MusicRadar

Pacific’s maple drums are made at the company’s high-tech facilities on the California/Mexico border

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Pacific Drums has acquired a global profile since launching in 2000. This is in no small part due to it being a division of the highly revered Drum Workshop. The closeness of DW has benefited Pacific with a wealth of expertise, and gives the company an inside track to the latest developments in the higher echelons of the drum world.

The first Pacific kits were made in the Far East, to California-penned designs. While the quality was fine,overseeing production involved a lot of travel and the timescale for implementing changes and improvements was longer than desired. The decision was taken to relocate the manufacturing base a little nearer to home. Nearly all Pacific drums now originate from the company’s state-of-the-art facilities on the California/Mexico border, a few hours’ drive from DW HQ.

Want to go large?

Pacific’s new MXR kit is an offshoot of the existing MX range and is available in just one configuration. The kit is built around a 24"x18" bass drum, partnered by a 14"x6" snare, while a single 12"x9" rack tom leads across to 14"x12" and 16"x14" floor toms. There is a choice of two lacquered finishes and a full hardware pack is included in the price. The kit can be further expanded by the addition of an optional 10"x8" tom.

The Pacific operation is run by ex-DW staffers and many of the workforce have also been trained by DW. It shows, as the first impression of these drums is that they are extremely well made. The MXR drums are 100 percent maple, and the wood is sourced from forests in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Minor variations in ply occur across the kit, depending on each drum’s purpose. The bass drum and all of the toms have eight plies, while the snare and bass drum hoops have 10 plies. The shells are thinner than the number of plies might suggest, so the individual plies themselves must be fairly slender.

Pacific has recently changed the angle of the bearing edges on its drums, with the new design closely resembling that found on DW kits. The idea is that with less of the surface area of the bearing edge touching the head, more resonance is created, therefore improving the sound. We thoroughly approve – who wouldn’t? – but it does beg the question, if the DW design was there all along, then why wait until now to emulate it?

The drums are finished in Ebony, a matt black lacquer that forms one half of the finish options (the other being the slightly racy Cherry to Black fade). The Ebony is less of a deep black and more of a dark charcoal that allows the grain of the wood to swirl through from below. Matt finishes, when teamed with a judicious choice of colour can look great, and the combination here definitely works to the kit’s advantage, being understated while simultaneously hinting at the dark power contained within.