Are you looking for a reliable Alesis Nitro Kit review*? Then, you’re in the right place.
*Time goes by so quickly! This article was written in 2017 and initially covered all the essential information about older versions of Alesis drumming kits.
Several new models from Alesis have appeared lately. That’s why we decided to update the article. You can also find old reviews below, so you’ll have a chance to compare old and new models and see the progress.
IN A HURRY? HERE ARE OUR TOP PICKS…
| Image | Models | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Alesis Drums Nitro Mesh Kit (Top Pick) | Check Price |
 | Alesis Drums Turbo Mesh Kit | Check Price |
 | Alesis Drums Debut Kit | Check Price |
Alesis, who have seamlessly made the transition between producing audio kit-like interfaces to instruments like e-kits, have certainly made waves in the electronic drum kit industry.
Their kits have always been exceptionally well priced. Gone are the days when an electronic drum kit was always an expensive piece of equipment likely to set you back $1000!
Better technology, better feel, better groove, better beats! It’s a great time to live in for drummers, especially those who love electronic kits and their fantastic ability to help you practice, record, and, most importantly, have more fun playing drums.
Alesis have gone through the gears lately. First, there was the DM6 several years ago, then the DM6-Nitro, and now they’ve cut that to just Nitro. Minimally named but not minimally feature-packed at all, it exceeds its predecessors in every way.
The Nitro is a captivating bit of a kit. It looks great, strong and sturdy, and has a powerful module. To top it all of, the Nitro has a price tag that won’t burn a big hole in your pocket, weighing in at a pretty affordable price…!
Alesis Nitro Kit, Its “Relatives” and Its Main Competitors:
Alesis Drums Nitro Mesh Kit (Editor’s Choice)
The brand aims to provide you remarkable drumming experience with natural response and feel. This mesh kit offered by the company delivers an authentic experience that all drummers demand. It will not disappoint you when you want to play drums. It includes drum sticks, power supply, and drum key for hassle-free and straightforward setup.
All these essentials support and provide comfort for drummers of different ages. In addition, this features advanced mesh head drum technology. Perfect for practice sessions at night so you can hone your drumming skills as it has an extremely quiet response and natural feel. With this, you do not have to settle for less.
It features a 6inches rubber pad, an 8’ dual-zone snare with 40 kits and 385 sounds, and 60 play-along tracks. Long-lasting four-post aluminum racks, custom-designed Alesis hi-hat, and kick pedals add convenience. It comes with everything you need for better playing. It is ready for all genres with a core sound set. In addition, it is curated expertly with a high-end collection of playsets that make you ready for performance.
Pros
- The kit pad is loud for double bass
- Highly functional
- Inexpensive
Cons
- None we could find
Alesis Drums Turbo Mesh Kit
Packed with unforgettable ten-play classic, thirty play-along tracks, and more than a hundred curated sounds, this delivers a responsive, realistic, and immersive playing experience that drummers now a day’s demand. 8” mesh snare drum, three 10” cymbals, three 8” mesh tones, and Alesi’s hi-hat pedal and kick pedal that is custom designed.
It features aux input, thirty built-in play-along tracks, and a drum coach to develop drum skills. In addition, it comes with everything you require, such as a sturdy steel rack, drum sticks, connection cables, power supply, and drum key.
Practice-centric powerful features allow you to get the best of your performance. You can practice silently or power up the volume. It meets your preference as it comes with 1/8” headphone input, aux input, and ¼” stereo TRS inputs. Everything becomes simple with this product.
Pros
- Well made
- The right amount of features
- Great kit to start
Cons
- Some echo
Alesis Drums Debut Kit
This is a complete drum set with three 10” cymbals; 6” mesh kit heads, drum module, sturdy metal rack, headphones, sticks, and cabling. It has powerful education features with thirty-play along tracks and builds and improves drum skills with fun exercises.
