Mapex Pro M

I have been playing drums for 35 years in working bands. I have had several brands of drums. Premier, Ludwig, Sonar, and a few others. My Males 6 piece Pro M series has been my favorite. I've had them 16 years and they have seen many miles and lots of barrooms and I still get complements on them. My band opened for, Highway 101, John Michael Montgomery, Trenny Trent, and some others. It was at a large festival and all the other bands drummers asked to play my Mapex kit. The sound man said it was easy to set them and they sounded great. If I wasn't getting to the age where I'm about to retire, I would get another set of Mapex!

It has been two years since my wife bought me a Mapex Pro M maple as a gift (isn't she awesome?!?!). Mine is a Fusionease 5-piece in natural finish plus an extra black panther snare. I absolutely love it! It looks great, sounds great, and even the hardware is better than I expected.

I did a lot of shopping around before deciding on this model, and I'm glad I did. I could have settled on something cheaper, but the investment was well worth it. Having a better kit just makes me want to play it more - and playing more made me a better drummer.

I think the new version of this model is the Meridian Maple. If it is anything like the Pro M, you won't be disappointed. As another reviewer commented, there simply isn't a better kit in its range.

I got my mapex m pro classic in feb.2008

could not be happier.

great sound and high quallity.

could not have spent my money any wiser.

very happy with mapex drums.

cant say enough.

This is by far one of the best kits in its range; it is steady as a rock, looks damn sturdy and if you take the time to put the right heads on it it sound thunderous. You can also adjust anything to it like Octobans & concert toms, extra floor: you can do anything with it! Great, great drumkit. Koen, The Netherlands

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.

The Mapex Pro M is a realy good set,this is the first accustic set i have gotten,in 30 years.the wood snare has a realy different sound will take a while to get used to.need to send cymble stands or somthing whith this set, william

I'll put my Pro M kit against damn near any kit. As a matter of fact, I recently did a double-drum gig with a drummer playing dw drums. My kit was the only one that was heard. the guy with the dw kit was pretty pissed that he wasn't heard! I was crusin' not bustin a sweat and he was pounding the daylights out of his (good thing this gig was outdoors!)

Mapex Pro M sounds fantastic when tuned mid to high.

It doesn't sound too stellar when I tune it low for a fat sound

A really nice midrange snare.

I see tons of comments from people who obviously have no clue about drums, even though they claim to be players for many years. I'm a teacher and professional player for over 18 years and I say if you can't make these drums sound like a mill or two, you might want to hang it up and find something else. These drums are great. If you got the dough though, go for the bigger ticket items like the saturn or orion series.If you're not into mapex looks, then hit up a Gretsch renown maple or USA Custom and see what it's like to play on a real mans drumkit.

If you're a true percussionist and you have mastered the craft of tuning, you can make any kit sound good. These drums, with a little bit of preparing out of the box, sound like a million bucks. And that's with the stock heads. Not sure why everyone downplays the stock heads. They are the same heads a lot of you would buy at the store, you just don't know that's what it is because the labels are different.The kit looks beautiful, I got the redwood fade. Hands down, for the price, they beat any other line out there when it comes to mid level kits.

I like these Pro M kits because i played one in a studio a little while ago and now i own one of my own. I think there very reasonably priced and sound and look absolutely fantastic. Thanks again for the opportunity you have given me to express my opinion.