Ludwig Questlove Pocket Kit 4-piece Complete Drum Set - Silver Sparkle Reviews

If you're thinking of buying this kit for your gigs or to play at a bar do it! Sounds amazing the only bad part are the Tom heads upgrade those and the cymbals and you're golden! 10/10

The Pros
1. It stays still on ground / hardware doesn't move too easily
2. Skins are decent quality
3. Sufficiently loud for jamming / playing out
4. Shells and cymbals position well, not awkwardly or or comfortable.
5. Hardware is coated with some black material , not exposed metal or chrome plate so I believe this will help considerably with prevention of rust or oxidization. And it looks sharp.

The Cons
1. Your friends will make fun of you at first
2. To "sound good" you probably will want to buy new cymbals.
3. The hi hat stand tilts a little (the inside metal pole which holds the top hat) though it is manageable it is difficult to get it totally straight. That said there is a screw and spring underneath to address the tilt. So that helps too.

For the price, my expectations were low. My expectations were blown away. Very easy to assemble.

Supremely impressed with these. Pro quality and sound in a kid-sized kit (that's interestingly still comfortable for me to play on too). Might catch me doing a gig in a small room and borrowing my kid's drums

Not a toy, the Qusetlove pocket kit is a real and complete drum set. It sounds great and the kids love it. The construction is good, and assembly videos online are very helpful. A quality drum kit at a great price!

This drum kit is a sheer delight. I bought this for my 11 year old daughter, but there is nothing childlike about any aspect of it other than the scale of the kit itself, and that has more to do with its compact footprint than the size of the drummer. Any capable drummer can deliver a satisfying percussive bedrock rhythm with just what's in the box. The quality of materials, the level of workmanship and, most gratifyingly, the sound and feel of this set are astonishing, given that this kit can be had, delivered, for less than $. It's the best thing I've bought in years.

If you have young children interested in learning joys of music through drums, I don't think you can get better than this. They'll have a blast and the quality is good enough to enjoy for everyone in the family! The only improvement I would make are the cymbals but that can be easily replaced if you want to invest in a better set.

I guess I was the unlucky one, but our new box was missing 16 2-inch tension rods in the box. I would make sure to double check that all parts are there before you start the assembly process (I've requested SweetCare for support).

I"ve been playing drums for 30+ years. I have had many drum kits, both pro and entry level. I purchased this kit for 4 yr old son"s birthday. I am totally blown away by the quality of this kit...! In fact, I may play it on some acoustic, low key, gigs, if he"ll let me! Great job Questlove and great job Ludwig.

So, being a drummer, I am ALWAYS i terested in seeing other drummer's gear.

Well, one of my students, who is a very fast learner, got one of these sets as an early Christmas present. I was asked to help set it up, and show him and his parents how to take care of the kit.

I am BLOWN away at the construction of the shells. Although they are not USA made, they felt very nice for the price.

Now, my student is very small for a 10 year old, and this is the perfect size for him. A 16" bass drum is absolutely nice.

After getting the heads on, even I was jealous of this mighty little kit! Even though I play heavier styles, this kit is amazing for just about everything. From practice, to gospel, to RNB, to even Pop.

I ostensibly bought this kit for my kids (ages 6 and 8) but I also wanted a compact kit that could fit in the corner of my office/studio room. I'm not a drummer but I like to keep drums around for demo/fun purposes, and I love the tight, punchy Questlove sound. The kit more than lives up to its reputation and is fun for both kids and adults... though there are some problems to be aware of before buying.

THE GOOD:
The build quality on these drums is incredible. Everything feels like decent-quality wood and metal, with no flimsy plasticky parts. And I can't believe how good they sound immediately after setup! They don't sound good "for kid drums". They sound good, PERIOD.

The hardware is much higher quality than I had any right to expect given the price (with some exceptions... see below), and the throne feels like it will last for years, even with my adult weight sitting on it.

