A lightweight, portable drum kit that makes a big noise...
As a drum teacher, one of the most frequently heard comments from many student drummers is “I’d love to have a kit at home, but haven’t got room for one,” while a lot of more experienced drummers might say, “I wish I didn’t have to carry around so much stuff, especially for rehearsing and teaching.” Well, here we have a very viable solution that might be the answer for both of those statements: the Traps A400 portable acoustic kit, which has been ingeniously designed to take up very little room and be lightweight, while still retaining a full and solid sound.
In Detail
All of the various parts of this Traps kit, except the hi-hat stand, are attached to the supplied rack system. This is essentially a straight front bar with two upright posts that accommodate the two cymbal arms, which can be used as either boom or straight. The snare is held by way of a short boom arm and standard snare basket, which attaches to the left-hand upright, with the toms attached to the rack via hexagonal-shaped brackets fixed to clamps on the front bar and right-hand upright. The bass drum also attaches to the rack by brackets on the lower half of the upright posts. The kit comes with a simple single-chain drive kick pedal with a side attachment screw and extendable spurs, as well as a double-braced, unfussy hi-hat stand.
Onto the drums themselves: the dual-headed 20” bass drum has a 2” hardened-plastic shell along with a Remo UT Powerstroke 3 clear batter head and an ebony front head complete with Traps logo, all held in place with eight tension rods and chrome-plated steel hoops. The 12” snare drum also features a 2” shell and dual heads: a thin, clear snare (resonant) head along with a coated Remo UT batter head, which is tuned using eight tension rods via a steel hoop. Underneath you have a 20-strand snare wire attached to a large, blue, plastic snare throw-off (which the company refer to as a ‘Paddle Bill’ throw-off), with a tension adjuster at the opposite side of the drum. In contrast, the toms (10”, 12” and 14”) all feature a specially designed toughened plastic moulding and triple-flanged hoops along with Remo pinstripe heads. The 10” and 12” have six tension rods, while the 14” has eight. The whole package is finished off with two heavy-duty padded bags – one for hardware and rack, and one for the rest of the kit, with internal dividers separating the kick from the toms in one compartment, along with a zipped side pocket for the snare. Throw into the mix a pair of sticks and you have pretty much all you need to get started. Although the review model came without cymbals, Traps do supply a range (hats, crash and ride) for an extra cost. A drum throne isn’t supplied, which is a shame as this would give a beginner absolutely everything necessary to start out.
In use
Setting up the kit was relatively simple. I did note that the supplied instructions are slightly unclear, so inexperienced students or parents could be a little confused. Sitting down behind the kit, the first thing I noticed was how sturdy the kit felt, especially the kick drum; having played other portable kits with free-standing kick drums, the Traps A400 method of mounting the kick to the rack gives it a very solid feel with no slipping or wobbling, no matter how hard you play. The rest of the kit is equally as solid, and after a little tweaking of the toms it felt very comfortable to play. Sound-wise the kit sounded great. The lack of shells, or more importantly resonant heads, is noticeable on the toms. But as a large portion of any drum’s sound comes from the batter head, you don’t miss them too much. After a few minutes of playing this was soon forgotten. The kick drum provided a loud, clear note, which at first slightly lacked a little in depth but with a little tweaking of the tuning soon sounded not a million miles away from a regular bass drum. It was a similar story with the toms: at certain tunings they sounded slightly too thin with lots of ring, but with a little dampening and careful tuning they soon sounded great. The snare drum, for me, is the best feature of the kit – loud, aggressive, snappy and articulate, this little beauty produced a sound much bigger than its diminutive size first suggests. As such, it would work perfectly well as an instrument in its own right, perhaps as a second snare for most gigs, or even a main snare for funky pop gigs.
Conclusion
Well-constructed, lightweight and quick to set up (particularly once all clamps/holders are set in place on the rack), this kit does exactly what it’s designed for, offering a space-saving, portable kit which sounds very close to a regular kit. The only slight negative here is the lack of drum throne. Balance this against the positive attributes, however, especially when you take into account the price of the kit (you could afford to buy an inexpensive drum throne at this price), and you have a very good deal. The biggest plus point for me was undoubtedly the snare drum, which sounded and played great throughout the whole of the time I spent with the kit. A little gem.
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