Best Intermediate Drum Sets – 5 Capable Mid-Range Kits!

This particular version is the Fast Tom setup that has rack toms that are shallower than your typical rack toms. As a drummer who loves playing fast patterns around the drums, I love how the shallow toms cater well to that. They have less sustain than standard toms and get out of the way very quickly.

Another great thing about the shallow depth of the toms is that you can place them directly above the bass drum without worrying about them touching it. Toms with deeper depths need to be placed at an angle if you want to keep them from being in contact with the kick.

If you want to have flat tom angles, you have to raise your drum throne pretty high. That’s not the case with these shallow Mapex toms.

Even though the toms are shallow and sit in the upper-tier sound range, the two floor toms more than make up for it with their beefy tones. I found the bass drum having immaculate bottom-end as well. So, you’re completely covered when it comes to sound diversity.

If you’re a fan of the sounds but you don’t want the shallow toms, Mapex also sells this kit in a 5-piece version that has standard tom depths. Overall, both kits sound fantastic and are priced very reasonably for the quality they offer. They also come with a steel snare drum that is fairly versatile in its sounds.

One thing to note is just how good their Tomahawk steel snare sounds for rock and metal genres. I've played with this particular snare before as part of a completely different Yamaha kit that I own, and it just has this incredibly tight but deep, growly sound.

This is particularly where Mapex really shines — every single one of their drums has a certain tightness that makes it a very clean kit for very precise drumming.

It doesn't necessarily have to just be in rock and metal genres, though that's where most drummers do end up using this brand. Because of the price, I've actually used the Mapex Armory on one gig playing British drum and bass (or "jungle," as some people call it).

This is a type of electronic music style that has the drummer playing double-time sped-up loops. Imagine taking the famous Funky Drummer loop and playing it on a sampler at twice the speed — well, that's drum and bass for you.

It's super challenging but really cool to play live, and it's making a comeback with pop artists like Kenya Grace. Ever since that gig, I've always used Mapex drums when playing very fast rock music or simulating electronic loops in the studio.

I also have to mention that if you're using these for live gigs, the colors and paint job are incredible. I can't even believe they have this level of art detail at such a low price. These drums look like expensive vintage Ludwig kits from afar.

One thing that I’m not a fan of is how the toms are mounted, though. While I think it’s good that the kit replicates pro kits by having the toms mounted onto cymbal stands, I feel that the system isn’t implemented too well.

It can be frustrating to mount the toms in the exact way you want due to the tom mounts not locking tightly in place when you tighten them. This can get even more frustrating if you plan on setting up the kit in different places often.

You are unlikely to find a better drum kit for the price, making the Stage Custom an incredibly enticing option to go with.

My main reason for loving this kit is the tom mounting system. You’re going to hear me speaking about hardware quite often, but that’s exactly what you should be looking for in intermediate kits. Most of them sound similar but the quality of their hardware is what sets them apart.

Anyway, this kit uses Yamaha’s YESS mounting system which is what they use on all of their drum kits. It’s a simple way of mounting the toms to the bass drum with a few parts. However, I feel that it’s one of the best mounting systems around as I always have such an easy time getting my toms to feel comfortable on a Stage Custom kit.

The rest of the hardware on the kit is immaculate. My only concern is the lugs on the snare drum. They’re known to break every now and then and replacing them can be quite a mission. It’s fairly common for drummers to upgrade their snare drum when using a Stage Custom.

Because of the great construction standards of Yamaha, this kit sounds like some of the kits two or three times its price. In fact, if you just upgrade the heads, it's almost identical to a vintage Recording Custom kit.

That's what I love about Yamaha kits, depending on how you modify them. You can really get an all-around versatile, professional, and amazing-sounding kit not just for performing but for recording.

The toms sound perfectly tuned and stay that way, even in transport. It also has one of my favorite kick drum sounds for Latin music. It has a really nice low end without having as many subs as a brand like Sonor, for example.

That's why I would go with this kit if you're looking for something fairly affordable that can get you through every genre possible.

As a suggestion, I don't know why, but to me this kit sounds best with Zildjian cymbals. Of course, you can work with any brand, but for some reason, the overall tone and general pitch of the drums sounds great with this particular brand.

Try it out for yourselves — I would especially recommend using a 14" Zildjian I Hi-hat. The precision response matches the Yamaha like a glove. It's also a great value and one of the more affordable members of the Zildjian family.

This is a kit that will last you a lifetime thanks to how good it sounds. You could get a pro snare drum and you’d be able to use this kit in recording studios with no problem.

