Donner DED-70SE Electric Drum Set

Decent beginners electric drum set.

This is a decent beginners electric drum set. The materials feel reasonably solid and good quality. It does require some assembly. The assembly is not hard, though there are a fair number of pieces. There are also a lot of wires to run and tie up out of the way. The instructions are decent. The bolts use an external square head design, which is not something I see often. They provide a small T-shaped tool for working with them, but this does mean you need to keep track of this small tool if you want to make adjustments, and can't just grab something from your tool drawer. All of the fasteners use this, including the ones you will adjust for folding it up to store, so this is not just an assembly tool that won't matter later.

The listing title says "USB MIDI" and "Type-C Charging Port". There is no battery inside, so it should say "power port", as there is nothing to charge. The USB port for the MIDI is USB-B, which is something I haven't seen used in a long time. It's not like this is an old model from before USB-C. They literally have a USB-C port on the device, but only for power. They also do not include a USB-A/C to USB-B cable. Considering how rare USB-B ports & cables are these days, and the price of this set, a cable should have been included. They do include a USB-C power supply, though the cord is fairly short, which again feels like lessening the product to save pennies.

So, once you get it assembled and connected up, it is a decent beginners set. It is obviously not studio quality. The price is not cheap, but it is also not studio level expensive, and the sound reflects that. The sound quality is certainly decent, and sufficient for a beginner practicing, but set your expectations. There are a number of options for adjusting the sounds, and the controls for doing so are simple to work with. They include a decent set of headphones, so you can listen to yourself practicing once setup without needing anything else.

Overall, this is a decent set. The price is reasonable. It feels like it will hold up to regular use. It is a great way to allow drum practice without disturbing everyone around. Learning a musical instrument can be expensive. This is a decent way to try out drums and see if it is what you want, and to practice, until you are ready to move up to something better.

Seems Sturdy, Good for Kids, One Sliding Part Stuck So Can't Finish Building

I might have rated this higher if we were able to completely assemble it. The size and sturdiness based on the parts seems like it would be a good kids set that is durable. But the side stands come sort of pre-assembled where the two vertical tubes are already inserted inside of each other, which the instructions tell you to assemble. This is already done. You are supposed to then be able to slide and extend them each to the same height and, although one of them slides easily, the other is jammed inside and won't budge at all. We've had numerous people who are strong try to get the pieces apart or get them to slide, and no one has been able to do it, so we're stuck with a drum set that is unusable. I'm not sure it's worth the price for kids, but maybe if it had good sound quality if we had been able to test it when all put together. This may just be a rare flaw with the set I received, but it's my true experience so wanted to be honest in my review.

Space saver and lots of fun

My kids are really enjoying this. One of them plays drums for 3 years now. They prefer to use the headset, but I also tried hooking it up to their guitar amp and it works great. Obviously electronic sounding but fun nonetheless and it's getting a lot of use.

Best is how little space it takes up and it's very quiet for others when using the headset. Others will only hear the tapping.

Build quality is good. Takes a lot of adjusting to get it set up how you want. If you like, the wires could be tidied up a lot more than I have in the picture.

It came with the headset, sticks, and throne. But wish it came with the normal angled pedals for the hi-hat and bass. I think those are separate, while this set only came with the foot buttons which feel awkward.

It has recording and playback which work well. Only records for several minutes and I believe only one recording at a time. Probably all you really need. It has different options for drum tones... Similar to a synthesizer.

It's light enough such that you could move it room to room. Good addition for a drummer to get extra practice without an entire kit.