As a drummer and a sound engineer, I definitely have a particular preference for what I like to hear in a drum sound. However, besides just my personal preferences, I honestly feel that Pearl Drums has consistently been making higher quality drums than other manufacturers for the entire duration of their lifespan, and that is the reason why they are probably the premier drum company in the world right now. Pearl is known mostly for its drum sets, however they have made so many other drums and produce so many different kinds of percussion that it is really actually pretty difficult to fully wrap my head around it. Currently, Pearl makes snare drums, djembes, congas, bongos, and brazilian percussion, and each of these offer a competitive professional sound.
It is really the fact that Pearl takes the time to engineer the shells of its drums quite well that I feel makes them sound so great. Whereas other drum companies will simply cut a piece of wood, finish it, and that’s that for the drums, I have watched a Pearl Drum being made it is really an amazing process involving pressure-heating the wood, and then forcing it together with great amount of pressure in order to make the densest drum shells that they can. This density of the shell is one of the main reasons why each Pearl Drum Kit has such a deep and full tone to it, as the bass frequencies get a little more presence and projection with a greater density in the shell. When you take the heads off of drums made by other companies, you will sometimes find that they actually feel a bit flimsy, or have some other kind of filling in them to to hold them together, but this simply isn’t the case with Pearl Drums. It is all just wood and the highest-quality glue that you can find.
The number one Pearl Drum Set right now definitely has to be the Pearl Masterworks series. These drums are the only ones by a major manufacturer that can be called legitimately “custom drums”. With Pearl Masterworks you get the opportunity to choose from a variety of wood selections, some of which aren’t the norm for what you would find in drums: such as mahogany, bubinga, eucalyptus. In addition, you can even combine these woods within a given drum shell, which allows you to sculpt some interesting tone colors and characteristics out of your drums. The Pearl Masterworks series are quite expensive drums, but they are highly durable and will probably last you for a very long time, so if you have the money and really want to invest in a serious set of professional drums, then I would strongly recommend them.
The number one reason that I personally love Pearl Drums is the sound. As I mentioned before, the shells are slightly denser than average, which gives them increased projection and low-end frequencies. To top off this raw projection, Pearl does a great job of cutting its bearing edges out, which helps to determine how much projection and warmth the drum will have. Because they take pride in crafting their drums as individual instruments, not just as a set of nice-looking ones, the sound of Pearl Drums is just consistently better than the rest.
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