Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've been a musician most of my life but I haven't had any real experience as a percussionist, other than the fun of banging on things which I still do today even as the adult I'm supposed to be. So when the opportunity came along to play around with a portable electronic drum kit, with all of the options that you see here, I couldn't resist. The Rockpals Portable Electronic Roll up Drum Pad Set is a compact drum kit with several options that I'll detail below. The biggest difference in this model is that it's battery operated, powered by a 2400 mAh lithium battery, which the manufacturer claims will give you 10 hours of battery life. Even if there's a little exaggeration there, that's still a pretty impressive figure and definitely enough playing time to get in a full day's practice or a full day of driving everyone in your house crazy! The drum pad has seven pads and two pedals. with the pads (by default) giving you the following: Crash, Tom1, Ride, Hi-Hat, Snare, Tom 2, and Tom 3. I say "by default" because the drum pad offers five different options. The default is Pop but by pressing the Timbre button, you can cycle through to Rock, Latin, Electro, and Percussion, as well, with the sounds that the pads make changing as you do so. To put the pad through its paces, there is a Demo button and this, too, offers multiple options, with a Heavy Rock demo, plus Funk, Latin, Dance, Samba, Cha-Cha, Swing Hi-Hat, and Upbeat Rock. The pad also offers a Click (metronome) button and this was my first disappointment because while there are three Click choices, there is no way to adjust the tempo. Unless your song just happens to be at one of those tempos, you'll be out of luck. One thing I found interesting is that there is a Special button that allows you to switch two pads around, so that you can either have your Hi-Hat on the outside, with your Snare next to it, or you can have your Snare on the outside with the Hi-Hat next to it, depending on your preferences on on the song you're playing. The foot pedals also offer independent sounds but this was my second disappointment, as I found them to be fairly noisy in operation, with audible clicking noises in addition to the sounds they are supposed to be making. I would have also liked them to be a bit heavier, more likely to stay put. In operation, they were light enough that I occasionally found them wandering around in use and I'd have to put them back where I wanted them again. Other controls included with the drum pad are the on/off button (of course), a start/stop button for the Demos and the Clicks, an MP3 input button, a speaker/headphone output, and a USB/Midi output button. I didn't test the latter but the manual says that it will allow you to connect to a computer to play a drum game or to hook up to a music creation program, so that you can create a drum track by actually playing the drums rather than clicking and dragging with a mouse. The speakers were decent quality and were surprisingly loud, all things considered. Not loud enough that you could use them in a crowded party situation but certainly loud enough for practice use. For anything more than that, you'd want to hook up a set of speakers. To my untrained ears, the sounds were quite good, not overly tinny or fake. I suspect a real percussionist wouldn't even come close to being fooled but for a practice pad, this was more than adequate. And certainly more than adequate for a beginning percussionist or for those, like me, who just want to have fun. The bottom line is that this is a nice, compact kit, with a lot of options and the flexibility of being able to take it anywhere, since it's battery-operated. If you don't need the battery, if you'll always be playing somewhere with easy access to electricity, then you can purchase a slightly cheaper set. Otherwise, this is competitively priced for what it offers. The only two disappointments were the metronome and, just a little, the foot pedals. Except for those, I was favorably impressed and I can definitely recommend this. I went back and forth as to whether this was a four-star review or a five-star review. I compromised on 4.5 and rounded down since Amazon won't let me give a half a star. Nonetheless, I really did like this drum pad. Disclaimer: The manufacturer provided a free sample for this review with no restrictions on the outcome. I have no personal or financial interest in the company or in anyone employed there.