Musical Instrument Reviews

We bought this guitar for my 10 year old son as a guitar to start him on. It was nothing but frustration for all of us. It is very poorly made, never tunes properly, and is all around junk. He is constantly irritated at the fact that even if he plays the chord correctly, it still sounds wrong. After questioning a nearby music store about this particular guitar the manager told me that they get at least 5 or 6 a month in for repairs that end up costing the same as the guitar did.

Reasons for the ratings: This would have been so much more fun if it wasn't such bad quality. Sure a guitar has incredible educational value, just not this brand. It's like getting a lego set with warped bricks. Durable? I think I have already stated my case.

You could consider this for a 3 year old to go crazy on, but it would be cheaper and more educational if you sat down with the tot and made a guitar out of a kleenex box and rubber bands.

My mom bought me this horrible guitar.The furnish is bad becauseit
always falls.The strings almost broke.And the sound is awful.It says
that it's great for kids.They are wrong!!!It is the most horrible
guitar I have ever played!

We purchased this guitar for my nephew, who is 16 months old. He loves strumming our full-size guitar, and he was delighted when he saw a guitar more his size. Although the intonation and so forth aren't great on this guitar, it is ideal for a young child who is more likely to use it as a hammer (or use a hammer on it) than use it as a fine instrument. Compared to other guitars in its price range--with perhaps the exception of Dean's 1/2-size guitar--this guitar really shines. Most other guitars under 30 bucks are little more than pressboard. If you want a top quality small guitar though, shell out $100 to $500 and buy yourself a Mini Martin or any other big-name small guitar: Yamaha, Takamine, Taylor (a great one).

As far as a strap, the one recommended on this site should work. The side with the hole (and no cord) attaches to the button on the bottom of the guitar. The side with the cord wraps around the neck, above the nut.

Why waste money on batteries? That there would be crazy.

Get this handy little item and play forever.

Just make sure you get the right adapter for the right keyboard.

Duh...

I got a Casio keyboard for xmas, and, considering it's size and quality, I was a little disapponted that it didn't come with a power supply (integrated or external (integrated would've been better)) but the next day I went to Toys R Us and bought this little gem and now all is fine.

I, like the other customers. ordered this adaptor based on the recommendation from the site, and was disappointed when, on Christmas Eve, I realized this was not right for the keyboard we had ordered. This situation was particularly misleading since the adaptor was practically "bundled" for sale with a product for which it is not compatible.

Straight out of the box, this drum kit seems like a winner. Its construction is fairly sturdy considering its price range - especially the main stand and the brain unit - it's easy to put together, and once constructed its futuristic good looks draw "wows" from all hands. A glance at the brain unit shows a huge array of buttons with such promising titles as "Metal" and "Blues" and "Bass Boost" and - my own personal favorite - "Speaker On/Off" which lets your child hear the drums in the included headset microphone without the rest of the house benefiting from his percussion skills.

There are, however, three main down checks which relegate this toy to the first-five(minutes)-then-forget pile. Those problems, in increasing order of severity are:

1. For the sturdiness of the rest of the unit, the "bass drum" pedal is exceptionally flimsy. Anyone with experience with any kind of musical instrument requiring a foot pedal will know the instant they touch this lightweight plastic pedal that it's going to cause problems - or it would if your kid will play with the set long enough for it to.

2. The "stand-up" drum kit idea may have seemed like a good idea in the corporate boardroom, because it removed the need for a pricey drum throne; but from the get-go I thought my kid would tire of standing up while beating these things and sure enough, the first words out of his mouth after I set it up and switched it on were, "daddy, I want to sit down." OK, you say, so get a chair for him. Well, maybe if he was older, but at the moment, they don't make a chair that lets his small body reach both the drum pads and the flimsy bass pedal, whose shortcomings are exacerbated by the requirement to step on it while standing. You're right, the bass pedal is no real loss, so if I thought he would ever play with these drums again, I'd put down the chair and forego the bass.

3. The real problem is that for all the aesthetic beauty and apparent quality of these "drums," the sounds themselves are nothing short of heinous. Whether in the included headset microphone, the mercifully switch-offable speaker or daddy's $130 Bose Triport headphones, every noise this thing makes sounds like it was recorded on a Radio Shack microphone into a $3 tape deck and played through blown out car speakers. The sounds are so distorted that it's difficult to tell the difference between each "tom" when you hit it, and the vast selection of "beats" on the brain unit are just so much wow and flutter. I'm not kidding you when I say they sound better with the power OFF than ON... at least then you can hear the rhythm of the clicking plastic without all the hideous distortion.

