It's not often you see kits made entirely of cherry wood, but here's a prime example from Drum Workshop.
This drum kit comprises 8-ply shells made up of a short 24"x14" bass drum, 13"x9" rack tom, 16"x16" floor tom and deep 14"x7" snare drum. DW has applied its Vertical Low Timbre layup method to each shell with five vertical (short) plies and three horizontal (long) plies. The idea of this method is to lower the fundamental note of each shell.
The rich Hard Satin Matte Lacquer finish is stunning under both natural and studio lighting and complemented classily by nickel hardware.
It didn't take particularly long to tune a decent, open sound into the drums and the True Pitch stainless steel tension rods have 30 percent more threads, meaning it's possible to get much deeper into the detail of our tuning (but it does take a lot longer to remove a head!).
The shallow bass drum, most popular in the '70s, is making a comeback, and this kit presented further evidence that it's just what is needed to achieve that quick, full, rounded John Bonham bass drum sound. The toms compliment the bass drum with mean and focussed attack, with warmth and dryness underneath.
Our first impressions are of a well-built and appointed kit that offers a different sound to the traditional maple, birch or bubinga, and the shells work beautifully when tuned mid-to-low and are left to ring out undampened.
Watch our video to see how the kit performs in the flesh.
For a full review pick up issue 244 of Rhythm, on sale 30/06/15.
