20Aug2026 - I finally was inspired by some of drummers joining Justin Guitar, recently @madmetal , to finally get an inexpensive electronic drum kit. I have been unsatisfied with most of the drum tracks that I find in GarageBand, not because they are bad, but because they donāt match the rhythm track I hear in my mind, so the only answer is learning to do it myself .
I went cheap and small with an Alesis Blaze Max with is a rebranded version of the Alesis Trurbo Max and was purchased on sale at local Guitar Center.
Here is the drum kit after a couple of days of assembly:
I know from reading a few online forum reviews that drummers in the JG community will consider this an inadequate drum kit but the features that are much maligned online are the features I wanted:
1 - ultra compact and folds away for storage - good for me but a lot of drummers consider it too small for adults. Since I am 5 foot 3 inches it is less of a problem for me.
2 - it has a beaterless foot switch for the the ākickā drum instead of a kick tower with beater - turns off most real drummers but the big plus for me is that the footswich is much quieter and keeps me out of trouble in a small house with my wife and 2 excitable dogs
3 - it is relatively cheap and needed to set aside some money for the upcoming BLIM class 5
It really is compac=t as you can see from the picture of the complete Frame I took during assembly:
The electronic module includes line out and bluetooth so hopefully in the future I can use to add some drum tracks to my guitar playing. The funny thing is that I had a couple of drum sticks for the last 5 years that I got from one of those DK learn to play drums sets - with video and drum sticks but no drum so I had to use an empty Amazon shipping box
So here is a short audio clip that I played on the snare drum that probably reflects some time banging on a shipping box during the COVID lockdown
I was in a hurry to make a first recording so I put my iPhone between to earpieces of the cheap headset included with the kit and played something from my head on the snare with all the default initial kit and settings. I didnāt even sit on the wobbly drum throne, I just squated and played and then stripped the audio from the video recording
I think that I have the potential to add some good drum tracks of my guitar playing.
Congratulations Steve!
Same rules apply to drumming as to guitar work. SLOW deliberate practice and use a metronome to set that internal clock. You will work on limb independence just like guitar is digit and hand independence. I close my eyes and visualize a centered point in my body from which all movement flows, down the limbs and joints into hands feet and digits.
Yesterday after rehearsal I was expressing my frustration of my fretting and picking fingers landing on wrong strings and all the guitarist said the same thingā¦it will come with practice keep going.
I am amazed at their fingering fluidity as much as they are with my rhythmic independence. The one guitarist who has rhythm issues sat at my drum kit and we traded tips, techniques etc.
Just like one muting strings and slapping with the fret hand the song rhythm, you playing a kit and me learning guitar expands the musical conversation that occurs when we play with our mates by immeasurable bounds.
My drum teacher first told me the money rhythm is a steady grooving 1,2,3,4 just as the money chords in songs can be just a two chord change. Its all about the emotion its played with.
Enjoy your kit. I have found tons of practice backing tracks on Tidal\Spotify that are favorite songs or just good grooves with and without drum tracks. Good fun practice stuff as well as learning playing in front of, on top of and behind the beat.
You have just entered a new rabbit hole!! Have fun
Congrats on the new kit! I wasnāt able to hear your recording for some reason (got a message about an out of date browser, so Iām sure the problem is on my end), but wanted to mention that you donāt need to be tied to the drum sounds that come with your kit.
If you use a DAW for recording, there are lots of options to record to MIDI and then apply professional instrument sounds. I use AddictiveDrums, which Iām really happy with. There are lots of other free and paid options out there, some dependent on which DAW you use and others less so.
Just like the guitar, there are plenty of rabbit holes to go down with the drums!!
Brought me back to the days I played drums in a local band. I took lessons for 5 years. First year was all marching music, but then I finally got into the rock stuff. Woo hoo! I kept adding parts to my kit as I went and could afford them. Now I have a snare drum someone gave me I pound on from time to time, and wish Iād made my music room bigger to accommodate a full set of drums. Have fun!!
Jason, thanks. I did the march because the bouncy mesh pads created a drum roll with one hand without even trying. I did the pattern twice though to show i could control it some.
Brian, thanks for the listen and for the kind words. Iām only good on a single drum at this point, but just like the guitar Iāll get better with doing multiple things at once with practice.
Yes Steve, once you get the hang of moving both hands and feet independently, youāll be flying around those things. Doesnāt take that long. Slow and easy start is the key.
Timmy, thanks for the thoughtful response to my post and for giving me the push to finally make the plunge to get my modest drum kit. Even with the small size I am still trying to determine where to store the partially folded drum kit In addition to my attempts to drum on cardboard boxes and plastic buckets, I have also been a lifelong hand drummer from a very early age. It drives my wife crazy at times, since when I am at a turn and have the turn signal blinkers on my car, I am tapping a counter rhythm So one of my favorite songs is Doctor My Eyes by Jackson Brown, one of the best uses of a hand drum in a song in my opinion. Iām still trying to nail that rhythm I prefer acoustic percussion to synthetic or canned percussion so I can really appreciate live performances. I was just listening to the Hot āLanta from the Allman Brothers Fillmore East Live album which just had a 55 year anniversary this year. That track has two guitars and two drummers, so that is a good example of guitarists and drummer cooperating and creating something great. I like blues rock power trios like Hendrix, SRV and even John Mayer Trio like the TRY! live album. One other good rhythm track is Funk 49 by the James Gang of Cleveland, OH and on my iPhone favorites song list.
