MusicRadar

The maple kit: Natal offers A wide range of finishes including this Tobacco Fade lacquer.

1 of 5 » View in gallery

• Review

Natal is the British percussion company started in 1965 by Alan Sharp, the conguero with funk band Gonzalez.

Natal's fibreglass congas became hugely popular and were even played on stage by John Bonham. Natal continues with percussion but this is the company's very first drum kit.

It follows Marshall - yes, the famous amp company - acquiring the marquee in 2010. Legendary Marshall founder Jim Marshall is a lifelong drummer and so the idea came about to develop a Natal drumset.

"When it comes to the bass drums, hang on to your hat. The wind they created was enough to launch a ship."

There is just the one, professional range but it's available in a choice of four woods: maple, bubinga, birch and ash/birch. Natal has also developed two lines of hardware to support the kits.

Build

All Natal drums are produced to the same standard, varying only in the wood you choose (there's an identifying badge on each bass drum) and the available finishes. Natal sent us two kits, a Fusion X in bubinga and a Fusion 22 Plus in maple.

Both shell packs include 14x5½-inch snares in the price, but hardware is additional. The Fusion X consists of 10x6½-inch and 12x7-inch mounted toms with a 14x12-inch mounted floor and 22x18-inch bass drum.

The Fusion 22 Plus has 10x8-inch and 12x9-inch mounted toms, 14x14-inch and 16x16-inch floor toms and 22x18-inch bass. Additionally, the bubinga kit came with a couple of extra toms - an 8x7-inch and 16x14-inch.

These two set-ups are culled from a choice of 13 suggested shell packs, but you can buy any item separately. And Natal offers a wide range of drum sizes (including 13 toms from 8 to 18-inch), along with plenty of finishes.

The shiny and smooth kits we have for review are 'Pewter To Black Mist' (bubinga) and 'Tobacco Fade' (maple) lacquers.

Maple, bubinga and birch shells are enviably thin at 5.5mm and 7-ply, while ash-birch shells are 6.9mm, 6-ply. Insides are sanded to a silky finish but not lacquered. Bearing edges are 45°, sharp and level, and hand-finished with beeswax.

With a completely new product there's always the chance of teething troubles and with everything going so well we were slightly dismayed to discover a tiny gap in the join of the inside ply of the 14-inch maple tom.

Every other drum was fine. In fact, all the shells were almost perfectly round, something that is rare indeed. And remember, these are some of the thinnest shells around, which you might expect to distort more easily than thick shells.

Despite the shells being admirably thin, the drums are surprisingly heavy. This is testament to the massive hardware and fittings and the 2.3mm triple-flanged hoops.

There is nothing generic about Natal drums since all the fittings are obviously tailor-made. Each drum has two smart Natal badges with the air holes neatly providing the 'sun' of the Natal logo. The round lugs, of stout-walled, chrome-plated zinc, also bear the Natal logo and are based on extra-thick rubber gaskets.