My first edrum kit after having only played on acoustic my whole life.
Starting off the build is OK for the money. You get what you pay for.
The pads do not go very high off the rack so you can't easily build an acoustic spaced set out of the box. The rack also moves slightly when played, but this is really not bad enough to be a problem. I put my kit on memory foam yoga mats, up against the wall. This way it dampens the noises into the wood floor nicely and the kick does not slide. No need for expensive isolated drum mats. The kick pedal itself feels fine but the kick tower feels like hitting a wall! I would rather they skip the hardware pedal if it means a mesh kick tower. The hi-hat pedal feels like air, but it does the job. Not as annoying feeling as the kick into a hard rubber.
The mesh heads are excellent and tunable to tightness. Feels real enough to me! I have been playing daily since it arrived. The drawback is the head rims are rather tall, so you have to angle the pads more to use a natural stroke while not hitting that rim. I've also used a separate snare stand to help with positioning, because the big-rim-small-pad problem is worst on the snare. I feel like I will upgrade to something 10" on the snare very soon. The cymbals are very basic, and the pinch-mute does not really work unless you get the exact spot. It all does the job. I also wish for a 2nd crash cymbal.
On the drum module.
I did some playing along with external music, the built-in demo jam songs, I created some custom kits, once you read the manual everything is easy to find and the buttons on the interface feel surprisingly good. I'm very satisfied with the features, external input works great. The headphone amp could use a little more juice, so I'm using a separate amp for the headphones. The sound of the kit is nice, not too artificial and you can customize all the sounds pretty well.
Concluding. Yes, this is the cheapest kit with mesh heads and a kick tower I could buy. Yes, it works great and you can tune everything with a little bit of patience. I highly recommend this for drummers like me who have experience playing, and just need something to practice in their apartment. For completely new drummers, it should be great too.
My biggest disappointment is the Alesis after-market / upgrade service. There seem to be no individual pads or cymbals available for sale, only the upgrade kit. I will not use a 2nd floor tom so this is wasted on me. Also any other cymbal clamps will not fit on these tubes from what I read, so the only option for more cymbals is the upgrade set or nothing.
