post by Brent Hoover Over the last month I've been test driving some different drum set trigger kits. Having played drums for 28 years, it took a little getting used to, but one thing that wasn't strange were the Surge cymbals included with the Alesis USB Pro kit. They played and felt like real cymbals, because they were real cymbals. But they were different in two ways: for one, they acted like drum triggers (duh, or this would be a pretty stupid post), and secondly they barely made any noise when struck. The Surge cymbals have several holes drilled in them, plus brackety-type things on the bottom to keep them from killing your ears and prevent termination of your lease. Included were a hi-hat, a ride, and a crash and they felt great and responded well. Both the hi-hat and the ride are dual-zone for cymbal/bell, and the newest versions (which I didn’t get to try) have a “choke” control for grabbing the cymbal and stopping it- great for awesomely lame “Eye of the Tiger” rock punches! For a little comparison, I went and test drove some other kits that used rubber cymbal triggers. Results? Oh please... insert your own rubber-to-real comparison joke here (hey, this is a "family" blog!), but the rubber pads were truly “uninspiring”. So bottom line, without spending a lot of money (about $400 for the whole kit, around $100 for individual cymbals, about the same or cheaper than the cost of quality real cymbals) you can substantially upgrade the feel and playability of your trigger kit. If you're getting a new trigger kit, splurge for the Surge cymbals too, especially if you're used to playing real drums. And if you use your trigger kit as a practice kit, learning on the rubber triggers will give you an unpleasant shock when you discover how much more muscle it takes to move real silver/brass alloy slabs. Surge cymbals are a quick and cheap upgrade to take some of the “virtual” out of your playing. Check out all the Surge cymbals HERE (try not to hit your computer display with a drumstick).