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The quality of electronic drum sets has increased tremendously in recent years! This is great news for parents, as with a relatively small budget you’ll be able to invest in an electronic drum set that is fun to play and will last for years.
In this guide, we’ll take a look at the best kids’ electronic drum sets on the market right now. I’ve compared performance, build quality, sound quality, and cost to give you my top recommendations.
What Is The Best Kids Electronic Drum Set?
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Best premium kit
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Best budget kit
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Best large kit
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The Best Kids Electronic Drum Sets Reviewed
Alesis Nitro Mesh Electronic Drum Set
Alesis Nitro Mesh Electronic Drum Set Review
The Alesis Nitro Mesh Electronic Drum Set is a kids’ electronic drum set that is packed with quality features and sounds, and it’s incredibly enjoyable to play!
It offers the most realistic and fun playing experience of any kids electronic drum set in this price range, period. The mesh drum heads offer a natural feel and an ultra-quiet playing response that won’t bother you or the neighbors.
Loaded with the Alesis Nitro are 40 great-sounding drum kits and over 385 individual drum and cymbal sounds. The sounds offered are expressive and realistic, making it feel like you are playing on a real drum set.
You receive all the drum and cymbal pads, a robust aluminum frame, the Nitro drum module, hi-hat pedal, kick drum pedal and kick drum pad tower. You also receive all the connection cables, power supply, drum key, and drum sticks.
This children’s electronic drum set is absolutely outstanding for the price. It’s quiet, compact, loaded with features, and most importantly great fun!
One of the best things about the Alesis Nitro Mesh is that it’s not primarily designed just for kids. Adults can happily play it too, but the pads are seated quite low, and that’s why it tends to be a better option for kids.
However, it works fantastically for teenagers, so any kid can keep playing this set for years as they grow into it.
A lot of adults buy it to use as an inexpensive MIDI controller, so the playability it offers is amazing compared to most of the other drum sets that we’re going to look at.
Features:
- All-mesh drum pads
- 40 Individual drum kits
- USB connection & AUX input
Pros
- Amazing value for money package
- Realistic and ultra-quiet mesh pads
- Over 385 drum and cymbal sounds
Cons
- No negatives for this price
Roland TD-1DMK Electronic Drum Set
Roland TD-1DMK Electronic Drum Set Review
The Roland TD-1DMK V-Drum Set is a premium kids’ electronic drum set. It boasts pro-level features, amazing sounds, and a quiet playing response – all in one extraordinarily fun package!
The TD-1DMK is built like a tank. The quality of the pads is comparable to the professional Roland drum sets, and everything is rock-solid. It’s also incredibly compact and easy-to-store. All the drum and cymbal pads are accommodated within the foldable rack unit that is sturdy and quick to set up.
Included with the Roland TD-1DMK is the TD-1 drum module that contains 15 preset drum kits that outshine all the other kid electronic drum sets. These are Roland’s latest preset drum kits – with dynamic and expressive sounds.
When comparing these sounds to the ones on Roland’s higher-end modules, they’re not as good. However, when you compare them to the sounds on modules from other brands, they’re far better.
There’s something about the sound quality and responsiveness you get from a Roland module that just beats all the competition.
Also included within the drum module is an in-built metronome and 10 onboard coaching functions, as well as an onboard recording function to help your kids improve their playing. An aux input lets you plug in any song from your own library too.
Although it may seem like an expensive kids’ electronic drum set, it is somewhat impressive that Roland can offer such a high-quality kit at this price. You get a lot of bang for your buck with this. It’s one of the best kids’ electronic drum sets that offers the ultimate playing experience.
If there were one thing that would make it even better, it would be if it had a large kick drum pad. All the other kits on this list have pads that are at least 6” or larger, while this one is only 2” or 3”.
The kit also doesn’t come with a pedal like the others, so keep that in mind!
Features:
- Premium kids electronic drum set
- 15 individual drum set sounds
- USB connection and AUX input
Pros
- Legendary Roland build quality and design
- Dynamic and expressive sounds
- Extraordinarily fun package to play
Cons
- No kick drum pedal included
- Premium price tag, but still great value for money
Alesis Turbo Mesh Electronic Drum Set
Alesis Turbo Mesh Electronic Drum Set Review
The Alesis Turbo Mesh is a complete electronic drum set for kids that contains everything you need to play drums right away.
It really is a great value bundle – packed with quality features including 120 drum sounds and 10 quality sounding modern drum kits to choose from.
The mesh drum heads with this kit offer a realistic feel and an amazing performance considering the price of this electronic drum set. The mesh pads are also nice and quiet – meaning your kids can play for longer without giving you a headache!
At the heart of this kids electronic drum set is an intuitive Turbo electronic drum module. It boasts great-sounding drum kits and utilizes Intelligent Dynamic Articulation technology that offers a lifelike playing response and feel.
The Turbo drum module also includes 30 play-along tracks, an onboard rhythm coach, a metronome to improve timekeeping, and also an aux input to plug in an external device for playing different songs.
The Alesis Turbo Mesh is the best electronic drum set for kids to buy on a budget. It is packed with great features and all at a very affordable price.
