Simmons Titan 70 Electronic Drum Kit With Mesh Pads & Bluetooth

Most Liked Positive Review

Great kit for learning and probably more.

The first thing my kid said when they saw the picture: "WOW! Fancy!" Indeed, the Titan 70 makes a good first impression. I got the Titan 70 Electronic Drums primarily as a learning kit for my 10 yo. The kid had been taking lessons on pads for a couple months, and it had been going pretty well, so it was time to step it up. I also make music on the side, and had been wanting an electronic drum kit for my own greedy needs for sometime, but had never pulled the trigger. I had been looking at a variety of entry level offerings from Roland and Alesis, as well as checking the prices on used kits, so I got to know the ins and outs and features of these kits pretty well. When I came across the Titan 70, it looked like a fantastic mix of quality features at a great price. Every drum is mesh, with a rim trigger, multi zone ride, and overall more drums than anything else. On the surface, the Titan 70 seemed like a no-brainer, coming in at least $500 less than a comparable feature set from another brand. I've never owned an acoustic or electronic drum set, so I'm coming at this mostly from a newbie's perspective. I did grow up around a drum set, since a family member was a drummer, so I'm not completely out of it. TLDR This kit is really good. It feels nice to play, was pretty easy to setup, and is well thought out. The plastic hardware does seem like it warrants caution, but I didn't break anything and it's all working nicely, which is what really counts. There's plenty of options if you want them or need them, but it pretty much just works. The app has some nice features, is easy to use, and, well, it doesn't suck - which is saying a lot for a complex product that is pushing the envelope on price. It has a bunch of different kits that are a good mix of fun and silly, and you can make your own kits too. They sound convincing and are engaging. In some ways, the sounds are like a movie soundtrack. You shouldn't notice them - they just feel natural. I keep expecting something to feel off, but it just plays nicely. I bought this for my kid to learn on, and it has been perfect for that. He's spending more time with the drums, and is generally more excited about practice. While I could have saved some money with a more entry level or used kit, I'd expect that we would have ended up ditching that sooner rather than later. Besides, if the kid ends up losing interest over time, I'll inherit a really fun kit for my own playtime! Read on for some tips if you have one and want things to go smoothly, as I share what I've learned! Setup There's a lot of parts in this kit, so make sure you put aside plenty of time to set this thing up. It took my kid and I about 2.5-3 hours to get everything up and running and cleaned up (there's a lot of packaging involved!). Setup wasn't hard, there's just a lot of stuff. The metal frame that all the drums attach to comes pre-assembled, so it is just a matter of unfolding it and attaching the hardware - with one exception, discussed below! For the most part, boxes were clearly labeled, and the manual gives good instructions. There's one tool - a drum key - and it's included. The cables are all labeled so it's easy to plug the drums into the cable snake. Once it's properly setup, it all feels solid and playable. However, I'll note a few things here to keep you from getting tripped up! First and Most Important - the hardware clamps for connecting the toms 3 and 4 to the rack did not come pre-installed on the metal rack. I did not realize this until we started adding all the drums and cymbals to the rack! At first, I thought parts were missing, and was very sad. We eventually found the necessary brackets in a box labeled "Extension Kit." There's no mention of this in the manual. To put them on, we had to remove one of the legs on the rack, then remove a bracket, then slide the two pieces in the "Extension Kit" onto the rectangular tubing. We then replaced the bracket we removed. I'm guessing this rack is shared in products that don't have the 2 additional Tom drums, so Simmons just adds the hardware into the box and lets you do it. But it should be called out as the first step in assembly, just to make things smoother. Next note - the connecting hardware is all plastic. The rods for attaching the drums are metal, and the supporting frame is metal, but the attachments and clamps for the supporting frame are all plastic. I can't imagine this is unique to the Titan 70, nor do I think it a terrible drawback. It keeps weight and cost down, and still creates a solid kit. The main thing is that you don't want to tighten anything too tight. Just a decent hand-tightening, and all is good. Make sure you loosen the hardware enough so the "teeth" in the joints are free enough so you don't grind them. Again, DO NOT over-tighten! I guess this is the case with metal hardware on acoustic drums, too, but it's worth an extra mention for this. Given that this hardware seems to be product-specific, it would be nice if there was a quick link to order additional hardware. I'm sure there will be some ham-handed ruffian who cracks a piece during setup, and will have to add insult to injury to figure out how to replace it! You'll want to get a feel for it, as there's a lot of adjusting to all the parts to make it comfortable to play. That's just the nature of these things. Cable routing. All the drums and cymbals connect to the sound module via a cable snake. Each drum takes in a 1/4" cable, and ends at a DB-25 connector that connects to the sound module. Cable lengths assume the snare is close to the sound module. It makes for a very clean setup. If you want to add drums/sensors, there's a couple extra trigger inputs on the sound module, which is super cool. There's plenty of clips and bands included to make sure you do not have a spaghetti mess. Even the most obsessive cable router will be happy here. One mistake I made was that I didn't put the sound module all the way to the left before locking down the wiring. This meant I didn't have slack when I needed to readjust things! So - be smart, and push that module all the way to the edge, tighten the bracket, and then wire things up and then neaten up. Kick and Hat. These are no doubt the most challenging things in a kit like this to get right, because stomping on things with your feet tends to move things around! The high hat pedal and kick drum have some very solid velcro for gripping to carpet, and some mean-looking pins you can use to lock them down to a floor. Renters beware - you could probably incur some damage using these. I have the kick drum against the wall/baseboard, and the whole kit is on a rug. I did not feel a need to lock things down with the pins yet, as it's mostly my kid playing this. Once dad starts taking out his middle aged frustration and dashed rock-star dreams out on this thing, all bets are off 🙂 Maybe I'll update the review then. TIP: I found it really helpful to put some plastic bags (there are many in this box!) under the pedals to make it easy to position them. This keeps the velcro clean and the pedals easy to move on the rug. Once you have them comfortably positioned, you can slip the plastic out, and use the velcro to lock them down. App I installed the app on my iPhone. Bluetooth pairing had zero problems. It worked as expected and without hassle, which is not always the case with Bluetooth! Once connected, I was able to try out effects, select different kits (though it is faster to just use the module's buttons for that!), modify kits, and mix levels of different drums. Since this is a practice kit, I don't see much need to do this, but it's great that you can, and it works easily enough. If you were going to pack this off for a wedding gig or something, and you needed to dial all this in for your band, it would absolutely work for that. I tried the practice licks which keep track of your timing with the different riff styles. It's not something I thought I would care about, but it's actually a decent way to practice with something familiar sounding, but without baggage. The accuracy feedback is also nice, since it's sometimes hard to judge/admit how crappy you really are :) The two way communication between the module and app works ok. If you change a value on the app, you see it on the module, and vice versa. There is some latency in this however. Not surprising, since it is probably sending a lot of information over Bluetooth MIDI! I was able to use the app to easily adjust the sensitivity of the hi-hat trigger, since my son found it a bit too hard to trigger. This is easier than menu diving on the module, so it's a great reason to have the app.