The high-end Dynamic Articulation technology offers all the required sound with added playability and realistic sound. It has connectivity for all situations. With stereo ¼” outputs, you can attach it to any drum amp and showcase your skills to your dear ones. Headphone output gives you an option for practicing in silence. It includes free lessons that help you develop your skills. With this, you do not have to settle for less.
Pros
- Rock and loud
- Loads of fun
- Easy to play
Cons
- Pads are small
*Here the old article started
Alesis Nitro Kit. What’s in the Box?
Here’s what you get for that price:
- The drum module
- Five 8” drum pads consist of 3 single-zone toms, a dual-zone snare on a stand, and a kick pad big enough for a double-bass pedal.
- There are three single-zone 10” round cymbal pads, the hi-hat, crash, and ride. They all have a choke feature.
- 1 Hi-Hat Controller
- One bass drum pedal.
- Aluminum 4 post rack mounting system
- Sticks
That’s a lot of kit for about $300. A drum rack like that can set you back $100 alone! It’s more than enough to get any drummer started, and you’ll be playing your beats in no time as the kit is easy to set up, and the instruction manual is excellent.
It isn’t easy to perceive how you get so much for your money with the Nitro. It’s had many people asking what the catch is?! Here’s a review to convince you that the simple answer is no, there isn’t, the Nitro remains one of the world’s best-selling kits today, and it’s no fluke.
Setup and Build Quality of Alesis Nitro Kit
The first thing you’ll find is that this doesn’t feel like a cheap kit when you’re building it. In particular, the rack is very sturdy compared to other electronic drum kits and caters to a wide range of setups, including left-handed ones.
The kick pad is also sturdy, and the pedal isn’t wrong. Forget those CB drums pedals that we’ve all seen on beginner’s kits! It takes up a space of 5′ x 3′ or 6′ x 4′ depending on how well-spaced you like it. It’s a bit bigger of a footprint than some e-kits, but it feels more authentic than having a cramped, compact kit, provided you have space for it.
Module
The module is a DM7x module in disguise. It’s just a slight rebrand, containing 385 drum, cymbal, and percussion sounds onboard. Alesis have provided 40 preset builds from that selection. Overall it easily contains more sounds than any other lower-priced kit and more than many expensive ones.
You can modify them, too. The module is good and feels great to use, with its little kit-shaped button interface. It has two slots on the back for expansion with two more pads, too, a one-up on all budget e-kits. It’s more than you expect to get and edit the kits and presets quickly through the graphical display.
It has a metronome and 60 onboard songs for jamming purposes. It doesn’t skimp out on the features, and overall the module is compact but intuitive and easy to use. The module has an impressive output gain, too, so you can hear everything in your headphones loud and clear.
It tops it off with audio through a feature that allows you to play music from your phone, laptop, or other devices with a standard mini jack to quarter-inch jack adapter. So you’ll hear your drumming and the music in your headphones.
Sample Quality of Alesis Nitro Kit
We’ve reached a stage where samples in drum modules are all pretty standardized in their quality. So you get a large selection of sounds, and some are better than others, but they’re all editable in pitch.
You can crank down your floor tom, if you wanted, for example. That’s cool and adds another dimension that keeps the kit interesting. There’s plenty of suitable kits and many experimental ones to sample.
Learning Feature of Alesis Nitro Kit
So far, only expensive sets like the Yamaha DTX450K and the Roland TD-11K have built-in learning functions that help you train your drumming abilities. It’s an incredibly cool addition to this cheap kit, really giving it some long-term usefulness for drummers of all levels.
You either have to play along to a rhythm or pattern after a count-in or play a drum part to a rhythm supplied by the module. It scores you objectively and talks to you about your score. There’s practically a drum robot teacher bundled into this $299 bit of kit. It’s reportedly great for teachers out there who find that it motivates students.
Recording of Alesis Nitro Kit
Many people buy an e-kit for easy recording. You can hook it up to a PC or record it internally and quickly record performances without needing a large kit with microphones, interfaces, and expensive software programs. The Nitro provides three ways to record.
