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Music review: Traps A400 drum kit is so compact it fits inside a tricycle


One of the frequent challenges with gigging in the Philippines is finding good venues large enough to accommodate a full band set-up. 
 
For drummers, this usually means having to learn a very different discipline and skill set—sometimes  it may ultimately lead towards having to embrace a totally different musical genre.  
 
A solution that's now readily available that truly approximates a full drum kit while occupying only a third of the traditionally needed space when set-up (and probably comparatively even less requirements during transport) is the Traps A400 drum kit.  
The whole kit looks more like acoustic practice pads, electronic drum pads, or rototoms, rather than real drums.
A semi-assembled A400 kit that was lent to me by Lyric Music for this review fit very snuggly in the back of a subcompact Suzuki Alto with room enough to spare. Fully disassembled, the kit could probably even be loaded into a tricycle together with its caretaker.
 
Solid build, compact design
 
The kit’s design is straightforward enough: you have a solid chrome-plated steel rack (most probably an alloy) where the drum components are attached, including the crash and ride cymbals, leaving only the hi-hat and its stand as a separate unit.
 
The hi-hat stand is a standard double-braced model with a direct rod, and the bass drum pedal is a basic single-spring, single-chain model. Both seem sturdy and comfortable, yet also fairly lightweight.
 
The rack, when set up, is in the shape of an elongated, inverted U with perpendicular bars for feet on either end. Both sides also telescope upward (turning the inverted U into an H) to accommodate the crash and ride cymbals. 
 
The rack’s feet are reinforced with large rubber ends that provide ample grip and stability. In fact, the kit was able to withstand a hardy practice session hardly moving an inch throughout, where my regular kit (which doesn’t have a rack) usually has to finally be moved back to its proper place for every other song. And the A400 wasn’t even on a carpet!  
 
The price you pay for this stability is its weight. While the kit is very portable in terms of size and bulk, that solid rack is pretty heavy. Altogether, the whole A400 kit is probably still lighter than a regular drum set sans a rack, with less wood and metal for the actual drums parts. They look more like acoustic practice pads, electronic drum pads, or rototoms, rather than real drums.
 
Easy assembly 
 
These parts are attached and adjusted by way of standard lugs and mounting brackets. A standard drum key is the only tool you’ll be needing to keep on hand when moving your A400 kit from venue to venue. . .no need for pliers or screwdrivers unless you had special customizations done.
 
Since all parts, except for the hi-hats, are mounted on the rack (including the snare, which doesn’t have a separate stand), adjusting spacing and angles to your liking and comfort can be a bit trickier than usual. Remember, the assumption is that you’re setting up in limited space. 
 
The A400 package comes with a laminated three-page instructional sheet that uses photos to guide you in assembling your kit. Lyric forgot to hand this to me, but it was very easy to find an electronic copy online. 
Best for limited space venues, the A400 occupies a third of the space that traditional kits fill.
Including tuning the sound for each drumhead, setting up for the first time by yourself will probably take approximately an hour from fully disassembled to fully running at performance level. The design itself is very intuitive for both drummers and roadies.
 
But let me tell you about the construction.
 
Clever, quality  construction
 
The actual drum parts are where the magic of the A400 lie. You get a complete enough set in the package, but standard they’re not! The three tom-toms don’t actually have a shell to speak of, while the "shells" that the snare and bass employ are quite shallow and hardly there, at least visually.
 
The 20” bass drum has just a 3”-deep shell between its two drum heads, while the 12” snare in fact doesn’t have a shell in the strictest sense. It has a top drumhead, as well as a bottom with a throw-off component for altering the tension of the metal snare wires to taste, but no middle shell. It does have eight lugs all around, giving it essentially the same versatility as most standard 14” snares.  
 
The three tom-toms, measuring 10”, 12” and 14” respectively, have no shells and no bottom drumheads. These adjustments made on the shell sizes and the drum heads’ circumferences render the A400 very compact.
 
Sound reproduction
 
The Traps A400 comes with Remo Pinstripe two-ply oil-filled drumheads as its standard, which already gives an indication to the quality and forethought that have gone into designing the package.
 
Looking at the compact kit, you wouldn’t actually believe that the sound being produced is coming from such a small affair.  After a bit of tweaking, you’ll hardly notice the difference between the A400 and standard drum kits.
 
Of all the A400’s components, I appreciate the snare the most, as it had excellent projection, and I found its sound to actually be much rounder than the 14-inchers I’ve been accustomed to, while having a snap that’s almost near the ones produced by piccolo snares, which I’m quite fond of.  
The snare drum has excellent projection and a much rounder sound than traditional 14-inchers. It even has a piccolo-style snap.
The tom-toms, when not given enough attention during tuning, may come off a bit too rototom-ish or sounding more like latin percussions than standard tom-toms. But I’ve discovered that giving just a bit more attention to proper tension in the lugs eliminates the problem. 
 
A bonus: by giving the lugs different tensions, you can get a standard tom sound in one part of a tom’s drumhead, while getting a rototom sound in another part. . .but you’ll have to be extra careful where you hit your toms’ heads, especially since circumferences are already smaller than standard.
 
The bass drum is where I had the most difficulty and spent the most time for adjustments. It was actually louder and fuller-sounding than standard kick bass drums. Too full, in fact, that it sounded too much like a marching band bass drum. 
 
The problem can’t be solved by tuning alone—the drum heads are spaced too near each other, so there isn’t enough air in between to get the proper resonance at a low enough frequency. 
 
What solved the problem was dampening. I tried pillows first, but they tended to choke the movement of the drumheads too much and made it sound lifeless, since the signal of the created sound was cut off too early. What finally worked was when I placed my cloth drumstick-bag that still had a few pairs of wood inside. 
 
I haven’t quite worked out the technical explanation for this, but I can assure you that it finally made the kick bass more standard-sounding, though good sound choices can’t be as varied as those you can get from a standard set.
 
The bottomline?
 
At a price that’s at par with good quality standard kits, the Traps A400 is a steal. It's retail price without cymbals is P25,000 and with Meinl BCS cymbals is P32,000. 
 
You get a great Remo drumhead set as well as a solid, sturdy drum rack – stuff  that don’t come standard with the usual kits. 
 
You may need to spend more time tuning and adjusting, but that’s a small price to pay for portability, a quick-draw set-up, and needing just a tricycle to transport your baby instead of a small truck or van. - KDM , GMA News   

JP Agcaoili plays the drums for acclaimed goth rock band The Late Isabel. The views expressed in this article are solely his own    

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