The Zildjian A Custom line is 25 years old this year so we thought we would take a look at a selection of them. The A Customs were originally created to have a contemporary feel to them and designed to have neither an overly bright nor dark sound. The review cymbals in the video are

Mapex Heartbreaker Mapex has been hard at it again. All three of these snare drums come with Remo USA heads top and bottom and Puresound wires, which I really liked as it means you can get great sounds straight out of the box and not have to spend more money replacing cheaper parts.

I could probably try and come up with lots of clever word plays and adjectives to describe how the drums in question here look, but would I see that as rather pointless in this instance as they kind of do it for themselves. These drums are wonderfully detailed, handcrafted and made with absolutely high end

A couple of years ago I got to check out DW’s Machined Direct Drive bass drum pedals . These pedals represented a big step forward for DW, as far as kick drum pedals go in general. Roll along to present day, and we get to the fairly recent release of the new chain drive version of these

Coloured cymbals can be a bit polarizing – either people think they’re cool and love them or think they’re pointless and a gimmick. Me, I’ve always loved both the look and sound of coloured cymbals and have been a lifelong fan of the Paiste Color Sound and Visions lines. One of the first cymbals I

I believe I’ve said before that I’m a big snare drum fan, so when something new lands in front of me that is a bit different and I haven’t seen or tried before, I get enthused. This particular snare drum has been made by a new British company called, as you’ll have seen, RePercussion Drums,

I have to admit to knowing nothing about these cymbals before they were given to me to check out, the only brief I got on them was that they were ‘expensive’. However, as soon as I tried them, it was clear what these cymbals are about and why they are expensive. The Elite line is

Evolution - Narada Michael Walden (CD) If you’re not familiar with Narada then you should be! He’s played some very high profile gigs in the past including replacing Billy Cobham with Mahavishnu Orchestra. Now he writes and produces a lot of his own music and this is one such album. I’ve been listening to this

In the before times, basically anything prior to about 1957, drum heads were made from animal hide – hence the reason they’re sometimes called ‘skins’. You probably all knew that.  Earthtone heads are made with genuine calfskin and are a step back towards in time but are made with modern technology and methods. The heads mount the

  The concept of reversible cymbals isn’t exactly new, and mixing and matching hi hat cymbals will have been around longer still. However, I can’t really remember, in the last thirty years, many companies exploring the concept of interchangeable cymbal packs. The idea behind the Trihats is to provide a more diverse sonic palette, which