Black Friday electronic drum set deals 2024: How to shop and the biggest early e-kit bargains
This year's biggest e-kit deals are just around the corner. Here's everything you need to know to snag bargains from Yamaha, Roland, Alesis and more
In my experience, Black Friday is the time of year to grab a music gear bargain. For many drummers, an electronic drum set is high up the wishlist. Whether you’re a new player looking for the convenience - and reduced noise - of a drum set you can play at all hours, you’re an established player in need of a home practice kit or you need a plug and play home recording rig, take it from me that the Black Friday electronic drum set sales is where you’ll find the biggest bargains of the year.
I've been covering Black Friday for over 5 years now, and aside from myself, there's a number of seasoned drummers in our team who have tested the vast majority of e-kits on the market today. So, when we recommend a product, you know it's from a reliable source - and that includes our deal recommendations.
Still not sure which kit is right for you? You can read our opinion on the top kits available today in our guide to the best electronic drum sets.
There’s not much to chat about just yet in terms of major bargains, but believe me when I tell you the deals will start coming thick and fast over the coming weeks. It’s sometimes not even worth waiting until Black Friday itself - many of the best deals will drop well in advance of that.
I’ll be keeping this page updated regularly between now and Black Friday. In the meantime, I’ve written some useful Black Friday shopping advice - based on my years of experience - to help you plan ahead.
My top tips for 2024? Alesis have launched a couple of my favourite drum sets of the year, so keep your eyes peeled for discounts on the beginner-friendly Alesis Nitro Max and the awesome Alesis Strata Prime. It’s unlikely we’ll see any money off Roland’s formidable new 7 Series drums, but stranger things have happened…
Quick links
Looking for an e-kit bargain? These are the places to shop right now.
Amazon: Shop the Roland V-Drum store
Donner: Major e-drum savings
Guitar Center: Save on Zildjian, EFnote
Musician's Friend: Up to $100 off Alesis
Reverb: Shop new and used gear
Sweetwater: Roland, Alesis, more
Andertons: Save from budget to top-end
Gear4Music: BF deals on a range of brands
PMT: Tour Tech beginner e-kits for sale
Thomann: Excellent Millenium deals
Early deals
This year's Black Friday electronic drum set deals aren't here yet. We'll be populating this page as soon as the best deals land. Here are some of today's offers we recommend, hand-picked by MusicRadar's drum team:
Alesis Strata Prime (expanded): Was 4,449, now $4,149
The Alesis Strata Prime Expanded Electronic Drum Set is as extra as it sounds - ‘expanded’ relates to the additional tom and cymbal you get in the box. This version is a seven-piece kit with 6 cymbals (hi-hat inclusive), and a supremely powerful touchscreen module with an incredible library of BFD-derived sounds and kits. For us, this is the be-all end-all e-drumming solution, with I/O to die for. Usually $4,449, this premium piece of kit has a generous $300 discount over at Sweetwater right now.
Alesis Strike amp 12: Was $399, now $349
There's a chunky $50 saving on this powerful e-kit amp at Sweetwater right now. If you're sick of wearing headphones when you practice, or you want to jam with friends, this 2,000 watt powerhouse is the solution. It's also compact enough that it won't dominate a small space.
Price check: Guitar Center $349
Roland SPD-SX Pro (UK deal): Was £1,039, now £711
Roland's all-powerful new sample pad is still pretty new, but already it's discounted at Thomann! This new version includes increased trigger inputs and audio outputs, enhanced audio compatibility, some brilliant visual features, and even sequencing capabilities. For on-stage power and creativity, this is one of the best electronic drum pads around.
Black Friday electronic drum set deals FAQ
When do the Black Friday e-kit deals start?
For 2024, the Black Friday electronic drum set deals will officially arrive on Friday November 29 - that's the day right after Thanksgiving and less than a month before Christmas Day (check out our drummer's gift guide for more inspiration). The deals will extend across that weekend (also known as Cyber Weekend), before finishing with a final flurry of Cyber Monday electronic drum set deals on Monday 2 December.
Previous experience tells us that the deals won't be isolated to just this four-day period though. Many of the best Black Friday electronic drum set deals will emerge in the weeks leading up to the big day itself - in the past we've seen some land as early as October, so it's well worth looking out for deals ahead of the main event. But the good money will be on major brands dropping their sales 1-2 weeks out from Black Friday itself.
If you miss out on a great deal during Cyber Weekend itself, many deals stick around for a while after the event, too. Sometimes as much as a week later.
Deals are launched at all sorts of random times - sometimes in the middle of the night - so savvy shoppers will need to keep a close watch on their favourite stores to ensure they grab the bargains they're looking for. Some Black Friday e-kit deals may stick around for the whole of Cyber Weekend, while others may only be live for a matter of hours, or could be stock-limited. So, if you're looking for a bargain, you need to be ready to pull the trigger.
