Jobeky Drums LTD ProX Snare

These have to be one of the best edrums out there. Made by a small British company, the quality is far superior to much of the Roland-dominated market, but at a price that's a real surprise.

Real wood shells (a good range of specs including choosing your own wraps from an ever growing range or natural wood effects and now with chrome shells available too).

Mesh heads for quiet responsive playing. The Jobecky philosophy is to give the most authentic acoustic feel possible for an electric kit and they do this in spades. A range of stand and rack options for great flexibility and sizes for shells being either 10" or 12" (single or dual zone triggers for each) or their older v-drum style 8" tom pads. The mounts are all compatible with Roland clamps and many other makes of tom-mount and stands.

Being a small company they value feedback from the customer and are constantly working to develop new equipment to match demand (at time of writing they're working on a moving hihat and multi-trigger cymbals to be equivalent to some of the Roland VH-11/12 triggers), but their pricing is probably less than half of the mainstream's offerings.

Their kits/pads are compatible with (and available with, if you don't already have a drum brain) the Alesis DM5 and the Roland TD range, including the more advanced Roland triggering techniques such as Rim Shots and Cross-stick work.

The build quality I've seen so far has been more sturdy than your average tank (being true acoustic shells), so should survive life on the open road easily. Spare mesh heads are available for a very small amount of money (probably less than you'd pay for a new acoustic snare batter head!).

With proper hoops and tuning pegs you can tweak these pads to match your preferred tension and playing style (I like a very tight snare for those fast buzz rolls, with slightly more bouncy loose toms for big bombastic rolls and rock fills). In terms of sound levels, they're quieter than Ddrum mesh heads I've played which is great for the neighbours when I have phones on and the quality of the actual sounds you play depends on the unit you plug into.

I'm using a combination of DM5, TD3 and playing kits in Reason via MIDI (plus playing some of my old drum machines - R8M, TR606, SR16), so I have a wide palette available. My preferred brain for the main work is the TD, but it's a little flat compared to the subtle multi-layered kits I can build in software (Reason Drumkits refill is immensely realistic) and the analogue warmth of the 606. The pads themselves give fantastic response to even the most intricate or delicate stickwork and to date the biggest failing lies with the cymbals. To that end Jobecky are stocking the Alesis Surge range to give better playability and with the aforementioned developments it will be interesting to see what they come up with. If their new cymbals are half as good as their pads they'll quite possibly be the best on the market.

Bomb Proof. 'Nuff said really. If you can afford a Roland mesh-head, try one of these instead (they sell individual drums as well as full kits as they understand the budget constraints of those of us living in the real world), I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Unbelievable support. The MD, Colin, is always available for a chat, or he'll answer your emails no matter how long and rambling. The company also has a shop, so if you're in the UK and within driving distance you can drop in and road-test their gear prior to purchase. If there's a particular custom setup you're looking for they'll supply it (or advise you of the best way to achieve it if it's not all their own gear) - how often do you get that level of service from a big corporation, even on a Sunday afternoon?

I've got a hotch-potch of various gear from different manufacturers as I slowly build an e-kit to be comfortable and unique to me. I've been playing drums for about 25 years on and off. Most recently I got back into drumming as a means of programming beats in the electronic band I write/perform with (finally got sick of drawing in the intricate fills!) and bought a nasty cheap Alesis DM5 kit to achieve this. The hard rubber pads and cheap flimsy hardware made me realise I needed to actually invest some serious money to create something actually usable and reliable. I've decided (now I have the bug again) to take drums out live once more, but this time keeping it electronic rather than acoustic for the greater range of sounds I can work with. To date my kit consists of the original DM5 gear (being replaced one piece at a time), plus TD3 brain, Roland CY12h hihat pad and FD7 pedal, Pearl kick pedal on a Yamaha DT kickpad, 10" Jobecky snare and tom pads from Dynacord and Ddrum.

I'll be augmenting this setup with more jobecky gear (a couple of tom pads with tom stand are lined up next) and watching their cymbal developments as I feel they're quite possibly the best built equipment in this setup. Even compared to the vastly more expensive Ddrum mesh pad, the response from the Jobecky is superior. I have to admit I like the Ddrum's side-mounted piezo for tom work as it gives better 'bounce' (my preference in a tom), but for the snare, the centrally-mounted piezo makes for a much more sensitive and responsive experience (just remember that central dead-spot).

I'd like to try the 12" shells too for the larger playing surface, but for now (and for a starter) the 10" does everything I've tried to throw at it with a very natural acoustic feel.

This review sounds like a advert I know, but my experience thus far has been so good that it'd be great to see this little company make a big name for itself with drummers - Colin was a drummer himself and has been a traditional drum builder for a long time and it shows in the kits he's building. So if you're on a budget (like me), but want that V-drum experience, check them out...