Digital drums are pretty dope, so much so that there are dozens of companies making them, and have been over the last decade or so. They are a far quieter option than traditional drums, and can easily be plugged into almost any DAW and recorded in a heartbeat, which makes them a very tempting option. My father was a studio drummer for tons of bands and singer/songwriters, and when he passed away, my mother gave me his digital drums, the Yamaha Electronic Percussion DD-50. Let me add this forward here, this review may be a bit partial, as this was my father’s (R.I.P.) and it is the first electronic drum kit I have ever owned… now on with the review…

Let’s get specs out of the way first…this thing has;

• 7 pads
• 2 foot pedals
• 75 drum voices
• 20 preset kits + 1 custom
• 100 included songs
• 4 tracks
• MIDI in and out

This digital percussion beast has the added benefit of being 12v or battery-powered, making it infinitely portable, and has a headphone jack for silent drumming. Every audio input you could need is there as well, and the wheel dial makes changing things fast and intuitive. The entire thing is programmable, so double bass is possible, and you can pick and choose which drum sounds are on which pads on the kit. 

The sound samples used on the DD-50 are really nice too, giving you a wide array of realistic to midi/synth sounds to play with. I will say the one negative I have found is that the kick drum isn’t as responsive as I’d like it to be, but it’s not too big of an issue. I grew up around drums and learned the basics of drumming in my teens, so playing around with this was infinitely fun for me, and pretty easy to figure out this feature-rich rig. 

If you’re looking for an inexpensive and portable digital drum setup, this might be the one for you, as it has next to no setup, can be taken anywhere, and can definitely get you by. Multipiece digital drums might be a bit better, but they require more setup and are definitely less portable than this little monster. Just plug it in (if you don’t have batteries), put it on a table, plug in the foot pedals, and play, it’s that simple!

The Yamaha Electronic Percussion DD-50 gets;

This thing is worth every penny and with it only being between $50-$100 online, it is in fact a steal of a bargain. I don’t have a link to put here because you can and should shop around for the best offer on it, as it is a bit of an older model (but still well worth it).