For the best acoustic drums under 1000 we tapped John Kimock, son of the famed guitarist John Kimock and full time drummer for Phish bass player Mike Gordon. John frequently collaborates with the best musicians in the world and has made a name for himself as one of the top drummers in the world, so we’re grateful he helped us to review the best drums & percussion.
When you are buying a drumset under $1000, there are alot of great options. If you are in the market for a drumset with all the hardware and cymbals included, there are some great drumsets in this price range. If you are a professional drummer and you already have all of your cymbals and hardware and you only need drum shells, there are very good value options in this price range.
In our buyers guide for Best Drumsets Under $1000, we’ve included both shell packs and full all-in drumset bundles.
The great things about shopping for drumsets under 1000 is that this is the price range where the wood quality and craftsmanship really starts to improve. The cheapest drumsets are made out of poplar wood. When you get towards this price range, maple and birch become available options. At higher price ranges, more rare and exotic woods enter the picture.
This is a drumset that you can get when you are a beginner and grow with as you become a professional
Reasons not to buy
Good enough for beginners, but if you grow with this kit, eventually you will want to get new cymbals
Our Verdict
It is selling for a really decent price for a Ludwig full kit.
Read Less
HOW DO WE PICK OUR TOP CHOICES FOR DRUMSETS?
LOOK
SOUND
FEEL
DURABILITY
COST
DOES THE LOOK OF MY DRUMSET MATTER?
We want you to love your drums. There is something about our instruments that reflects who we are. It’s important to have a great sounding drumset and almost just as important to have a good looking drumset.
With a variety of wood types and finishes, drumsets can look anywhere from drop dead gorgeous to looking like a cheap piece of junk. If you don’t care what your drumset looks like you want to put your stock in the sound and feel and match that to your budget.
If you do want a great looking drumset, we are putting stock into that. Many of the drummers at Music Minds are professional touring musicians and as a drummer you are surrounded by your drums. Your drumset from the audience perspective accounts for the majority of what they see. Just a bunch of drums with a head sticking out.
With that in mind, you also want to consider what style of music you are into. We rank the look on the quality of finish and construct. Something can technically look great but not be appropriate for your style. There are some beautiful jazz drum sets that would not look right on stage with a death metal band.
HOW DO I FIND THE BEST SOUNDING DRUMSET?
Every drumset sounds different than the next. Sometimes those differences are hard to hear to the untrained ear and sometimes it’s painfully obvious. With our team of professional touring drummers, we’ve collected first hand takes on the tonal quality of each drumset.
With our buyers guide ranking system we give the sound quality a rating between 1-10. While we are giving our rating based on the professionality of quality of the tone, it is important to consider what style of music you want to play. In our individual drumset reviews and in our best drumsets under $1000 we will let you know which style of music each drumset is best for to help you find the best drumkit for you.
WHICH DRUMSET WILL FEEL THE BEST TO PLAY?
There are a variety of drumsets with a variety of feels. When we consider the feel of the drumset we are not referring to what the drums feel like when you touch them with your fingers. The feel of drums and especially of cymbals can vary greatly from one drum kit to the next. The feel refers to how the drumsticks rebound from the drums.
Some of the feel can be adjusted with the choice of drum head and drumsticks and technically every drummer should practice on a variety of surfaces so that you can be prepared in case you become a touring drummer that is forced to use house drum kits and the backline of other bands. Even if you practice on a variety of surfaces, you want to have a drumset at home that you love to play on. For that feel is everything.
CAN I BE SURE THIS IS A DURABLE DRUMSET?
For touring drummers especially, durability is a very important factor. The wear and tear of the road can reveal the shortcomings of a drumsets as the drums bouncing around in the car on the drives from town to town can lead to loosening drumhead, detached lugs and bolts and other smaller issues.
The hardware specifically is referred to as “breakables” as well as sticks and pedals and the like. Obviously the reason for that is that they eventually break. Unless you rarely play your drums, which hopefully won’t be the case after you use the Music Minds buying guide to find the perfect drumset for you, you want to make sure you are getting a solid set of drums.
There are few things more frustrating than spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on drums and hardware, just to have them fall apart. While there is no avoiding some wear and tear and occasional hardware issues, we added the durability ranking to get you the best choices available.
WHATS THE BEST VALUE FOR A QUALITY DRUMSET?
Drumsets come in a variety of price ranges and the price doesn’t always reflect the quality of the drumset. Our cost analysis of our drumsets holds the cost of a drumset against the quality of the drums. Whether the drumset cost a few hundred or a few thousand dollars, we’ll rank the costs to show you if the drumset is worth the cost.
Lawrence Bonk is a copywriter with a decade of experience in the tech
and music space, with columns appearing in Engadget, Huffington Post and CBS, among others. He has a cat named Cinnamon.