What deals can I expect?
We’ll be keeping a close eye on the big music retailers throughout October and November. Based on last year's evidence, the Guitar Center Black Friday deals, Sweetwater Black Friday sales, and Musician's Friend Black Friday deals will be the key places to spot a killer electronic drum set deal if you're based in the US. Amazon is worth keeping tabs on, too; they have upped their game in the e-kit price-cutting battle in recent years and host all the biggest brands, including Roland and Alesis.
You may also find savings on products related to electronic drumming, including drum triggers, electronic drum pads and electronic drum amps and monitors. Perhaps you want to trigger alternative sounds to the ones loaded onto your module? For that, you should keep an eye out for discounts on samples packs and VSTs like Superior Drummer 3. We'll be flagging any deals we find on these over on our Black Friday plugin deals page.
If you need anything else drum-related - like heads, sticks, cymbals, perhaps a new snare drum - we also have a dedicated Black Friday drum deals page.
In terms of the electronic drum set brands who consistently throw their hat into the Black Friday ring, Roland and Alesis are the top of the tree, with discounts to be found across almost their entire ranges, and at most retailers. So, whether you want money off a killer budget kit like Roland's TD-07DMK, or you're hoping to score a chunky discount off a top-end Roland VAD kit, you should be in luck come Black Friday.
For Alesis, in the past there has always been money to be saved on one of our favourite beginner electronic drum sets, the Alesis Nitro Mesh. This year that kit was replaced by the even more capable Alesis Nitro Max. We're holding out hope that Black Friday will be the first time this kit is available with a discount. Even a small amount off would be worth considering.
Often these more beginner-focused kits come bundled with extras such as an amp, sticks, a throne and headphones.
The big winner for us this year was the Alesis Strata Prime, a top-end kit loaded with sounds and fantastic cymbals. We're keeping our eyes out for a great deal on this kit this year.
We always hold out hope to see money off Yamaha's awesome DTX series drums too, particularly the new DTX 6 and 10 kits, however they don't often do e-kit discounts at this time of year. Last year they broke the mould, knocking a good chunk of change off a few kits, whilst in the past Yamaha has offered free subscription to Melodics online drum lessons thrown in (up to 3 months), so there was some extra value added, even if you weren't saving any cash.
Elsewhere, it's not uncommon to see big savings on budget brands including Donner, Carlsboro and Thomann's own brand Millenium.
In terms of the types of deals to look out for, great deals come in all shapes and sizes...
- Single item - A single product with a great discount
- Site-wide discounts - A single discount percentage on a large range of products across a site
- Discount codes - Load your basket to a certain value and redeem a discount code for money off your basket contents
- Added value deals - These include multi-buy discounts, or additional products or software for free when you buy certain items
Are Black Friday deals worth it?
On the whole our experience of covering deals year-round tells us that Black Friday is the best time of year to find genuinely good offers on the top electronic drum brands and the widest range of offers. It's a very lucrative time for the big online retailers, so they save their best deals for this time of year.
We only cover deals that we know are decent and represent the best prices of the year, so if you're drowning in options and don't know which offers are genuinely worth your hard-earned cash, if we've not covered it on MusicRadar then it's probably a hard pass.
Do bricks and mortar shops have Black Friday sales?
Absolutely! The convenience and speed of online shopping means that often the best place to pick up deals is by heading to your favourite retailer's website, but you will find great e-kit deals in physical stores too. Basically, everyone gets involved in Black Friday price cutting.
Buying in a physical store is particularly beneficial if you want to test a piece of gear before you buy - recommended when you're planning on spending a serious amount of cash. But don't forget that your chosen store might be limited to the stock they can fit in the building and may direct you online anyway if you miss the boat in-store.
Whether you buy online or in-store, you should always check the refund policy of the place you're shopping. This will give you extra peace of mind if you're making a big purchase, or something more impulsive that you may wish to return down the line.
Shopping tips
Here's a few pointers - based on personal experience - that will help you bag the best bargains when the time comes.
1. Create a wishlist early - The most sensible way to take advantage of this year's Black Friday electronic drum deals is to know in advance what you’re looking for. This will make searching much easier, rather than having to trawl through loads of deals you don’t want to find the ones you do, or pondering title you don't need.
2. Work out what you actually need - Check out your favourite brands, see what you need and will genuinely use - don’t waste your cash on features you'll never use. Has there been any new kits launched lately? If so, perhaps the old version will be massively discounted for Black Friday?
3. Consider your drumming goals - What do you want to achieve with your playing for the next 12 months? Do you want to record more? Practice more? Start a function band? Now could be the time to invest if the right gear comes up.
4. Streamline your current gear - Something else you should consider ahead of time is whether you have enough space in your collection for a new kit. Could you offload some gear you don't use to make room and generate funds for some new gear?
