Hello everyone.
I bought a GP kit for myself recently and thought I'd do a little review.
Setup - When setting it up the first time, I noticed that it is built sideways... With the legs spread out, pedal attached, and the arm that holds the snare, tom and cymbal on the left side to put the snare in what I'd view as a a "normal" playing position, the label on the main drum points to the left and the air hole is on the right. Nothing in the front. Interesting.
Then I saw some pictures of it (and clones) online and realized that I had it set up in a playable position, which was not intended when it was built. Per the pictures that I saw online, for the main drum to be in the correct orientation I would need to spin my drum about 120 degrees counter clockwise and use the mounts differently. Per the pictures, the snare mounts off the front, the tom is off the back right and the cymbal arm goes off towards 1 o'clock. I'm pretty short (5'3") so reaching things comfortably is always a concern. The cymbals were okay, but this forced me to reach out to get to the snare and the tom being very awkward since it was way off to the right. So awkward, I reverted back very quickly to my way... sideways.
Why it's so cheap - This set is pretty cheap ($229 on Amazon), so obviously the skimped in more places than just the lack of an additional attachment for a hat. Here i what I have noticed. In my experience, the quality of a drum set can be determined by counting the lugs (for example, count the bass drum lugs of beginner(sometimes 6), intermediate (8) and pro level(10) bass drums). Typically, an 8" drum has 5 lugs and a 10" drum has 6. This 8" snare has 4 lugs, the 10" tom has 5 lugs. It could effect tune-ability, but I'm not sure it makes a lot of difference since I won't be cranking these heads too tight anyway. I'm sure they saved a whopping $20 in extra hardware, but they can probably get away with it.
Heads - Speaking of heads, there is definite room for improvement, but I'd say for now, they are okay. The are single ply heads and probably around 10 mils (maybe 12mils). I think they should be coated as then you can use brushes, but also from my experience, the coating weighs down the head which causes some dampening effects. I think everyone prefers thinner heads on the bottom, thicker on top. These heads appear about the same sans the "GP" logo on the batters. I put a felt strip on the bass head before I read some posts about dropping some cotton balls in there. I'll switch to that the next time I have the head off. The bass sounds pretty good once I put in the felt. Since the snare is separate from the main drum, there are no issues with buzzing, etc... I hate the stock snare, but I'll get into that later. I love the 10" tom sound as is, but I'm not a fan of the 15" floor tom. I think I just need to play with the tuning/dampening on it. I'll get to changing all of the heads eventually, but for now, they are usable. I'd def like to try something with dampening rings in the bass/floor tom heads.
Drum sizes - 8" is too small for a primary snare, period. The sound is too thin. No heads are going to save you there. I have already got a Pearl M-80 which is a billion times better (It's a 10"). The 10" tom is perfect for the balance between size, weight, volume, tone and timbre. I'm not sure how I feel about the 15". 14" and 16" heads are easy to find, and Remo/Evans/Aquarian makes 16" bass drum heads with the extra dampening and such. Since typically heads are even numbers (8 10 12 14) with 13" being an exception (but also the sweet spot for a medium tom and a decent size for a snare), 15" has kinda become the odd-ball sized drum. If it were 16", it would open up the head choices by allowing bass heads to be used. If it were a 14", It would be a little smaller, lighter, and possibly cheaper to manufacture/ship. Though at 16", it becomes a little cumbersome and at 14", I''m not sure it could have the *umph* from the bass that the extra square inches he 15 provides. I think I'd prefer it to be 16", but then again, for the price, compromises were made.
