Mapex Meridian 8 Piece.

Hey! I posted this a while ago but there's been alot of changes to my set-up recently so I'm posting the set as of today.

My kit is an 8 piece Meridian Maple in Rootbeer Burst Sparkle, which is a Saturn finish. This kit was also limited edition I believe.

My snare is 14x5 inches, I got this snare with my kit too. But it sounds pretty nice for a stock snare.

Bass drum is 22x18". Toms are 8",10",12",13" and the Floor Toms are 14 and 16.

Cymbals :

Hi-hats - Sabian XS20's (Were previously Agean Karia's but they cracked)

Crashes : Zildjian A Custom EFX 18" and Agean Custom Brilliant 16"

China : Sabian Pro 16". Really nice cymbal! There's a Paiste 101 crash under there too!

Splash (not pictured) : Agean Custom Brilliant 12" (I think?)

Ride : Zildjian Avedis Sweet Ride 21"

I'll put audio samples up sometime this week :)
 
Not bad at all, even though I'm not sure on the placement of your smallest tom.

My other half's school actually recently bought two Meridian Birch kits (22", 12", 13", 16") and I had a chance to have a proper look at them today.

I was quite pleased. My impressions of Mapex haven't changed.

The drums sounded good after a bit of work on the tuning front. The snare had a narrow range, but sounded good in the right area - I had some problems with the 13" tom too; but none of it was untunable, it just required extra tweaking than I'm used to. The tension rods were a little stiff, but nothing serious. The shells were well constructed and the hardware was solid. I've been using a Mapex hi-hat stand for years and it's never failed me. I liked the bass drum pedal a lot.

The only part I didn't like were the tom mounts; but I'm in that minority that don't like isolation systems much. They seemed to move a little more than was strictly necessary when I hit them and I really wasn't hitting hard!

I do think Mapex are on a good thing here. They've raised their own bar in the last few years and I think they make very good kits. That doesn't mean that I would go and buy one - I just don't find them exciting - but I can see why other people would and I certainly can't fault their judgement. Don't expect to find one in my drum room but I think they're very fine kits. The Meridian Series are very solid and I'm glad that my other half's school decided to get two of them! I spent all of this morning patching together other drum kits in the rooms of the school and it was a relief to know that they had two very fine kits amongst all the other broken parts!
 
Not bad at all, even though I'm not sure on the placement of your smallest tom.

My other half's school actually recently bought two Meridian Birch kits (22", 12", 13", 16") and I had a chance to have a proper look at them today.

I was quite pleased. My impressions of Mapex haven't changed.

The drums sounded good after a bit of work on the tuning front. I had some problems with the 13" tom too; but none of it was untunable, it just required extra tweaking than I'm used to. The tension rods were a little stiff. I've been using a Mapex hi-hat stand for years and it's never failed me. I liked the bass drum pedal a lot.

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The only part I didn't like were the tom mounts; but I'm in that minority that don't like isolation systems much.  They seemed to move a little more than was strictly necessary when I hit them and I really wasn't hitting hard!

Hahaha yeah, I had to clean up around the kit and I've not had time to move everything around, I'll need to do that tomorrow.

I was never a Mapex fan at all until my drum teacher had his Saturn set-up one day with his Black Panther and I fell in love from that day and ended up buying one over a Tama Hyper-drive.

My 13" is a pain to tune, I finally have it though. I also found my 10" tension-rods very stiff, I found you need to put them through the hoops a weird way, kind of slanted and then finger tight.

My double tom mount is also very bad for that. When I have my kit set-up smaller I use my single mounts, they work FAR better. You really need to tighten the double mount pretty hard so they stay in place. I've got it at the moment though :)

My school used to have Pearl kits until the schools tutor set-up a Meridian Maple in the school's studio. We have a Q series now aswell as the Meridian Maple. They both sound great on recordings with the schools Zildjian ZXT's. It sounds like they've been recorded on a Led Zeppelin album or something. I took my cymbals in once, never recorded with them but the kit sounded great with them aswell as the ZXT's.
 
They ended up with two sets of Istanbul's 'Alchemy' line. Their caretaker is a drummer so he knows what he's talking about and I think he just about hit the nail on the head with these kits.
 
They ended up with two sets of Istanbul's 'Alchemy' line. Their caretaker is a drummer so he knows what he's talking about and I think he just about hit the nail on the head with these kits.

Definitely! I've not tried Istanbul's alchemy's. I think they're used in lots of metal and Drum N Bass though? I'm not sure. My friend showed me one at my local drum store and it was a kinda bell which was a splash with rivets in it. Sounded incredible!
 
My impression of them is as a 'Brilliant' Rock line. Probably fairly inconsistent, but I was impressed with them. They sounded very good for what they were.
 
My impression of them is as a 'Brilliant' Rock line. Probably fairly inconsistent, but I was impressed with them. They sounded very good for what they were.

Aslong as they sounded awesome that's the main thing :)
My school was getting Session Pro kits and Gears4Music then most of them broke and the tutor said "Can I order a kit?" and then we had a Pearl Export with Stagg cymbals. At the time, it was the best drum kit I had ever played! Then I played my drum teachers Saturn with Sabian Pro's and it blew me away. I go out, get a Mapex Meridian Maple and my school gets on in at the same time. I was pretty happy about that because it was a kit I was used to too and now we have 2 or 3 Mapex kits.

Mapex seem to be getting pretty good with educational stuff too. I go to Jazz band for the whole school year and they went from a 10 year Pearl Export with Solar cymbals to a Mapex Q series with PST5's. Not the best, but definitely a grade up from what they had. Then I got to play the Ayotte kit they had at the concert. Absolutely blew me away! But anyways, my friends have also said their schools are getting really well equipped with gear now. One of them has a Mapex Meridian Maple AND Birch aswell as a Saturn in the recording studio with 2 Roland kits I was like "Wow...." and other schools I've been to have Mapex kits too. That's definitely a grade up if schools are going from crappy kits to Mapex kits. Where quality is brilliant for the value.
 
Well, I won't be complaining if schools can get good deals on the Mapex kits. It reminds me of Pearl in the 90's - every school had an old Export kicking around. Two of my schools certainly did, but those kits were unloved and I hope the same thing doesn't happen to the new kits making their way in now.

I've played many school kits. I haven't actually been in school for years, but I'm qualifying as a teacher soon. We'll see what happens!
 
Wow, beautiful finish!

:)

Very! That's another thing that caught my eye when I seen it. The finish was limited edition and it was originally a 6 piece so about a month later I decided to get two more toms and I had just ordered them before the deadline, so I was pretty lucky. I believe it's a Saturn exclusive finish now, but Iove it.
 
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