was looking to get into the drum market without having to buy a real drum kit for a couple of reasons. First, they are just too big for my house, second, they are too loud to practice with a family around. The dD65 solves both of these problems. It is a small package and light, and you can plug in headphones for practice. The amazing thing about this machine is that it sounds sooooooo good. You’ll never know its not a real drum set. The other great thing is that because it is digital you can easily plug it into your computer’s “audio input” jack and record amazing sounding drums into your digital recordings. This is simply impossible with real drums.

The other great thing about this drum set is the amount of drum kits that you can choose from. Their are over 100 and each one useful for a certain type of music. You can also create user defined drum kits where you choose what each pad sounds like. If you are looking for a portable drum kit or a cheap way to get into playing drums this is for you.

The only problem with these drums? The pedals. They are cheap and while they do work they are sometimes hard to use successfully. You’ll want to upgrade to better pedals. But for the 200+ price tag this is a steal!

I picked this pack mainly for the pedals shown in the picture; however, I did not receive those. It only came with the standard button pedals that come with the drum set. The headset included has cheap construction and quality. It will not last.

The product itself is good for beginners and aspiring drummers. The pads do not replace the feel of real drums. The on-board speakers are decent but lack any kind of bass, so I suggest hooking it to speaker system with a sub. It fails to recognize hits sometimes, and the bass ‘buttons’ do not feel like real bass pedals.

The DD-65 works well as a MIDI controller if you want to hook it up to a computer. That’s one feature it has over a real drum.

When I first got my Yamaha dd-65 I was pretty impressed, the only disappointment when opening the box was it does not come with power adapter. Fortunately, I had one lying around that was compatible with the dd-65. Once everything was hooked up properly I hit the power button and it work perfectly. It is really easy to use and fun to play. You will have to get use to the pedals but after about an or hour or 2 of playing time the pedals wont bother you. The pads are okay they have some rebound not a lot but good enough. The pads do make a decent about of noise tho. One thing I really liked was how you are able to have 3 custom kits. On my real kit I have a double bass pedal so I made a custom kit with double bass. But one thing that annoyed me was you can not change the volume of each pad. When playing on the toms and using double bass I really could not hear the bass drum that well, no matter how loud I turned it up. You can adjust the sensitivity of the pads tho. I do not play the drums that hard so I put it on the highest setting (there is only 3 settings) and every time I accented a note on the hi hat it triggered the cymbal pad above which was very annoying. I have had the dd-65 for about two months now and my snare pad has stopped working. I do not hit that hard if anything I do not hit hard enough. I am researching how to fix it but have not had good luck. I would recommend this product but just keep in mind that this wont feel like a drum set and you can not hit it like you would a real kit. Also I have been playing drums for 8 years now I have taking formal lessons for 7 of those 8 years and I have played on all types of kits electric and acoustic.