There are a few things about the PDP Concept Maple that I feel are better compared to the Stage Custom, though. There are also a few things that are worse, but let’s stick with the good for now.

I’ll start with my favorite things about this kit and those are the beautiful finish options you get. Out of all the finishes on these intermediate kits, I don’t think any look as good as the ones on the PDP Concept Maples.

They’re mostly satin finishes that look incredibly clean and professional. If I were playing drums in a music video, these are the types of finishes I’d want to have to make my drum set look as good as possible.

In terms of sound, the maple shells provide the kit with fairly warm tones. They’re a lot rounder than the punchy birch tones of the Stage Custom kit. They’re especially deep as you go down to the bigger drums. It’s quite common to see Concept Maple kits being used in churches. I think the warm tom sounds have a huge role to play in that.

The drums sound pretty good with the stock drum heads. However, you’ll be surprised at how much better they can sound with some higher-quality heads placed on both resonant and batter sides of each drum.

Another thing I love about this kit is the MAG throw-off on the snare drum. You’ll hear me saying this about every DW or PDP kit I ever speak about, but the MAG throw-off is something I wish that every snare drum had. It makes turning your snares on and off such a quick and smooth process.

Similar to the Yamaha Stage Custom, I feel that the snare drum is the weak point of this Concept Maple kit, even with the MAG throw-off. It’s perfectly usable but replacing it with a higher-quality snare will take your drum kit sound to a whole other level.

When I saw the PDP Concept Maple for the first time in the studio during a recording session, I really loved the sound. I wasn't the drummer on this particular date, but we were recording an artist from Nashville who was doing some beautiful Daniel Lanois-type Americana music, and the drummer was playing this kit with mallets.

It's a beautiful sound, almost cinematic in nature, as the reduced stick attack creates a pleasantly muffled beginning. This is where a maple kit truly shines — delivering a warm tone with enhanced low frequencies.

In contrast, if you were to play a Mapex kit with mallets, it would sound like you're playing a bunch of phone books or buckets because there's very little decay, especially on toms, since they're already so tight-sounding.

So if you're looking to play slower material, this PDP Concept Maple is perfect. It also shines at lower-intensity gigs like coffee houses or small venues, or intimate small room showcases at festivals like SXSW.

Tama has a large roster of metal artists, and I’ve found that this kit works incredibly well in metal and rock drumming settings. It’s not a kit that was specifically designed for that, but it seems to cater best to that. I wouldn’t suggest using it for a jazz gig.

This kit is all about power. Regardless of your style, whether it's pop, hard rock, or metal, if you're in a high-energy band, this is the one for you.

Here's a tip when choosing the right drum kit to play in a high-energy band: choose a kick drum that, even when played extremely hard, retains a lot of the low end. The reason for this is that one of the most important aspects of playing in a band is for the bass player and drummer to be locked together as one unit.

I learned this lesson very early on after arriving in Los Angeles from the great bass player Matt Bissonette, whose brother is one of my favorite drummers of all time, Gregg Bissonette.

I was at my first recording session, and I thought I was rocking out. When I went into the control room, Matt pointed out how sometimes I did extra kicks that didn't follow the bass pattern — you could really hear it in the recording.

For that particular gig, I was playing a Tama kit because it was for a power pop artist, and it featured heavy electric guitars. So, if you're playing in either a band or a recording session where you're going to be competing with a lot of thick low-mid and low-layered instruments like amped bass, synth, or heavily distorted electric guitars, do yourself a favor and use a Tama kit.

And of course, pay attention to the bass player and stay glued to him for the whole song! Especially if you're using the Superstar Classic, because this one packs a low punch.

The one thing I love about this kit that is lacking in most of the others is a quality snare drum. The snare that’s included has a fairly wide tuning range with a crisp attack. I discovered that it opened up incredibly well the harder you hit it. The rimshot sound was beautiful to hear.

Another thing I appreciate is the quality of the hardware. Tama has a fairly good reputation for producing high-quality hardware, and it’s shown with the construction of this Superstar Classic kit.

While this kit isn’t as flashy as the others we’ve gone through, I feel that it’s a strong contender on the list. It's quite reliable and the bellowing low tones make it a great option for heavier styles of music. The tom mounts are quite good, allowing you to position the rack toms as comfortably as possible.

Unfortunately, I found the stock drum heads to be quite weak. Since the kit sounds best in lower tunings, equipping it with 2-ply heads will make a world of difference to the sound.