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The Spherical sound module has 108 voices, 10 preset kits and 40 playalong songs

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• Review

With Yamaha and Roland dominating the high street as far as electronic drum kits are concerned, it's always something of a novelty when another brand pitches in to the market.

Given the two biggies' dominance in the middle and top-end sectors, it tends to be the entry-level that attracts the attention of contenders like Alesis and Session Pro. And such is the case with Medeli and its DD501 offering here.

It will come as no surprise that the company is a Chinese mega-corp with design and manufacturing capabilities employed to produce OEM products for better-known brands; the breakthrough price of the DD501 gives that away. Whether it gives much else away to the competition we'll find out…

Build

"There's enough give in the snare and tom pads to save your wrists, but this is balanced by a nice rebound; in short the kit feels more responsive than its modest price might suggest"

With a super-low price tag, there's no expectation that the DD501 will be tour-ready. The kit goes together easily enough, although the physical design predictably lacks the niceties of more upmarket offerings.

In truth, this is not a set-up we'd want to be rigging and breaking down too often – it's best seen as a permanent bedroom/practice room fixture. However, once everything is assembled, wobbles are kept to a minimum.

The affordable price tag also carries something of a penalty in terms of positioning flexibility. Where some posher set-ups give the impression of allowing you to place every pad exactly where you want it, the DD501 is a tad less co-operative from time to time. But, unless you're of freakish proportions, that's not to say you won't be able to get comfortable – any set-up compromises should be easy to work and play around.

It's certainly a very neat set-up that the DD501 has going on. Where you might expect old fashioned trailing leads from a kit at this price, the rig hides cabling within the rack, with short runs exposed for plugging into the pads. It's a nice touch that, while adding nothing to the playing experience per se, adds a welcome sense of sophistication.

What does add something to the playing experience is the surprisingly decent pads.
A dual-trigger snare allows for more realistic rim and head triggering, and the cymbal and tom pads are of decent sizes, and eminently playable.

The bargain basement hi-hat pedal is one of the few concessions to budget-slashing where the playing surfaces are concerned. It's the usual plastic-bodied affair that is typical at this level – it works okay and, in fairness, to expect anything more would be unrealistically greedy.

Before we get on to the nitty-gritty of how the DD501 performs, here's a quick round-up of the heart of the system – the spherical sound module perched on the top bar of the rack. Squeezed into its compact shell are a total of 108 voices, 10 preset kits (with room for five user kits to be saved within) and 40 preset playalong songs.

Connections are simple but effective, comprising a USB port, main and headphone outputs and a Mix In socket for hooking up the ubiquitous iPod or other MP3 player.