Ludwig Breakbeats Review

[topdog63]

Did a search and didn't see anything on here as far as reviewing this kit. I've had mine for a few months now and I really really like it. I bought it because I had a Roland TD-11 that I used for playing in my church which has a super small stage. The Roland started having some triggering issues (mainly the cymbals) because it was getting played a lot and although Roland makes a great product the TD-11 was built to be more of a practice kit I believe. Started looking into upgrading it and found that it would have been pretty expensive to do. I also realize I could've replaced the piezo's in the cymbals but quite frankly I wanted to get back to the sound and feel of an acoustic. I sold the Roland and bought the Breakbeats kit.

Enough back story..........
So the price of this kit is $399 pretty much everywhere, I bought mine at a local shop because they were the same price as GC and the people in the shop are awesome and I like to keep my money local when possible. I got the "White Sparkle" which is actually more of a silver sparkle. Sizes are 10" rack, 13" floor, 16" kick and a 5x14 snare. The kit comes with remo pinstripe batters. Ludwig lists the shells as made of "hardwoods" which I assume is mainly poplar, nobody seems to know a for sure on this. Everything comes in one box that's approximately 2'x2'x3' and must be assembled (snare is already assembled). Assembly was quick and easy, may take someone with no drum experience a little longer than the hour or so it took me. The kit also comes with thin soft bags to put the shells in for transport or storage and you can also use the bags as mutes if you want to practice with minimal noise. They aren't SKB cases but they're better than nothing if you want to protect them.

After getting the drums all assembled and tuned to my liking I was pretty pleased with the sound, the 16" kick was a little weak and sounded less like a kick and more of a foot activated floor tom. This was initially remedied with a felt strip on the inside of the reso head, the strip was eventually removed when I installed a kickport (went with the big kickport cause I had it laying around). The kickport really made a huge difference. The kick is nice and punchy and when ran through the sound system it sounds surprisingly big.

The toms have great sound. With the proper tuning I was able to get the 10" tom sounding great with good attack and the 13" tom has great attack and good low end (I know there are doubters but I used my tune-bot along with the calculator app on my phone and was able to dial the sound exactly where I wanted it). I eventually replaced the stock pin stripe batters with Black Suede Emporers. The Emp's have a nice full warm tone and the black suede looks pretty sexy with the sparkle finish.

Now the snare.......
The snare is your typical "thrown in with the kit" snare. Its a Ludwig Accent snare. It is not horrible but other than tuning it, I pretty much set it aside and put my PDP Maple in it's place. With some new heads and some different wires it would probably be much better.

Bottom line is if you're looking for a small, compact kit that sounds good these in my opinion are a great buy. They look good and sound good out of the box and with the right heads you can really make them sing.

(The Donkey puppet on the tom mount is just my mascot that one of the kids in the church gave me....... thought it was a good spot for him)

A few pics.....

[topdog63]

Forgot to mention that the kit also comes with a bass drum riser, good forethought by Ludwig.

[Pearl MCX Man]

Looks good topdog63 the monkey gives it a ahhh don't know how to describe it I guess cool look.

[topdog63]

Looks good topdog63 the monkey gives it a ahhh don't know how to describe it I guess cool look.

LOL its a donkey, I take my a** to every gig.

[N2Bluz]

Thanks for the review! I had the same initial problem with the 16" kick on my home-made jungle kit. Kinda weak. I've noticed that the small 16" diameter has completely different characteristics than a 22". The smaller diameter seems to require more head tension on the batter side, otherwise it sounds too much like a paper bag. It doesn't like being tuned "just above wrinkle". Unfortunately, the higher tension and small diameter causes more "beater bounce". There seems to be a sweet spot that took me a while to find. Also, I tend to bury the beater....which really kills the sound on the small drum. I learned to adjust more spring tension on the pedal and rest my toes at about mid-point on the footboard. That way, the beater stays off the head and the sound/volume is surprisingly good.
I thought about porting the reso, but I have the reso tuned JUST tight enough I get some resonance off the head but don't get that "flappy" sound. All in all, I found it much trickier to tune and more sensitive than a typical full size bass. BUT....once I found the magic combination, it performs and sounds very nice.

Is this similar to your experiences with the Breakbeats?

[Mike_L]

Thanks for the review! I'm thinking about picking up one of these for home practice.

[kay-gee]

Nice little set. I like!

all the best...

[topdog63]

Thanks guys. It is a fun little kit. Would be a great home practice kit or good for coffee shop gigs.

[8beat]

Thanks for the review. I've had reservations about these little bass drums.

[MDK]

Great review, thanks. Good thing to know about the big kickport.

[topdog63]

I haven't replaced the BD heads yet but Aquarian makes 16" SKII and 16" regulator reso's. Generally my favorite head combo. Idk how it'll sound on the 16 but I'm going g to get them soon and try it out.

[N2Bluz]

I haven't replaced the BD heads yet but Aquarian makes 16" SKII and 16" regulator reso's. Generally my favorite head combo. Idk how it'll sound on the 16 but I'm going g to get them soon and try it out.

I saw those, but kinda pricey.....I think I'll let you buy them first and post a review

[Olimpass]

plenty of vids on youtube to see samples...