Cymbals/Aux - Well, we all know these are going to be upgraded right! Like the heads, they are okay to get you started. it's a 10" hi hat and a 15" crash ride. I'm sure you can find better if you look a little bit. I'll be looking into a 10" hat and 16" crash pretty soon to replace them. I think the cowbell is a worthless addition. I'd prefer it to be bigger and drier. A single higher pitched bell like the stock one seems to cut more than I feel the cocktail kit should. But thanks to SNL, Christopher Walken and the damn more cowbell skit, everyone needs more cowbell now-a-days. From the manufacturing standpoint, I'm sure they feel adding the 5$ cowbell raised their sales price by $20. I'd have paid the same price without the cowbell. *IF* I decide to use a cowbell, I'll probably use something else anyway. (I'd rather have a block, but to each is own)
Hardware. For the price, I was expecting this to be pretty dainty. All arms and legs are 3/8 with no tapering. The legs extend out much farther than traditional floor tom legs. This thing feels solid. I had a slight concern about adding too much weight to the kit and it being unstable, but after setting it up and playing with it for a few weeks, that concern is gone. So, the bass pedal that came with it is BETTER than the top of the line bass pedal I bought new about 15 years ago. Yes, I know that was 15 years ago and times have changed, etc, but I was PERFECTLY happy with my good ole trusty Pearl pedal, so this to me is quite an upgrade. If the pedal had a Tama/Pearl/Yamaha/DW/Gibraltar/Axis/etc... logo on it instead of GP, it'd be worth $120 alone, so I'd say that's a good value.
Wrap/Finish - I got a few bubbles in my wrap that I can feel, though I can't see it, only feel it. My wife liked the finish. It's blue. Dark, boring blue. It does the trick.
Complaints - Cymbal mount. It is a "Z" shaped arm/tree with mounting collars and set screws setting the height of the two cymbals. I like the concept because it is versatile and cheap, but playable? Not so much. I have lowered my cymbal arm as much as possible to get the hi-hat low enough that I don't feel I'm constantly reaching out for it, yet leaving space to use the ride. The has are still too high for extended playing. I also find that I have a habit of wanting to crash the highest cymbal on the tree (the hats). Unfortunately I don't have another spot to mount to because I think a separate mount for the hat would do the trick. I guess I'll have to figure something out there.
I have an additional complaint about the arm. I think it is too thick. it doesn't give the crash/ride enough room to move around on the pole. I'm concerned of damaging the bell by cracking it around the hole as it swings after a loud crash. I usually put a short piece of surgical tubing between my cymbal and the post as a sleeve for a non-metallic surface for the cymbal to bump against to avoid key-holing. The arm is too thick to do so. I occasionally hear a metallic rubbing/vibration coming from there.
I'll come back and add my thoughts later after a more extended ownership. Perhaps I'll have changed some things.
Tan
GP Cocktail kit is built sideways - a review of sorts
Re: GP Cocktail kit is built sideways - a review of sorts
Thanks for posting this great review! I really appreciate all the details.
Re: GP Cocktail kit is built sideways - a review of sorts
Glad I could help Comet. There is one thing I forgot to mention.
The packaging. I read some reviews about the packaging sucking and mine was pretty poor as well. I bought mine from Amazon thinking if there was an issue, I could return it. Mine came in a box that was in a box. The outer most box held in place fine but the inner box had a floor tom mount poking through between the gap of the cardboard. All of the hardware, cymbals and other drums were also in this box, separated by a single piece of cardboard. So this is defiantly something I'd look out for if I were to buy another one.
Tan
The packaging. I read some reviews about the packaging sucking and mine was pretty poor as well. I bought mine from Amazon thinking if there was an issue, I could return it. Mine came in a box that was in a box. The outer most box held in place fine but the inner box had a floor tom mount poking through between the gap of the cardboard. All of the hardware, cymbals and other drums were also in this box, separated by a single piece of cardboard. So this is defiantly something I'd look out for if I were to buy another one.
Tan
Re: GP Cocktail kit is built sideways - a review of sorts
Hi Tan,
Great detailed review! Thank you.
I started playing cocktail drums with one of those "cheap" kits too. Eventually, I got tired of the issues you've addressed and ended up putting the money into designing and building a much better quality customer kit. You may want to look into doing that if you enjoy playing the cocktail set.
I ended up converting to one with a 16" main shell (so I can use the standard kick drum heads), as well as a 10" snare drum. I also had tom tom mounting brackets put into the main shell so I could use regular "rack" style boom arms for the hi-hat and cymbals.
MM
Great detailed review! Thank you.
I started playing cocktail drums with one of those "cheap" kits too. Eventually, I got tired of the issues you've addressed and ended up putting the money into designing and building a much better quality customer kit. You may want to look into doing that if you enjoy playing the cocktail set.
I ended up converting to one with a 16" main shell (so I can use the standard kick drum heads), as well as a 10" snare drum. I also had tom tom mounting brackets put into the main shell so I could use regular "rack" style boom arms for the hi-hat and cymbals.
MM