Pearl Maxwin

Heh Heh, first with a review in the new drum section!

I want to say a few words about Maxwin drumkits which were made by Pearl in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These are now seen as 'beginners' kits, but when you consider that this is an early product by a now major manufacturer, they did exceptionally well. You have got to think, Pearl got their reputation somehow, and when you come across one of these kits you start to see why.

I have got two of these kits, they are used in practice rooms. All the drummers who use them love the tone. The hardware is a bit on the fidgety side, and not too strong, but I suppose thats what you get when they make em cheap. Pearl of course fixed all this later on and now make really excellent hardware. Maxwin kits gradually got updated and refined until Pearl came out with the name 'Export'. Up until then it was Maxwin by Pearl. There isn't much difference between the very late Maxwin kits and the rebadged Export.

The first Maxwin kit I got was a kind of Frankenstein kit, which I bought secondhand at a resonable price. It came with a hell of a lot of pro Pearl hardware from a later period, all excellent quality. The kick drum had been modified. What it should have been was a lightweight and possibly cheap concert type drum, with an open ended front. The ply is thin at about 6mm and there was no bearing edge on the open end. The legs were of the standard cheap disappearing spurs which you find on lots of kits of the 1960s and 70s. I can't tell what the wood is because the inside has been painted gloss black. It appears to be a kind of redwood, or it might be aged birch. The bracket holding the arms for the toms had been replaced with Pearl's now standard tubular system. Previously it would have been the awkward hexagonal arm holder. The previous owner had further customised the drum by adding a resonator head, still on the un-turned edge. I did my own customising by replacing the spurs with turn-down telescopic legs. If all this sounds like a recipe for a really lousy drum, well the surprising thing was it actually looked great and made the most terrific fully rounded boombastic thud you could hope to get your feet on. Honestly drummers would turn-up and instead of playing they would just go !thunk! !thunk! !thunk! just to listen to it. I have had several offers to buy it - I tell them, look on ebay, they go cheap!.

OK disregarding the hardware which was from a later date, this first Maxwin kit consisted of a kick drum 22" x 14", a 12" tom, a 16" floor tom (again open and without the bottom head) and a steel snare 14" x 5". The 12" tom had a reso head and obviously came from another kit. The kick drum and the tom are of classic proportions, which are less deep than what you find on later Export kits. The insides of all the shells (except snare) had been painted gloss black. The kick drum and 16" floor tom have good projection, while the 12" doesn't seem as loud.

The second Maxwin kit I got cheap on ebay. I think I paid 10 pounds for it. This one is the way it should be, though it was in slight disrepair. It has a 22" x 14" kick, 12" and 13" toms, 16" floor tom and a steel 14" snare. Again the drums are a bit more shallow than the later Export kit (I think the bass drum on these is 22" x 16"). This time the kit was made to have reso heads (though absent when I got it). Mounting the toms is a bit of a pain. The arms are hexagonal in cross-section, with a ball joint to enable repositioning. They don't have memory locks and all adjustment is via a drum key. The ball joint takes the full lever action on the toms and can start to loose grip, unless the thing is made impossibly tight. The hihat and drum pedal were pretty basic, not really professional so they got replaced straight away. Cymbal stands are basic single-braced but work OK. One is a boom and the other is straight up. The snare stand is a simple three-prong fold-away thing, with a tilt a

Both kits play very well. Its helped by the fact that the drums are fairly compact so you don't need to raise the toms too high above the kick drum or have them tilted at some stupid angle. You can lay the whole thing pretty low. Having it this way looks good too.

I replaced the heads with Pinstripes. For the resonator heads I am using a variety makes, all single ply, just whatever I can find cheap. The all-original Maxwin kit came with internal damping mechanisms on all the toms, but I didn't find these particularly easy to use, and they seemed to rattle loose. I took the whole lot out and reverted to the usual dodge of pads and gaffer tape. Theres quite a lot in the mids on these drums - they tend towards a bright sound. If you tune them too high then they can ring too much. They have a good tone if you stay within what you might say is the natural range of the drum. I like the bass drum a lot. Real punchy with a deep shock wave. I put carpet underlay inside it to flatten the sound, and make it quite abrupt. Between the two kits I like the painted one better. I can't tell if it's particular tone is due to the paint or the thickness of the ply. It has a thinner ply than the Mawin which is unpainted. Thunk thunk thunk like a 50 foot door being slammed shut.

I have a theory that when somebody is starting out in a band, they will buy whatever they can afford, which might be seen by other musicians of the time as cheap rubbish. But that band may go on and establish an audience and maybe have influence in their music. So that audience become attuned to the sound of those instruments and in turn hold them in esteem. There were a lot of bands in the early 1980s using this kit and you will hear Maxwin drums being played everywhere. One example for definite was PIGBAG. You can see the drummer playing a yellow Maxwin kit on youtube in the song Papa's got a brand new pigbag. Now that tune was one of the most sampled ever, so the sound of that drum has been reproduced over and over countless times. When people talk about Maxwin kits being no good, they are actually refering to a drum sound that has been used in possibly thousands of hit records, and that must count for something.

The kit has not been gigged, sometimes it can be awkward to set up. It has the usual blocky nutboxes that you find on early Pearl kit and a lot of Taiwan-made drums. Easy to tune and stays in tune. I have experienced problems with stripped threads on the brass nuts in Pearl Export kits, but these seem to have survived relatively unscathed. Some pitting and rusting on the chrome. The piano black wrap is becomming brittle and does not like getting knocked. The hardwear is the worst feature on these kits, upgade with modern Pearl stuff. However for a kit 25 years plus, they are both standing up very well. Compare that to a Premier kit the same age.

Never contacted the company, but they do have a good website with strong fanbase.

The Maxwin was and still is a good kit to start out with or use for practice. By today's standards the hihat and the pedal are lacking. Quality can vary, so you must be absolutely sure the kit you are looking at is going to be suitable. Things to look out for and avoid are the quality of the hardwear as mentioned (it got better as time went on), and also the number of lugs around the drums. Some of the economy kits for example, had only 6 lugs and tension rods around the bass drum. With so few you are clearly going to have problems keeping the thing in tune. Later kits are practically the same as Export kits, right down to the correct type of tubular arm and socket for holding up the toms. I have seen a good many of these kits go a ridiculously cheap prices on ebay.