THE BAD:
The kick pedal is pretty poor quality. It doesn't fully clamp to the drum, and the spring mechanisms loosen and detach as you play. I had to pull the pedal off my adult-size kit and lower the batter height/angle to make it work for this kick.

Unlike the drums, the cymbals feel like toys rather than actual musical instruments. They sound pretty awful. I swapped out the hi-hats for the set from my adult kit and got rid of the crash entirely. Virtually any cymbal you might replace it with will sound better.

The video lessons are just okay. The tuning tutorial is 8 minutes long (for all four drums) and gives kids vague instructions like "find the note you like and tune all the lugs to match it" without actually providing any reference tones that might help a beginner. There are only two videos that actually show kids how to play a beat using kick/snare/hats. You can find better tutorials from amateurs on YouTube.

OVERALL:
Despite these issues, I want to remind you that this fully-functional, well-balanced drum set... If you're looking for a beginner-quality kit with a small footprint, you will never find a better deal than this anywhere.

I bought the kit for my 6 year old buddy as a Christmas gift. I assembled it (put the heads on and tuned them) As a drummer of 40 years, the lack of instructions included in the box was no problem to me, but I would suggest that retailers offer a setup sheet with these.
I gave him the gift early :-) it is holding up great under serious beating! LOL Ya the cymbals aren't the greatest, but for a kid starting out they are fine.

I bought this for my grandson who is 2 1/2 years old and has in the last year discovered drums. So instead of beating on my kit he now has his own and this will do the job for the next decade. The quality of the kit is really nice when compared to almost any kit from a major manufacturer and it is light years ahead of any of the kiddie drum kits. Putting it together was easy though if you are not a drummer it may take a bit longer but it's not rocket science.

The sound from the shells is great if you tension both the batter and the resonant head the same. I also backed off one lug on the top and bottom a bit to drop the pitch for a bigger sound. I put an old towel in the kick to give it a more thud sound and cut down on the sustain, I also outfitted the toms and snare (and cymbals) with some little Slapklatz silicon dampners on them which also cuts down on the sustain of the drums and cymbals. The hardware is decent but I do have a slight rattle where the cymbal boom attaches with what looks like a chrome U bolt and it seems the top of the cymbal boom that allows the cymbal to tilt has teeth that do not quite line up so I suspect the rattle is a combination of these two things. The kick pedal has good action though the rubber hoop protector has no adhesive on the back so if you remove the kick pedal be sure to keep an eye on that little piece as it could get lost quite easily.

The stock drum heads I am sure will need to be replaced down the road but I would not worry about them until they get to the point where they start making the drum go out of tune. When that happens put on a nice set of Remos or Evans batter heads.

The cymbals...well, what can I say. They are a step up from using a metal trash can lid but again, when these are shot step up to just about anything that is made with bronze and it'll be a mass improvement in sound. The drum throne lowers way down for little ones but even when I took out the seat height adjustment bolt and lowered it another inch it was a bit high for my grandson. By the time he's 3 next summer he might be able to reach the pedals...no biggie at this time.

So I think this is a great little kit for very young beginners all the way to pre-teens and like most people say in their reviews, this is not a toy and will be able to take the beating a young inexperienced future drummer will no doubt heap upon it. You throw on some quality heads and cymbals down the road, add in some more hardware when needed and you have a compact little kit that will hold it's own in the real world.

This is not a toy drum kit, it's a real instrument. The toms sound great, even better than my Gretsch Catalina with similar mahogany (aka Poplar) shells. Maybe it's the heads; they appear to be a thicker single ply and the toms are real punchy. The hardware and cymbals are a step up from the other kids drum kits you see online. Two issues with the hardware stand out: 1) there is no "lock" on the hanging tom to keep it from spinning - where the arm slides into the tom - so you have to crank down on the wing nut to keep it in place - I could see this causing problems. 2) The kick pedal doesn't tighten properly to the hoop of the kick drum. If tightened, the bottom of the pedal hits the wing nut and the beater can't reach the head. The cymbals are the cheapest part of the kit. They'll take a beating and I guess that's what they are designed to do. Overall I am pleased with kit and it's fun for adults to play on as well!

