PDP By DW7-Piece Concept Maple Shell Pack with Chrome Hardware Pearlescent White with Drum Sticks, Pair

For the money you cant "beat" these drums. The hardware is high quality and the exterior finish is above average. The maple ply shells carry well and the 7 piece set I bought is versatile to almost any music. I did have to put new REMO skins on the cans and once tuned they sound very good. I have always been a Pearl guy and glad I switched to try these.

This is my second PDP kit. The first being a 10 year old FS series birch kit. The major difference in tone between birch and maple blows my mind. So much darker and warmer. Birch sounds great, don't get me wrong. But maple just sounds even better, afaiac.The shipment arrived on two different days. I chose Thursday as my Amazon day and it still arrived the day before. But only half of it showed up. I contacted Amazon and found out that they only issued one tracking number. Much to my surprise, UPS delivered the second half in a raging snow storm while I was out clearing my driveway! A lot of people talk trash about shipping these days but I have nothing but positive things to say about our drivers here in VT. Props!Once everything arrived, I swapped out heads to some Evans G2's. I have yet to order a hydraulic for the 16" floor tom so I used the factory 7mil. It does sounds pretty awesome with just the factory heads, I will say. I used the resos all around, just because 7mil is 7mil. No matter what brand you use, they generally perform the exact same.The snare had one lug that wouldn't tighten at all. It seems the threads of the swivel nut were over cut in production. The tension rod would not get purchase and tighten enough to tune. Luckily, PDP/DW included 6 extra swivel nuts and 8 tension rods (6 regular and 2 for the kick) - while not brass like the original one, the snare was able to be tuned after a head swap. It's decent. It won't replace my 10 ply, 10 lug OCP 14x5.5, nor my collection of maple Ludwigs, but the snare would do in a pinch. I contacted PDP customer service via email about the swivel nut and am awaiting a reply. Will update on that later.All around, I wanted a nice wood grain kit that wasn't going to break the bank. I also wanted to be able to build whatever configuration I wanted, hence going with a 7 piece. I can make a 2 piece out of a 7, I can make a 6 piece out of a 7, 4 piece, etc, etc. I won on all fronts. The finish is superb all around, the workmanship seems to be on par with any other mid priced intermediate kit I've seen/owned. The shell interiors are sanded and smooth. All the hardware was tight as well. I checked. Out of previous experience, I checked. All good on that, too.I will say that one of the straps for the snare was also not properly installed. It was tilted off to one side of the butt plate and at a severe angle. It was not sitting flat as it rounded over the edge. Both screws of the buttplate were tight enough so it was set like that. Poor QC on the snare. However, I didn't buy this kit for the snare. I bought it for the rest of maple shells.One reviewer made note of poorly milled bearing edges. I completely disagree. I use a Drum Dial and had no issues whatsoever getting everything tuned. With the exception of the one bad swivel nut, this was the easiest kit tune I've had yet. I thought my Ludwig Elements birch was easy until this thing came along. It holds well, too. Everything held up well during my first three days breaking it in and getting used to it. No major detunes at all. No loose tension rods, and the kick drum. WTF does the kick drum sound amazing. I purchased the plate to close up the hole on top and haven't ported it yet. Not sure I will. It's by far my favorite kick drum sound I've had.Would I recommend this kit? Absolutely. If they make one in satin finish I'll probably break down and get one of those, too. It's worth it.

Great for the price, it’s high end enough for both an amateur and a pro…but the only thing is the package came in two boxes at different delivery dates…I had to order it twice because the first order I made the second box was lost due to UPS’s negligence but the second order came by FedEx and it was on time and came together.

This set was packaged well and arrived in great shape. After unboxing I assembled the bass drum and tuned the toms and I am very happy with the sound. The included bass drum pillow is pretty crappy but since I didn't even realize it came with one I had already purchased one separately so no big deal. This is where it gets interesting, the last drum I pulled out was the snare, I had not paid much attention to it since it was already fully assembled and I figured I could just use it as is, but I was wrong. When I picked it up I heard debris kicking around from inside the drum and when I looked through the resonant head I noticed little metal shavings all over the place! So I started taking the head off to clean the drum out and as I started disassembling the snare I noticed a few other things like one of the tension rods was missing and the hoop was very unevenly tensioned around the head...frustrating but I'll probably replace these heads and the kit comes with some spare rods so no big deal. BUT, as I kept disassembling I noticed that a number of the tension rod casings were loose...so lose that there was a visible gap between the casing and the shell. Once I got the resonant head off the drum I looked inside and discovered where all those metal shavings were from, someone had stripped all the screws that hold the tension rod casings to the body when this drum was assembled and they didn't even get them tight in the process, they were both stripped and loose! I was unable to tighten them with a Phillips screwdriver because they were ALL completely stripped but fortunately the screws have a hex head on them so I was able to tighten them with a socket. I inspected the bearing edge and there wasn't any visible damage to the shell from the metal shavings (fortunately!) so I proceeded to reassemble the snare. The resonant head had been seated at an angle when first assembled so it was shot but the batter head was fine. When putting the heads back on the drum I discovered why that one tension rod was missing...the lug had been cross-threaded by which ever moron had assembled this snare...again, fortunately the set comes with spare parts so I took the head back off the drum (again) and took the casing off to replace the cross-threaded lug and got everything back together. I don't know if the guy assembling this snare was a trainee or a drunk, but I hope this shoddy work was eventually discovered and the moron was fired. I am surprised this made it through quality control given the numerous problems with the snare assembly. HOWEVER, once I had the drum back together everything looks good, sounds good, and I'm no worse for wear except having lost a few hours to refurbishing this snare. I've been playing on the set for a few weeks now and I have to say I really like the set, it was a good value and the drums sound great. I did have to take the snare apart a second time after a few weeks when a screw fell out...apparently I missed one when I went around re-tightening all the mounting hardware the first time. If I had bought this snare separate from the kit I would have returned it but since it was part of a kit I didn't want to go through the hassle. I'm disappointed though, I expected more from PDP (and by extension DW). Even the no-name brands manage to screw their drums together correctly. If not for the problems with this snare I am sure I would have given the set five stars. I have to say that I'll have to think twice before buying or recommending PDP equipment to anyone because of this experience.

Great quality drum kit. Showed up new and in box. Out of the 5 pieces, only the bass drum and floor tom required assembly. Also comes with 2 pillows for inside the bass drum, which was a nice addition since i wasn't expecting it. Also the tom mount center post has the option for adding a cymbal stand to it, which was also a nice surprise. Hardware feels well built and the tom mounts are floating and braced. Very sturdy feeling kit.

PDP was a great buy, drums sound awesome. Unless you want to pay 6 to 10 thousand for DW drums these are a good buy.

A great drummer once remarked on how to choose a set of drums: "a drum is a drum. If it's well built and you can get a decent sound out of it, then there you have it." This is all of that. Great set for a great price. You will need a cymbal stand to attach the 10" Tom and a snare stand.

Drum set is awesome and totally worth the money!

The listing said I was purchasing a 7-piece PDP Concept Maple kit in blue sparkle, and it was basically half price after tax. Upon arrival, it was a Ddrum Paladin kit. Looked at all the drums, and the rims that would be for the floor tom were rusting and corroded. Already sent them back and awaiting my refund.