Since their introduction in 1995, the Stage Custom Drum sets from Yamaha have set the standard in their price-class. Even in 2014, an updated version of the popular Stage Custom Birch drum sets causes the pulse and above all the blood pressure of drummer's to rise.
The most important improvement concerns the snare drum of the Stage Custom Birch. Instead of a metal shell, the snare drum now features a shell made of wood. This delivers a warm and very powerful sound, perfectly integrating itself with the sound of the Stage Custom Birch series. With its 10 lugs per side, the Stage Custom snare drum can be easily and reliably tuned.
Lugs and bass drum claws of the Stage Custom Birch series have also experienced an upgrade, and are now equipped with rubber gaskets. This protects the wood of the shell as well as improving the resonating characteristics. The bass drum legs of the Stage Custom Birch drums feature stoppers to aid setup.
The TomToms of the Stage Custom drums are mounted with the popular Y.E.S.S. suspension, which guarantees unrestricted resonating characteristics of the birch shells through minimal contact.
Pictured is a set example! Cymbals and hardware are not included!
Very happy with the Stage Custom drum shells, nothing but praise. Starting with the finish (Natural Wood - subtle, slightly yellow glossy lacquer), to the very good quality hardware on the shells and most important with the sound (defined, resonant, good separation of tone between toms). A bit surprised with the long bass note of the kick drum, as I wasn't used to unported bass drums so far. At times it sounds as singing along with the bass guitar. The batter drum head is now an Evans EMAD coated fitted with the thinner foam ring and the resonator was left the original with Yamaha logo. The toms were fitted from start with Remo Ambassador coated (10 mil), while the snare remained with the original Remo UT coated head, as it seems to be identical with Ambassador coated on the toms. The coating on the snare shows already signs of fine chipping after only 2 days, despite the very soft touch and brand new sticks. The coating on the toms looks a bit better, but shows signs of usage too. My previous experience was with Aquarian single ply coated (the same 10 mil), which seems to be more durable after 2 years of service.
Useful sound from the snare drum, less ringing than what I assumed it will have. The snare tension mechanism is a bit stiff, but usable. The snare wires are sensitive enough. Very good finish of the hoops and other chromed parts, as well as the lacquer on birch plywood.
Very happy with the careful packaging of the drums, everything was intact despite some piercing of the cardboard box during shipping. This is where the happy part ends.
Now to the part that most likely will be deleted by the reviewers of this review:
That leads me to the less than happy subjects: the communication with Musicstore was a complete mess (let's blame the close to Easter moment!) and the service of UPS (at least here in Romania) is truly bad with the only phone call would be "I'm at your street but I don't have your address number exactly". No previous SMS in the morning of the delivery day, no phone call and no driver phone number available. You have to lose an entire day to make sure you will be at the proper moment in the right place.
Love these shells, great sound from the Birch. Use them for a variety of music from punk to some ska and reggae and am always happy with the sound i can get from these drums