- Internally. That allows you to record with or without music internally in the module so you can listen back to your performance.
- Through its audio-out. That is a basic output that allows you to run a mini-jack cable from the module to a device like a laptop or a phone, running a basic recording program like Audacity. You can get a quick stereo copy of your playing with this method.
- Using MIDI out. With full MIDI capability, you can connect the Nitro to a PC running software like Garageband, Ableton, Logic, or Pro Tools. Then, you can trigger sounds in the software from a plugin like SuperiorDrummer. It takes some more setting up, but it essentially allows you to create editable, high-quality tracks from your drumming.
Pad Quality of Alesis Nitro Kit
The pads feel good, pleasant, and responsive with a crisp rebound that doesn’t feel too plastic and fake. The kick is especially impressive, mirroring a real bass drum nicely.
The bounce quality doesn’t hinder a performance at all, which is reassuring as poor pads really can ruin an otherwise decent kit.
After all, if you can’t play it like a drum kit, then what’s the point? The Alesis doesn’t fall into this category, and the pads are pleasant to use.
The pads are rubber, not mesh, so they aren’t silent. It’s like hitting a stick onto paper at the most, though, and shouldn’t penetrate walls or be audible to others in apartment blocks.
The dynamics provided by some kits are favorable to some drummers than an acoustic kit. Particularly for processed music genres, they suit styles well, with a quick, logical rebound that is easy to get used to. You can play fast around the kit pretty easily if you’re able to on a genuine kit.
Alesis Nitro Kit vs Alesis Nitro DM6 | Roland TD1K | Yamaha DTX400K
Alesis Nitro vs. DM6
The Nitro is relatively new and usurps the DM6-Nitro and the DM6. It’s Alesis’ newer offering, and it stands to reason that it is better, as they have five years more manufacturing experience behind them. You might still find people on forums putting forward cases for the DM6. However, the truth is, everything is better manufacturing quality, and Alesis has confirmed it to be the case.
Here’s the comparison:
- The Nitro kit has 385 sounds and 40 preset kits on board, while the DM6 has 108 sounds and 15 slots for presets.
- The Nitro kit has a “learning mode,” while the DM6 has built-in learning functionality.
- The Alesis Nitro can be expanded (+1 tom and +1 cymbal) by plugging new pads straight into the module. The DM6 doesn’t have these additional ports.
Alesis Nitro vs Roland TD-1K
The Roland TD-1K has been about for a while, testament to Roland’s legendary brand status and excellent build quality. Still, an objective comparison does show that Roland lags behind the Nitro, and when you factor in that it costs $200 more, it’s challenging to make a case for it.
The Roland has a single zone 7” snare pad compared to the Nitro’s two-zone and a kick pedal, which is beater-less, making it far less authentic and only features 15 kits with far fewer sounds than the Alesis. It does, however, have superior cymbal pads, but the difference is ultimately slight.
Some Roland users will say the pads are superior, and maybe to some, they are, but generally, the Nitro’s pads shouldn’t pose a problem to any drummer.
Alesis Nitro vs Yamaha DTX400K
E-kit leader Yamaha’s entry kit also leaves you asking questions compared to the Nitro. A single-zone 10” snare pad accompanies single zone 7.5” tom pads, and like the Roland, there’s no real pedal and pad for the kick, just a lonely pedal. There are no chokes for the cymbals, either, but at least the Yamaha has 170 sounds packed in.
Conclusion: What We Think About Alexis Nitro Kit
Still, though, it doesn’t compete, and it’s no fluke that the Nitro has been praised worldwide, hailed as one of the best value kits on the market to date. It’s easy to see why it’s held in such high regard as a cheap kit with superb build quality and functionality.
The large volume of sounds combines with a powerful editing feature for flexibility. The rack is strong and stable for long-term use and travel. The pads respond well to touch, and the extra features include a handy training program.
Ticking all of these boxes for about $300 is a real feat from Alesis; the Nitro will have a place in the e-kit hall of fame for a long time.