For purposes of this review, I should have put a stopwatch on him; but instead I'll have to estimate that in just over three minutes, my son was through playing with them and they will likely not see much use again, though the sturdy plastic drum sticks will probably get a workout on lots of other items around the house - items which, I might add, will probably sound more like real drums than the e-groovz Drum Station.

Yes, the price is right, but I would rather have spent double for something that would get some use. Now I'm only sorry I didn't take better care of the box when I opened it, as I'll likely be trying to dump this off on Ebay or via garage sale within the month.

When he was seven, my son wanted "a drum set" even though he had no experience and no lessons. This item was perfect, since it can be played with headphones- it still makes a lot of racket just hearing the sticks beat the pads, but he got to try making a bunch of sounds and we got some time to watch his interest before we took the next step. He was ready for lessons and some real kit before he wore out the first set of batteries.
It survived all he could dish out, but a new puppy took out the wire to the pedal.
This is an ok product for kids that want to bang and make more than noise. A good first step toward music for small kids.

i recently bought pacific digital's drumxtreme with all intentions of using this product as a beginner's tool. i hate to say that i am dissapointed with it though. for starts, the software that comes with it hardly works, meaning the "music game, etc." doesn't work, so therefore one cannot play along with music. all it basically does is let you bang on the drums and try to figure out things for yourself. so why not get real drums instead? this product promises a good beginner's experience but does not deliver it. the sound is not good quality, and the toms are barely audiable. not to mention that this model doesn't come with a hi hat pedal, leaving the beginner to use their arm - which complicates things in the beginning and could leave one frustrated. sure, there are other models that offer this, but for one who is on a budget and just looking to begin drums, this one seems like the best bet. i personally wish i would've kept my money and used it on real drums instead, which i am going to have to do now. so save yourself the trouble, if you want to begin - begin on real drums and get the real experience, dont be fooled by this product.

This great for kids who want a drum kit. Parents won't have to listen to the noise that a real wood drum set can make. For a professional, probably not a road worthy buy, but for a beginner and for the low price it is a good buy. All you need is a pc and it doesn't cost $1000 to $4500 dollars...

I bought the DX-150 (DX-100 with extra hi-hat pedal and pad) 2 months ago after did a lot of research before decided to buy this set since I was trying to save money (I'm a student). I have not been disappointed at all. I'm not try to compare with $500 e-drum. All I'm saying is that the quality of the set with the price I paid, I really have to give it 4 starts. The set-up with the rack is awesome and nicely done. I initially run the system with my very old soundcard and the sound was terrible. But after I upgraded my soundcard to 24-bit Audigy, this thing came alive. However, the system doesn't provide that many choices in terms of sound. Hopefully, there will be an upgrade version of the program (then I can give 5 stars). The delay of the sound after hitting the pad could be disturbing for experienced drummer. I ended up plug the system into my drum module (Alesis D4) with some modification on the base pedal. And it works like charm. I put a thin gum-rubber on each pad to reduce the nagging sound when you hit the pad. It works great without loosing the sensitivity. Really recommend this set if you have low budget.

We purchased this book for my daughter with her guitar. She is a bright girl and had a very hard time understanding it. Even we didn't understand much of it and we have played instruments!I would pass on this book and purchase one from a musical instrument store.

The book itself it pretty good, but the CD has some flaws. The first track is to tune your guitar. It would have been better to make each string a different track to tune each separately, but instead it gives you three plucks to tune each string from the lowest to the highest note. If you need more time however, you end up starting over, and this can take a very long time to get through! There is no actual instruction on the CD, it must be used with the book as it is just musical accompanyment and demonstration of the chords, no words. It would have been nice if the book came with a pick. The guitar didn't come with one either, so now I have to find a music store to purchase one.

My son was playing with these and within a hour it had cracked and there were lots of tiny metal balls all over the room. The other one broke within a couple of days!!

I cannot really rate this item because I never had the chance to actually use the item, due to a lack of information in the description of the guitar case. The description did not contain any information regarding what size guitar this case would hold. Hopefully, people wanting to purchase this will read my description so they do not have the same problem.
This guitar case will only hold a 30 inch guitar. I feel it is important information that should be in the advertisement. I couln't send this without rating the fun, educational value and durability so I just gave it the lowest ratings since I really never had the chance to use the guitar case with our 36" guitar. So this may very well be a great guitar case, we just never had the opportunity to find out.