Mapex Pro M Review

Watch this item
Mapex Pro M
4.3 stars
Average rating for this product is: 4.3 out of 5

From 12 ratings and 12 reviews

Thumb up 92% of users recommend this product

Rate it Now:

Click on the stars above to rate this product:

Tweet This Item


Guest's Review of Mapex Pro M Drum Kit

4th Sep 2009

Overall Rating

5 stars
  • Value for money
    5 stars
  • Appearance
    5 stars
  • Sound Quality
    5 stars
  • Reviewer's Musical Standard
    Advanced

It's interesting, one of my kits is a huge canary yellow Mapex Mars series with the vintage style tube lugs... the kit has always been a big favorite because of the low/warm tone and resonance it has being a maple and mahogany mix. I decided to replace that one with a brand new Pro-M 4-piece kit to save some room as things are getting crowded in the studio.

I was both concerned and curious about the tonal difference I could expect moving to the all maple Pro-M shells from the Mars... so I decided to test some shells side by side when the new kit arrived just to satisfy my curiosity.

I have a good ear, a tuning gauge and some extra Mapex UT Remo imported heads so that the test would be 'apples to apples'. I tested a 12 and 14 inch tom as those are the sizes that come on the 4-piece Pro-M kit. Both shells have vinyl wrap in this case. The results sort of surprised me.

Tuning the resonance heads slight tighter, and the batter heads to mid-range... The Mars shells sounded about one octave lower. The sustain on the Pro-M shells was only slightly longer, but not enough to really make an impact. Then I tuned the Pro-M one octave lower... I swear the shells than sounded almost identical! I could barely tell any difference at all, except the Pro-M still had just a slightly discernible longer sustain.

I've always wondered just how much of a difference it really made when Mapex decided to take the 'M' series to an all maple shell, and I can honestly tell you; not much. Both the mahogany laced maple Mars, and the North American rock-hard all maple Pro-M (and now Meridian) are nearly identical and both sound better than their intermediate classification would imply. However, Mapex does state that this series has the exact same shells that the flagship Orion series has, which makes this arguably the best value for money within the Mapex line of drums.

Tweet This Review

Guest's review has yet to be rated - Be the first!

How helpful did you find this review?