Iāll take your advice on starting slow with the drums and hope that you have a lot of fun as you explore the guitar.
David, thanks for the advice. Iāll definately need to do that since this inexpensive kit has one of the fewest number of sounds for electronic drums. Iād love to find some carribean metal drum sounds to use for Three Little Birds. I couldnāt find that in GarageBand.
I used and still have the Haskell W. Harr beginner books. They were great. I used them for some students I taught as well. Rudiments of Music they were called. All marching stuff, rolls, ruffs, paradiddles and flams, etc.
Iāve never used garageband before, but I assume you can use external plug-ins? If thatās the case, when you are looking for a specific instrument, or sound, you can search for a āvirtual instrumentā or a āvst plug-inā.
A quick search for āsteel drum virtual instrumentā turned up a few, but seems like they are mostly ātongueā drums, which I donāt think is what youāre looking for. There were at least a couple options for the Caribbean style drum I think youāre looking forā¦ butā¦ it looks like this could be your first rabbit hole!!
I only saw paid products (but not very expensive), and they might require additional software (like Kontact), and since its a melodic instrument, its most likely made to be controlled by a keyboard.
Again, not familiar with garageband, but it may be possible to use custom MIDI maps to figure out how to use your drum kit as a controller for the vst.
oh you hit all songs that formed my love of music. Oh lordy, Funk 49. In High School days that hit the charts. James Gang & Nuggent all used to come to mirror lake on the Ohio State Campus and do free shows. My buddy built a light box that reacted to musical sounds and Funk49 was the song that really lit it up. Hendrix, Allman Brothers, Wishbone Ash - English band that was one of the first to do dual harmonic guitar leads (Ted Turner and Andy Powell) wow. Early Doobies where another duel drum and percussion and of course the Dead.To funny about the turn signals, i tend to pump brakes and accelerator keeping my footwork going. Do you think those following say āHey Margret, must be one of those drummer people driving the vehicle in front of usā.
Hand drums are coolā¦i have a djembe, congas and bongos and love the opportunity when someone else sits at the tubs where i can move to congas. Occasionally friends stop by and we do dual drumsā¦that sure is a tune up in listening to your mates. You have lots of great comments especially about things available through DAWS. I believe Cakewalk\Sonar\Bandlab still offers a free full studio DAW. I ran it for years starting with when it came on i think 8 diskettes till just recently. You could have a blast with that tracking your guitar\drums and adding in bass lines through robust tools offered in Daws these days. Do to subscription models i moved to S1 which is still affordable and very robust. The metronome tracks are so coolā¦real live grooves instead of tick tick tick tock.
Drummers Pulse is a great free on-line metronome for developing chopsā¦complete control over bpm and rhythmic patterns.
Totally thrilled for youā¦keep us updated
@madmetal Timmy, happy that you enjoyed my meandering story of love of rhythm and that it brought back good memories for you. The more time you spend in the Justin Guitar site you noticed that it is a big love of Justins also, but applied to guitar. In all the Song Lessons Justin is always showing some new ways to strum beyond the basic strums to make it more interesting to me. Also if you Iook at the books in the store you will see a Rhythm Reading book that Jusin wrote with a professional drummer that has 250 pages of single line rhythm exercises. I have given it a stab, but it is pretty daunting to see so many pages of 16 note exercises Also in Grade 3 module 19, Justin has a lesson on Guitar Pro software and at the 15:45 point he demonates how to annotate a drum track in Guitar Pro
I wanted to add for the benefit of international readers who might read this post and be unfamiliar with the James Gang, they had a guitarist, Joe Walsh who joined a band called the Eagles that some might know of and who had a pretty good hit with Hotel California BTW, do you pick up on the reggae rhythm in hotel California along with a touch of Latin beat?
EDIT - duh! I looked online and saw that the band originally named the song Mexican Reggae
Tbanks for all the info. I havenāt tried to connect the drum kit to my laptop, but I have GarageBand DAW software on the Mac and I have looked again online and see some ways to add drum libraries to the DAW, so I just have to get busy and explore and have fun
Ha ha fortunately for my wife and two small dogs these electronic mesh drums have a flexible fabric surface and so they make very little sound when you strike them, except through my headphones. In fact, they are quieter than an unplugged, solid body electric guitar.
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In addition to my attempts to drum on cardboard boxes and plastic buckets, I have also been a lifelong hand drummer from a very early age. It drives my wife crazy at times, since when I am at a turn and have the turn signal blinkers on my car, I am tapping a counter rhythm 
