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DW Design Series Maple Pancake Bass Drum - 2.5 x 20 inch - Black Satin

Item ID: DDBD0320BLCR
DW Design Series Maple Pancake Bass Drum - 2.5 x 20 inch - Black Satin
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DW Design Series Maple Pancake Bass Drum - 2.5 x 20 inch - Black Satin Reviews

20" Single-headed Maple Bass Drum with Spurs - Black Satin

With its quick, controlled acoustic tone and dreamlike portability, the DW Pancake Bass Drum will please countless touring and alternative-tastes drummers. The 2.5" x 20", single-headed, North American hard rock maple shell is powerful and musical, able to output a surprising amount of volume and low end. Even so, the real magic of the Pancake Bass Drum lies in its easy mikability. With a specialty kick mic on this drum, it churns out a surprisingly big sound. DW's claw-hook spurs keep the Pancake Bass Drum stable as it's played, and can be removed for traditional gong drum effects or alternative mounting systems. Get big bass without a backache with the 20" DW Pancake Bass Drum from Sweetwater.

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Price:$429 and 00 cents
Special Financing - Ends Aug 2, 2026. $12/month with 36 month financing*
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March 30, 2023

It Depends

By Michael
Music Background: Pro drummer.

Pros
- Great for practice.
- Great for beginning drummers.
- It is not as loud as a normal bass drum by far. Some may see that as really postive.
- I purchased it as an option to take up less stage real estate on tight stages. It does achieve this.

Cons
- It is uninspiring to play for a live gig from the drummer's seat point of view. Close mic-ing it, sure it sounds good out front. If the drummer can't get any of that umpf back via monitors it's crippling.
- For a sliver of a bass drum, it is priced higher than some full bass drums. That is not the fault of Sweetwater. They are the best.
- You will have to tie a small rope around each of the two legs and through your drum throne to keep it from walking away.

Closing
If the drum, by itself, was louder I'd use it every gig. Takes up no space on stage or in your car.

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August 26, 2022

Great for travel and small rehearsals

By Dave R. from DC
Music Background: Drummer

I purchased one of these used and it already had a couple of the things you may want to use with it. It came with a Remo HK-MUFF-20 Bass Drum Muffle System along with a different head. I ended up changing to an eMad drum head. I think it works pretty well considering the size. It's important to position the bass drum spurs correctly to maintain stability. It works best with a bass drum pedal with a solid base.

The sound is adequate it's not super loud, but it does sound like a bass drum with the head configuration I've been using. I've used it on small gigs, and if it's low volume jazz it seems to work fine, if it's a more rocking thing then you may want to brings something else. I have a converted 16x16 floor tom, and it works a bit better in bigger spaces.

This drum fits very easily into a 24" cymbal bag. You can easily fit a snare drum and a couple cymbals in the case as well making it really easy to do a 2 piece drum kit with everything but the hardware in one bag. I've taken this on trips and kept all of it in my trunk along with my luggage with no issues.

I wouldn't have this is my primary gigging kit, but for light stuff and practices where there is no drum set on site this is a great option.

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July 7, 2022

It's a Kick!

By Mark B. from Klickitat, WA
Music Background: Piano, Guitar, Ukulele, Brass, and all them other things...including Strings.

Oh, boy...fun times ahead with this pancake. Really nicely built with lots of attention to detail. Meet your new metronome!

January 11, 2020

Great product if support added!!

By Ken M. from Novi, MI
Music Background: Club drummer: Rock, funk, Reggae, Country, Blues, Progressive Metal

I was looking for a compact bass drum so I tried this DW 20-inch pancake model. The quality of materials and construction is excellent. But there are two major flaws:
1) Sound: it has a unique cool sound, but resonates too much and would need to be muffled much more than it is out of the box. The best way I can describe the sound is that it's like a boomy, almost Hip Hop kick drum sound. It would be much more useful of a sound when played with sticks like a rack tom config, which is also available from DW.
2) Stability: this is the real kicker, and yes the pun was intended...
This thing flops back and forth about 3 or 4" every time you stomp the pedal. I don't see how this flew under the radar @DW but there's no way you could use this unit with only the hardware shown. My guess is, it was first introduced to be played like a rack tom horizontally, them they saw an opportunity to add clip-on legs (spurs) and call it a bass drum. But apparently no one tested it in this configuration because it's a total joke. I'll include a video so you can see how extremely unstable it is.
The good news is you can actually add a bipod stand to fix this issue but it's a special order, as they are components in DW's Low Pro performance drum kit. This not only adds significant cost but also takes up a lot more space if you're trying to go the "minimalist" route in your drum setup, which is What attracted me to the idea of a pancake bass drum in the first place.
In summary I'm not throwing DW under the bus. They're obviously a first-rate world-class manufacturer of drums and hardware, but made an oversight in this particular adaptation of an existing cool product.
For my application, i switched to the Pearl compact traveler 18 in bass. It's about 30% less money, sounds perfectly professional right out of the box, is extremely stable, includes a matching 10 inch snare drum, and even has a soft neoprene handle to carry it...

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October 29, 2019

Neat little bass

By Jerry W. from Wichita, Ks

The bass sounds pretty good for a 20 inch single head. The spurs have carpet spikes that really hold well. I haven't played on a hard smooth surface, so I can't comment on the rubber feet. It is part of a practice setup, along with a RTOM Black Hole that helps keep the peace between my house and my daughter's house, where we help raise three g-kids. So the volume is low, but well defined. I even found a cymbal case that it fits in, and the cymbals nest in the drum, providing 18 inches is the biggest cymbal you have.

May 29, 2019

Impressive

By Sweetwater Customer

Pretty amazing amount of attack and low-end thump! Set up was fairly easy. I use a DW pedal with it, and the drum stays put, no slipping. It took a little tuning and hardware tightening to get rid of a nasty sympathetic vibration, but once I got everything adjusted, the vibrations were gone and it sounds great. My only criticism is that considering the price, a travel bag should be included. Overall though, a good purchase.

March 5, 2019

Great for a compact stage.

By bunnyman from Wood River, IL
Music Background: Gigger

It can move all over the place, so I suggest getting another set of hoop clamps and spurs. Is it going to sound like a 24x16" kick? No. I trigger mine, or you could use an Earthworks Kick Pad to make it sound like a more powerful kick drum. The 20" size makes a very fast drum, and it does put out a decently satisfying thump. As far as it goes, this can be part of a bass/snare setup or take a rack tom and floor tom with you; it is a tiny compromise in sound, but the stage is much larger for it, plus you could throw everything into one bag. And for the price, it"s cheaper than having a drum shoppe cut a nice drum up for you and keeping it tidy!

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