I have to agree with most other reviews here. There's good and bad. The shells sound great and live up to Ludwigs name. The cymbals are mediocre at best. The bass pedal doesn't fit properly unless you raise the beater otherwise the bottom of the beater will rebound into the head and it doesn't secure properly to the rim.

They're for my 7 year old nephew and for the price, I'm still pretty impressed with the product even with its flaws.

First, I'm 6' 3", and this is a great kit for adults. I needed something small, and it's a perfect fit for my bedroom. The cymbals aren't exactly high quality, but there's a lot of charm in this little drum set.

Second, if you're not familiar with setting up a drum kit, don't expect any help from the Ludwig videos, which supposedly tell you how to put everything together. Well, they don't. A lot of details are simply left out. If you're a beginner, you're gonna have to think through most of the assembly by yourself. Or find other videos on YouTube.

Third, the slot for the rack tom is not working properly. There's a little insert that should move with the wing nut, and it's not mobile at all. As a consequence, the mount for the rack tom won't fit in the hole. I'm hoping Sweetwater is going to tell me how to deal with that.

I got this kit as a gift to start out my journey into drumming, but I can say I hate it.

The Pros:

The tom tom has an okay sound to it, after messing with it and tuning it is able to play nicely.

The floor tom (after messing with it and tuning it)sounds great. I love the low heavy sound it makes.

The Cons:

The bass drum has no rhythmic effect to any song I try to play, and the beater along with the bass pedal are terrible. I had to use a different beater just for that reason. The two spring design on the pedal are terrible. They always come lose and don't help for quality. It sounds more like a marching band bass drum a percussionist would use and/or play than an actual drum kit drum.

The snare drum has many problems. The more I hit it, the more the screws come loose. I have to adjust the all the time bottom and top just to fix it, but then the snare sound is terrible. The snares make too much noise when I am playing the tom tom or the floor tom.

The cymbals are the worst part of the kit. The hi-hat is a bad sounding cymbal, along with the crash/ride. I had to get a different pair of hi-hats to get rid of the old hi-hat, and the crash/ride is the worst. After playing it for a while, it has become bent and worn-down. I don't recommend using those cymbals.

The bass drum had a small wood break on the inside of the rim when it came out of the box.

Overall, I question the quality and sound of this kit. It doesn't sound as great as it should, and I haven't really enjoyed playing it as I should.

I got this kit as a gift to start out my journey into drumming, but I can say I hate it.

The Pros:

The tom tom has an okay sound to it, after messing with it and tuning it is able to play nicely.

The floor tom (after messing with it and tuning it)sounds great. I love the low heavy sound it makes.

The Cons:

The bass drum has no rhythmic effect to any song I try to play, and the beater along with the bass pedal are terrible. I had to use a different beater just for that reason. The two spring design on the pedal are terrible. They always come lose and don't help for quality. It sounds more like a marching band bass drum a percussionist would use and/or play than an actual drum kit drum.

The snare drum has many problems. The more I hit it, the more the screws come loose. I have to adjust the all the time bottom and top just to fix it, but then the snare sound is terrible. The snares make too much noise when I am playing the tom tom or the floor tom.

The cymbals are the worst part of the kit. The hi-hat is a bad sounding cymbal, along with the crash/ride. I had to get a different pair of hi-hats to get rid of the old hi-hat, and the crash/ride is the worst. After playing it for a while, it has become bent and worn-down. I don't recommend using those cymbals.

The bass drum had a small wood break on the inside of the rim when it came out of the box.

Overall, I question the quality and sound of this kit. It doesn't sound as great as it should, and I haven't really enjoyed playing it as I should.