Gretsch Catalina Maple

This Gretsch Catalina is a full maple (shell-)set,10/12/14/ft/16ft/22x18 bassdrum and a 14x6 snaredrum.
It comes with the Gretsch double tomholder with ballclamp and the 6 legs for the two floortoms. The bassdrumspurs are ok and the tommounts are doing their job. The toms have Gretsch' own GTS-rims. Easy to position and sturdy thanks to simple but wellworking memorylocks.
The color is called "Deep Amber", very classy, but far more dark than the pictures on the Gretsch-site..... Still nice and pretty timeless, though.
The top- and bottomheads are clear single-ply heads with the Gretsch-logo and aren't that good. However, you could leave the bottom-ones on for a while. The snare has also a cheap coated single-ply head. The bassdrum has Powerstroke 3-type heads (no Remo) on both sides and these heads sound more convincing, but overall the set benefits from better drumheads.

The sound is very nice and has i.m.o. definitely the typical maple sound. (Though there are people that claim that the type of wood is liitle of importance for the sound, but I don't agree with that..!)
Warm, with lots of low end but with enough projection and definition.
However, the type of drumhead will offcoarse be important for the sound and with Remo Emperor Coated heads the toms sound great.Nice overtones with enough body and sustain.
At first I had serious problems with the two floortoms. They both sounded as if they were choking, but that's because the floortomleg-tips are way to thin. Replace them with good ones (Pearl Suspensionfeet) and the problem is gone. The shells have a nice range, but somehow a little higher tuning was the most convincing to my ears.
The snaredrum is the weakest part in the link. That doesn't mean it's bad, but I wasn't too impressed, even with better drumheads. It sounds a little thin for a maple snare.....

The set is roadproof, no doubt and any amateur, semi-pro or pro can play this kit without any hesitation.
The laquer is what you can expect from a set in this pricerange: ok!
The drums needed some finetuning in the beginning, but now it stays nicely in tune.
Because I bought only the shellset I can't say much about the hardware that comes with the set, but it's from Gibraltar and I'm almost shure it will do this kit justice.

No experience so far...!

I play this set next to my Pearl MMX Gold set and though there's definitely a difference in quality, the Gretsch is amazing value for it's money. I do use a Pearl Sensitone brass snare instead of the Gretsch...!
I'm a professional player (from the Netherlands) for more than 25 years and use the Gretsch for smaller gigs. I can take different configurations with me like 22/10/14 or 22/12/16 or the whole set offcoarse!
This Gretsch-set is exactly what I needed: a versatile set of shells with a good sound for an amzing budget.
Only add 6 suspensionfeet to the prize; you'll need them!