The New Alesis Strata Prime Drum Kit

Alesis has just released the Strata Prime drum kit and it looks to be their new flagship pro drum kit as well as a step up in features and capabilities over the Strike Pro kit.

A Quick Demo

Let’s take a quick look at one of the demo videos that just hit Youtube, this gives a pretty good run-down of what to expect from this kit.

Standout Features

There’s a few things that stand out to me when looking over the details of this new kit. Some of it feels similar to the Strike Pro kit, but other things sound like upgrades and new tech. It looks like Alesis is really trying to push forward with some areas where they have had room for improvement in the past.

The Prime Drum Module

The new Stratus Prime module looks like a good jump forward for drum modules in general and incorporates some features that hopefully become more standard moving forward from all electronic drum companies. The touch screen is one of the more obvious things from just from looking at it. Touch screens on drum modules have the potential to make them much more intuitive and easy to use. Hopefully the implementation here is good and it sets the bar higher for other drum modules moving forward.

Another thing about the module that stands out to me is the amount of internal storage. It looks like it has a 128GB drive and a 40GB drum library from BFD preinstalled. The amount of storage space makes it seem like you could store an incredible amount of add-on kits and imported samples, so I’m curious to see what you can do with that drive space in more detail.

Large Pads

The sizes of the pads around the kit are pretty close to what was found on the Strike Pro kit, except the crash and ride cymbal pads are a little larger at 18 inches for the ride cymbal and 16 inches for the crash cymbal. The size of the pads looks like they will translate well for drummers who are going between acoustic and electronic kits frequently.

The Large Rack

The rack looks pretty big and wide on this kit. The kit as a whole looks like it’s not trying to be compact at all and is focusing on feeling more like a full sized acoustic drum kit.

ARC Cymbal Pads

It looks like Alesis has a new style of cymbal pad for this kit and they look very similar in profile to acoustic cymbals. It sounds like all of the crash and ride cymbals are triple zone and they should move and sway like acoustic cymbals, so that’s pretty great in terms of feeling authentic during play.

Magnetic Hi-Hat Technology

I’m curious about how this works and how it improves the playing experience. It sounds like the magnetic position sensors will offer a better resolution for position sensing which should translate to a more authentic playing experience if they implemented it well.

Anti-Hotspot Triggers

Alesis mentions anti-hotspot triggering systems being used in the snare and tom pads, so hopefully they deliver an even response around the surfaces of the heads.

Worth Buying?

I think this looks like a very interesting drum kit myself, it might make a good option for drummers who want a full sized kit with a more natural feel and response without spending too much money. For me, personally, I think this kit would be getting into the territory of being too large for the amount of space I’d want to take up in my apartment. That rack looks really big. This might be a more suitable kit for drummers with more space or a studio environment.

It looks like the release day MSRP on this kit is $3,499.00, which certainly isn’t cheap but it’s not a bad price considering the features packed into this one. It will be interesting to see what reviewers think about it and if there are any quality issues right off the bat. But it looks like a strong contender for a more affordable pro level electronic drum kit.