DIMAVERY CDS Cocktail Drum Kit maple

Easy to set up straight out of the box. I won’t pull any punches. It’s a cheap kit, but spend sometime tuning the skins and damping skins a bit and you’ll soon have good sounding kit. The cowbell’s pretty good and the high hats are ok. They stay closed so we the sound is passable. The ride cymbal, no surprise isn’t great. Bit for a kit at this price you’re can’t expect decent cymbals.Like most people that I’ve seen with this kit. Change of skins, cymbals you’ve got yourself a decent kit that takes up half the space on stage. Definitely worth the money if your after this sort of drum kit.

I recently purchased this CDS after initially seeing a band playing live with one and thinking, 'this looks really cool, I want one' then after watching Youtube clips and reading various reviews, I new it was for me. I would mention that the Xdrum is identical to the Dimavery, but seems to have a higher asking price? and apart from the Trixon, and Yamaha Club Jordan kits, there is little choice from UK dealers for this type of set-up. The Trixon requiring quite a bit more cash, and the Yamaha Club Jordan apparently discontinued.My primary reason was to use it in a Rockabilly band, and also to have something that I could practise on that didn't take up too much space. The finish is a natural maple deep lacquer which looks very 'high-end'. On running my hand over the floor tom, I noticed that there are a few 'flat' areas where the shell hasn't been sanded down evenly, however the inside looks and feels to all intents and purposes round. The snare and tom, seem very regular in shape, with the heads sitting quite square over the bevelled edges. The drum 'lugs' are well chromed, and unusually for drums in this price range, are rubber seated to the shell, which should reduce vibrations and rim hits being amplified through the shell, also another advantage is the dampening effect of vibration from the snare and tom arm fittings through to the floor tom.After initial set up several things came to light. The floor tom is 25" deep, and after you've put the legs on, even at its most useable lowest height, it's still a little high, and I'm 5'9". Then when you add the brackets to mount the snare and tom, the only adjustment is UP, so to play this comfortably you need to be around 6' tall. If you use a traditonal stick grip, ie marching drum style, you may find this height OK, but I play with a matched grip. As much as I hate to do it, I'm going to have to drill new holes in the floor tom shell to lower the fittings to a more comfortable height. Now, if you set the snare and tom in a 'traditonal' configuration, ie similar to the picture, you will notice that the name badges all face inward, and that the 'back' of the toms face the audience, this is a minor thing, but dosn't help the overall appearance of the kit, and is something the manufacturer really should have noted. If someone in the audience loved the look and sound of these drums, they wouldn't know who the manufacturer was. The bass pedal, in my opinion, is rather well made, and of good quality, and it sits well on the provided clamping bar under the floor tom. However it needed some adjustment of the spring, and the 'angle of the dangle' of the beater to get it to my sense of 'feel'.Out of the box, the drums are reasonably tuned and playable. However, the floor tom, in its dual roll of kick drum and tom, was very boomy, and I then decided that I will need a Remo ebony pinstripe for the bottom, and possibly a regular pinstripe for the top. Also I feel that a pinstripe on the batter head of the small tom, and a Weather king coated head for the snare, will probably enhance the tone of these drums, although I have not as yet purchased these, having only had the kit 10 days. You may, as has been suggested by others, put some felt dampners on the heads, or 'egg shell' foam inside the drums to reduce the ring, this is OK if you are recording the kit, but for stage use, I feel that a bit of ring helps the drums cut through, without being too noticeable.One thing about the snare mechanism must be mentioned here. The 'throw-off' is fairly flimsy, and needed some greasing up to make it work smoothly, however the tension adjustment works well, so I would say you can't expect too much given the price paid for this kit. I would also say that the supplied cowbell is very good indeed, and I really like the tone of it. But the cymbals are what you might expect in this price range, and fairly unuseable. They might be OK if you just want a kit to knock about in the house, but for gigging, I intend to purchase some better quality cymbals. Having said that, you might just get away with the 10" hi-hats, as they sound quite 'trashy' but in a good way. If you intend to play punk music with this kit, keep the supplied cymbals.Overall, I would say this is a value for money CDS, but you probably need to spend a further £150 + to make it an excellent kit.This is my first 'stand-up' kit, and it takes a bit of getting used to, but playing the kick / bass drum pedal standing up, is not as difficult as I first thought, especially when you get the afore mentioned adjustments of the spring and beater angle right, and I'm looking forward to making my changes and getting out to gigs with it.