George's Drum Shop was among the first to sell the compact Traps drum sets which have been well accepted by our customers. Rumor has it that this instrument was designed by some expatriates of another single headed drum company who wanted to build a better mousetrap. There have been many attempts at designing a compact drum set over the last fifty years and I think this is the best one so far. Some of the forerunners of this contraption were the Flatjacks, the Remo Legero, the Purecussion Headset, and the Arbiter Flats and Flats Lites which have all had their drawbacks, mainly in the tone department.

 

The TRAPS A400 consists of five extremely shallow drums; three single headed toms, a double headed snare drum and a doubled headed bass which are mounted on a Gibraltar type rack. There are two cymbal boom arms mounted in the vertical posts of the rack. All of this can be folded into a very compact unit for transporting, typically on the back floor of a car behind the front seat. There is also a bass drum pedal, a hi hat pedal and a set of cheap brass cymbals that come with the unit. While the drums, cymbal mounts and rack are professional quality, the pedals are very lightweight intermediate grade and the cymbals are beginner level brass undersized cymbals; 13" hats, 14" crash, 18" ride.

 

The tone of all the drums is surprising, not what you would expect from a predominantly single headed set. Of course the single headed drums sound like single headed drums but the resonance, sustain and fullness is far better than your typical roto tom type sound. Of course all the drums are not as loud as regular size wood shell drums. The shells are made of ABS plastic and are just long enough to accept the tension rods and hold a head. They are fitted with Remo pinstripe heads on the toms which give a nice rock or pop sound without too much ring. I tried a single ply coated Ambassador on one of the toms and was rewarded with a more sensitive and high pitched jazz tone.

 

The bass drum comes with a Remo Powerstroke head and a Remo black head on the front. There is a muting ring inside the drum which is the traps version of a pillow. I found the bass drum to take more tweaking than the other drums to get a good sound. There is an integral steel plate for attachment of the bass drum pedal.

 

The 12" snare drum, while not exactly a Slingerland Radio King, has a very good tone for what is basically a plastic drum. While I would prefer a 14" drum for deeper tunings and better sidestick clicks, the 12" size is more in keeping with the concept of a lightweight foldable kit. There is a molded snare bed in the plastic shell and a simple throw off mechanism which functions well. The heads are Remo ambassadors.

 

All the drums have 1.7 mm counter hoops and use a traditional tension rod and receiving nut tuning system. The molded shell for each acts as the "lug" brackets.

 

The rack is a Gibraltar type 1.5" polished chrome steel tube with ABS molded t brackets and large rubber feet. The toms are mounted with very functional ball and socket type clamps. The hidewaway cymbal boom arms collapse into the upright tubes of the rack. The snare stand is a snare basket and arm which is also attached to the rack. This rack system allows for a wide range of positioning, more than I've seen on any other compact drum set on a rack.

 

Portability and size; The whole unit with cymbals, stands and pedals weighs a paltry seventy pounds. The drums, cymbal arms and rack legs can all be folded into one large suitcase size package for transport. Folded, the length is 23", width is 11" and height is 30" One can easily pick up all the drums and cymbals on the rack and move it in one lift

 

There is also a set of two bags available for the set, one for the drums and one for the hardware. There is no throne included in the American version. The entire unit ships new in one small box. We do not sell partial sets at this point because they are shipped to us from the distributor complete. If in the future when we are able to buy individual drums and parts we will list those on the website shopping cart.

 

My opinion: This is a good sounding drum set and it is well designed. I want one for myself. I would use it for rehearsals, very small casual gigs, and teaching. There are other uses for them as well such as home practice, lower volume church gigs, use as a second set, or even as a beginner set because of the low price. Comparing it to all the other one headed and compact drum sets I've used, the Purecussion headset did not have the full tone that this one has, the Remo Legeros sounded rather splatty and tubby to me and though the Arbiter drum set is very similar in set up it is limited in tone to a good low rock sound but the limited one key tuning system of the Arbiter did not lend itself to a wide tuning range. The rack mounting system on the Traps A400 is very well thought out, making the transporting and space saving aspects of it very attractive. The set also sounds very impressive when mic’d up through a sound system.

 

Also available from Traps; the E400 electronic set with sound module and elecronic cymbals, and the A2E400 conversion kit for turning your acoustic traps kit into an electronic kit.