play guitar) but am tempted ‘to get my kids’ something like the kit you just bought 🙂

Please post an update in a couple of weeks

Thanks all. I’m looking at an active studio monitor like this: Focal Monitors

However may be completely unsuitable! Some folk on the “drumming forums” say to steer clear of guitar amps (why?).

You can plug into your stereo and see how that sounds first. We usually plug ours into a tiny jbl which is fine ish given the idea of the kit is not to be as noisy as an acoustic kit.

As far as amps go, the drum forums probably say guitar Amps are not suitable because they are designed for middle / treble sounding guitars. You are unlikely to get the rich bass sound necessary for the kick drum and will sound flat. Ours sound good plugged into a bass amp. I’m not an expert though and sure there are plenty of better options – guitar amp not one of them though.

I’ve always used headphones when I’m playing, but ibvs this is no good for practicing with other musicians.
Guitar amps will reproduce no low end whatsoever and will heavily boost the mids. Modelling guitar amps however tend to have a flat response amp and speaker so may work if they have a line in for music sources.
Beware when buying active studio monitors you maybe looking at the price for one speaker, other than that a mid sized active monitor is a good choice.

It’s best to steer clear of guitar amps because the speakers are designed to colour the sound in different ways. The make up of the cab will also change the sound and feel depending on open/closed back and other variations. Guitarists will select a speaker / cab to achieve a spefic sound.

You need a FRFR amp..don’t rush it, do your research, listen to some or buy online from somewhere with a no hassle return policy.

Fwiw is use a pair of Yamaha hs8s as part of my guitar rig at home – very pleased with them