This excerpt is taken from the complete article that appears in the August 2016 issue, which is available here.

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ddrum

Reflex Rally Sport Drumset

A great gigging kit with a tricked-out aesthetic.

One of the sister companies to Tampa-based ddrum is Dean guitars, and one of the woods that Dean uses for electric guitar bodies is alder. Alder is considered a semi-hard wood and ranks just above pine and poplar. It’s known for having a warm, focused tone with prominent midrange and low-range frequencies and attenuated attack. When used to build drums, alder provides a very satisfying sound that’s big and punchy with a short, focused sustain. Reflex is ddrum’s series that features all-alder shells. The kit we have for review here is a new addition to that series, called Reflex Rally Sport (aka 2RS). It’s designed to be the “ultimate gig kit” for drummers playing in smaller venues and on tight stages. Let’s see how it fares.

Components

The Rally Sport kit is available in one four-piece configuration. It comes with an 8-ply 14×22 bass drum, a 6-ply 8×12 rack tom, a 6-ply 14×16 floor tom, and an 8-ply 5.5×14 snare.

The drums feature ddrum’s Face Off turret lugs and 2.3 mm triple-flange hoops coated in satin nickel finish. The rack tom comes with ddrum’s minimal Fixt Pitch suspension mount, which connects to two of the top lugs to allow for optimal sustain. The bass drum comes with vintage-style gull-wing spurs that attach to the side of the shell rather than poke through it. The bottom of the bass drum features a few Resolift isolator pads, which help improve tone by keeping the shell from making direct contact with the ground. Advertisement

The 2RS is offered in two finishes, either flat black or green with crème racing stripes. The bearing edges are cut to forty-five degrees. Drumheads include coated 2-ply batters and coated single-ply resonants on the toms, a coated single-ply snare batter, and single-ply bass drum heads with built-in muffling rings.

Michael Dawson
 
For the complete review, check out the August 2016 issue, which is available here.