5. Sign up to mailing lists - In addition to bookmarking this page, we'd recommend signing up to mailing lists of your favourite retailers now to get the jump on the best deals when they do come around.
How we choose the deals to cover
Here at MusicRadar, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything music-making, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products we recommend.
First and foremost, we are players and creators, and we want to match like-minded folk with the right products for them, at the best prices.
For us to recommend a deal on an electronic drum set or anything else it has to be a product we rate that’s a genuinely great price or part of a truly fantastic bundle. It’s also important that we only recommend retailers where you will have a positive shopping experience.
Why you can trust us
We spend a lot of our time scouring software retailers for fantastic deals on our favorite plugins. Not only is it our job to research and recommend the best gear in our and reviews, but we’re also dedicated to helping musicians get the best deals on the stuff they need, too. After all, the only thing better than new gear day is a hearty discount.
We cover a lot of the big sales events throughout the year, including Memorial Day, 4th of July sales and Amazon Prime Day, and we have a good view on which products are likely to receive the biggest discounts and when, the prices they’ve been in the past and which deals are genuinely worth a look.
What happened last year?
Last year's Black Friday electronic drum set deals were pretty awesome, but we're hoping to see even bigger offers this year. Here's a few offers from last year to give you a flavour of what you can expect from the 2024 Black Friday e-kit bonanza.
Alesis Nitro Mesh SE: Was $449, now $299
This special edition Alesis Nitro Mesh proves that it's possible for great e-kits to be affordable. You get tunable mesh heads here instead of cheap-feeling rubber, which feel closer to playing an acoustic drum set, while keeping the noise down to a minimum. This already affordable e-kit was $150 off right at Guitar Center.
Yamaha DTX452K: Was $699, now $559
When we reviewed the 452's sibling the DTX402, we praised its 'great sounds, engaging training tools for budding players and compact footprint'. The 452 boasts the same virtues and beginner-friendly price point, but adds upgraded pedals and a triple-zone snare drum.
Yamaha DTX6K3-X: Was $1,899, now $1,429
We loved this kit when we reviewed it for the excellent sounds, tweakable module and the fantastic TCS pads which an excellent alternative to mesh. Last year you could save a huge $470 at Sweetwater. We'd never seen discounts like this on Yamaha e-kits before.
Yamaha DTX10K-M: Was $4,639, now $3,929
The prestige 10K-M looks the part with large real wood shells adorning multi-zone mesh heads all-round, powered by Yamaha's top-end DTX PROX module, plus multi-zone cymbals and pro-quality hardware throughout. Tasty.
GEWA G9 Club 5 E-drums: Was £3,699, now £3,050
Thomann stripped £650 off the price of the GEWA G9 Club 5 electronic drum set. The G9 is GEWA’s flagship series, and the Studio 5 sees the G9 module paired with some gorgeous-looking real wood drum shells for an authentic aesthetic and playing experience. The module features a large 10” touchscreen and inside there’s 901 sounds split into 40 kits, with space for 128 kits of your own. It’s comprehensive on the effects too, with an EQ and compressor per-pad, a multi-FX processor with 9 effects, and 12 types of room reverb.
Roland SPD-SX Pro (US deal): Was $1,199, now $899
For lucky US buyers, the place to grab the SPD-SX Pro was Sweetwater. This upgraded version of the already ace SPD-SX boasts a larger colour screen and nifty programmable LEDs, plus extra trigger inputs which lend it more versatility in terms of setup.
Roland VAD504: Was £4,299.99, now £3,999.99
Roland make some of the best electronic drum sets available today, but the quality and the name comes at a premium price, which is why we love to see e-kit deals on Roland gear, particularly the top-end models. The VAD504 comes complete with full size drum pads (20" kick, 14" snare, 10" and 14" toms, plus ultra dynamic digital hi-hats and ride, all powered by the TD-27 module.
More places to shop this Black Friday
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I'm MusicRadar's eCommerce Editor. In addition to testing the latest music gear, with a particular focus on electronic drums, it's my job to manage the 300+ buyer's guides on MusicRadar and help musicians find the right gear for them at the best prices. I dabble with guitar, but my main instrument is the drums, which I have been playing for 24 years. I've been a part of the music gear industry for 20 years, including 7 years as Editor of the UK's best-selling drum magazine Rhythm, and 5 years as a freelance music writer, during which time I worked with the world's biggest instrument brands including Roland, Boss, Laney and Natal.
- Stuart WilliamsDrums
- Daryl RobertsonSenior Deals Writer
“I’m not getting any sound from one of my pads!”: 10 common electronic drum set issues and how to troubleshoot them
“What we get here is the essence of Alesis’ flagship electronic drum set, with all the great features, minus the stuff that is likely to be ‘nice-to-have’ rather than essential”: Alesis Strata Core review