Ludwig Breakbeats by Questlove 4-Piece Shell Pack Azure Sparkle

It makes sense that they are made of Poplar as it's a great hardwood for drums, best of all Poplar is cheap and plentiful which is why it is used to make inexpensive drums as opposed to maple Birch mahogany etc.. Poplar can produce crisp unique variable tones depending on the number, thickness and grain orientation of each ply in the shell, the type of glue, as well as the form, press and curing technique used by the manufacturer all determine how good or meh the drums will sound. Therein lay the downside of this otherwise upbeat kit! Someone remarked that lock washers should have been installed at the Ludwig factory, but these drums weren't actually made at the Ludwig factory. Since breakbeats is a concept kit and more or less a Questlove endorsement of Ludwig and vice-versa, it was cheaper to just have the drums made in china, slap a Ludwig logo on them and give consumers a break on the price. Whereas if Ludwig had produced the Breakbeats concept series themselves, it would have easily doubled the price of the drum kit!!

Great for the basement. Was tempted to get electric but thought I could make this work. It sounds good out of the box.

I needed a practice kit to use between gigs on a house set and this little guy fit the bill nicely. I put an Aquarian super kick 2 and regulator on the kick, swapped the stock snare out for my 5x14 supraphonic, and paired it with my Tama classic hardware. I've found it's not only highly portable, but also incredibly fun to play and much bigger sounding than you would expect a kit this small to be. The only downside I've found is that the drums pull out of tune quite a bit, but that's to be expected at this price point. I would definitely recommend!

I got this kit at one of the GC brick and mortar stores. I traded in some equipment and got 10 percent off to make this an even better deal. The thing I like best about this kit is it comes with everything you really don't need to change the heads or buy a bass drum lift or buy bags to transport it. It's small and compact but not too small it sounds really good. Bass drum sounds good with the stock head and maybe a flam patch or a gel. The snare is 14 inches like a real snare drum with a Remo Ambassador head. The toms are a 10 inch and 13 inch floor tom with Pinstripe heads. So no need to buy heads. The tom mount has a clamp for a cymbal arm attachment add a clamp and other cymbal arm and you could have a ride and crash cymbal without even having a separate cymbal stand. The bags are not the heavier padded bags but are okay for transport if you're careful and they can be draped over the drums to act as mutes for practice. All in all a great sounding kit small but not too small to compromise sound.

I play in different configurations of musicians as well as different genres. From blues, rock, older dance music and in a duo with piano and drums. The Breakbeats kit can cover over 50% of my needs. I recommend these drums to anyone needing a compact kit but who doesn't want to compromise sound and quality.

This kit sounds great and tunes up well. It is super lightweight and easy to transport, plus its small size makes it great for small/cramped stages. However, it is built very poorly. When Ludwig assembled these kits THEY DID NOT INSTALL LOCK WASHERS! There are other reviews on this site and others regarding this same issue. Every drum set made, from beginner CB Drums to the finest DW, has lock washers on all attached hardware. This is because like all acoustic instruments, drums vibrate and bolts can easily loosen. I can't play a 3hr gig without this thing literally falling apart...lug bolts and bracket bolts end up rolling around in the bottom of the drums. I took the time to go through the kit and install lock washers one at a time on every single hardware attachment, plus some Locktite Blue on the screw threads. I haven't had an issue since. But this should have been done at the Ludwig factory, just like every other type of drum set ever made.