Simmons sd-500

[Ah_Dziz]

im in the market for a cheap electronic kit for myself and my kids to bang on and so far this one has by far the best price to feature ratio. I was just wondering if anybody around here has any experience with it and could let me know if there are any deal breaker type issues (bearing in mind it's a 500 dollar kit). It has a chokable crash and a dual zone snare which is awesome. It has some sounds which I'm sure will be fine for my kids, and usb connectivity for when I want to trigger real sounds from the pc. There is no mention of whether the hat pedal sends a continuously variable signal or
Even whether the brain module supports that type of input if I were to upgrade the pedal. Also there seem to be no reviews aside from two magazine reviews which just read like press releases.

So basically if anybody around these parts owns this thing or works at a shop where they've had some hands on playing with it, I'd love to hear about it.

JJ

[ghettosynth]

im in the market for a cheap electronic kit for myself and my kids to bang on and so far this one has by far the best price to feature ratio. I was just wondering if anybody around here has any experience with it and could let me know if there are any deal breaker type issues (bearing in mind it's a 500 dollar kit). It has a chokable crash and a dual zone snare which is awesome. It has some sounds which I'm sure will be fine for my kids, and usb connectivity for when I want to trigger real sounds from the pc. There is no mention of whether the hat pedal sends a continuously variable signal or
Even whether the brain module supports that type of input if I were to upgrade the pedal. Also there seem to be no reviews aside from two magazine reviews which just read like press releases.

So basically if anybody around these parts owns this thing or works at a shop where they've had some hands on playing with it, I'd love to hear about it.

JJ

I don't know that specific bit of kit, but, just FYI, the Simmons company has nothing to do with the 80s gear, other than owning rights to use the name. When I was looking at cheap options for digital drums some time ago, they were not well reviewed by most musicians/drummers. Things may have changed, of course.

[cornutt]

Guitar Center owns the name, and they're using it to sell Chinese-made gear. Dave Simmons is very unhappy about this development. Take that how you wish. I think if I was in the market for that sort of thing, I'd save up for a V-drums set, but if you just want something for the kids to play with, this may do.

[ghettosynth]

Yeah, in fact, I might have misstated as, according to Glynn Thomas who claims to still hold the right to the name in the U.S., Guitar Center did not actually acquire the rights to use the Simmons name, rather, they simply assumed that nobody would contest the usage in the U.S.

http://www.hellfiredrums.com/simmons-cl ... own-again/

[Ah_Dziz]

Yeah I'm not expecting the world. My local guitar center had one set up and it felt kind of like the shitty Alesis set I used to have. I'm gonna do some research on whether or not it's got a good enough brain unit that I could gradually upgrade parts (even to other brands of pads) if the kids take to it. I just don't want to buy something super expensive for the kids just to break it or never use it because I'm not any kind of drummer at least not to the extent that I need to have a kit(don't get me wrong I'll play it plenty especially when it comes to hooking it up to a computer and triggering some seriously crazy stuff). Do any of you know how decent the low end Ddrums are?

[JCJR]

As best I recall the old original Simmons stuff was built pretty tough. Dunno nothin about new stuff.