MPS-850 E-Drum Set : Mixed bag of tricks

The pros. Good range of parts to include the extra tom and cymbal. The sounds are OK after a bit of fiddling to programme up a kit one likes. I like the dual zone - you can e.g. have a tom on the skin and china on the rim. Ride being three zone is especially nice at this price range. The cons. I've dropped 2 stars: 1 the hi-hat is incredibly temperamental, even after the firmware fix. Just playing a simple disco beat or 4-on-the-floor on the hi-hat pedal causes spurious triggers and a mess. I would not rely on this kit live, even in a pub. 2 the midi functionality has a serious omission in that it plays all channels coming in. You cannot set the device to say only receive channel 10. This is a pain when daisy chaining say 'out' of your computer, 'in' to a keyboard then 'through' to the drum box. The result is you get all the other midi channels playing through the device's annoying GM bank. The only way round this is to buy another midi interface with more midi out sockets (or use soft synth or your keyboard's drums). The ability for a midi device to set send/receive channels has been around since the 80s, so come on guys! Overall build quality is medium - cymbals do sink down over time - again would not rely on taking this out to harsh live environment. Verdict. The box does have a few half decent sounds so it would be nice to be able to record them in a midi set up. Otherwise, it's just something to practice/learn on in the discretion of your own home if you need to keep the volume down.