The only thing I don’t like about this kit is that it comes with a trigger drum pedal. This pedal activates a bass drum sound when the top of the pedal touches the trigger point underneath.
You don’t use a standard bass drum pedal like you do with the other drum sets. This stops kids from getting used to how a bass drum pedal feels to play, which is an important skill to learn.
However, the trigger pedal performs very well, so it’s not the end of the world to use it. You may just need to upgrade from this kit quicker than with any of the others.
Features:
- All-mesh drum pads
- 10 individual drum kits
- USB connection and AUX input
Pros
- Lifelike playing response and feel
- Amazing performance for the price
- Lots of helpful onboard features
Cons
- Not as good value as the Alesis Nitro
- Only 10 drum sets included
- Trigger pedal isn’t as lifelike or authentic as a regular bass drum pedal
Behringer XD8USB Electronic Drum Kit
Behringer XD8USB Electronic Drum Kit Review
Up last for review is the Behringer XD8USB which offers killer tones and playing fun right out of the box.
First impressions of the Behringer XD8USB are mostly positive, but it does not feature Mesh heads like the other kids drum sets reviewed. This puts the XD8USB at a disadvantage, but it is still an affordable and good-quality electronic drum set for kids.
The High Definition Sampling technology means that the pads are highly responsive; offering realistic and fun playing. Included with this kids electronic drum kit are 15 modern drum sets to choose from.
Setting up the Behringer XD8USB is a breeze and it is also compact and easy to store.
Included with the XD8USB is the drum module, a supportive frame, 4 drum pads, 3 cymbal pads, hi-hat pedal, kick drum pedal and kick drum tower. You also receive a power supply and connection cables.
Overall this is a pretty good child’s electronic drum kit, but I would choose the Alesis Nitro Mesh over this one because it has lots more drum kit sounds, mesh drum heads, and a more affordable price tag.
The one benefit that this kit has is that the pads are nicely spaced out. This gives you a bit more of an authentic feel when playing, as acoustic drums are more spaced out than a lot of electronic drum sets emulate.
Features:
- High definition sampling technology
- 15 individual drum kits
- USB connection and AUX input
Pros
- High-quality sounds from the drum module
- Lots of fun to play
- Compact and easy to store or move around
Cons
- Will need upgrading eventually
- Not as good as the Alesis models, plus rubber pads are not as fun to play as mesh
Kids Electronic Drum Set Buyers Guide
Buying an electronic drum set for your kids is a great alternative to an acoustic drum set. They take up considerably less space which makes them more practical, and they are much quieter than real drum sets!
Choosing the right kids’ electronic drum set will save you a lot of hassle further down the line. If you buy something cheap, you can expect it to break within a couple of months.
Unless you’re an experienced drummer, you won’t know what to look for. So that’s why I’ve written this guide to help you find the best kids’ electronic drum set.
There are some very cheap electronic drum sets online which may be tempting, but believe me, these are poorly made and are essentially toys. The kids electronic drum kits in this guide are musical instruments that are designed for adults.
They may be more expensive than something you might see in WallMart, but remember that what you pay for is what you get. They are much better quality and they actually function as quality musical instruments.
Why Get Your Kids Into Drumming?
Drumming is not only great fun but it great for improving concentration and developing essential coordination skills in children. Drumming utilizes all four limbs in order to play the whole drum set, developing motor skills, rhythm, and timekeeping.
You probably already know that kids love to hit stuff, plain and simple. They also like to make a lot of noise! Drumming is way more fun for kids than any other instrument- fact!
There are so many amazing benefits of drumming which I’ve put into this guide right here. Investing in a drum set for your kids to play on will provide them with tons of new skills and allow them to explore their creativity.
Electronic Drum Set or Acoustic Drum Set?
This is the big question, and there are pros and cons to both. Right off the bat, I would say that kids’ acoustic drums are more fun to play on. They are the real deal – the drums you see on stage and on TV. Electronic drum sets are designed to imitate them after all.
However, kids’ electronic drum sets are far more practical. They are more portable, compact, require less maintenance and knowledge to set up, and most importantly much quieter to play.
This is crucial, because if you live in a smaller space then you will find that a real drum set will take up a lot of room, and the noise might be too much to handle. For you and your neighbors!
FYI- electronic drum sets will still make some noise. The pads and mesh drum heads will still make a clatter of noise. But it is still a much quieter alternative!
The quality of electronic drum sets has improved immensely over the past few years, and the competition has led to lower-priced kits with even more features. Which is great for you as a customer.
The introduction of mesh drum heads on kid electronic drum sets makes them way more fun to play on because they feel more like an acoustic drum set. The sounds are also much better nowadays, with better sensitivity, responsiveness, and triggering accuracy.
Does a Kids Electric Drum Set Include Everything?
These kids’ electronic drum sets I have featured within this guide are all excellent kits, and they do include almost everything you need.
The only other additional products you need to get started are a drum throne and a good pair of drum sticks.
Grab a pair of Vic Firth drum sticks and a decent quality drum throne, and your kids are ready to rock!
You can also choose to buy an electronic drum amplifier, which can be pretty expensive, or alternatively just use regular headphones to be able to hear the sounds of the kid’s electronic drum set.
