| Category | Value | Rating |
| Features | 20% |  |
| Usability | 25% | |
| Sound | 25% |  |
| Documentation & Support | 10% |  |
| Price | 20% | |
| OVERALL RATING = 3.7 Stars, which earns it a WIHO Award! 3.6 stars or better: Outstanding, WIHO Award 3 stars or better: Worth considering 2 stars or better: Suited to specific needs 1 star or less: Not recommended |
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Back in 2019 we reviewed the Alesis Strike Pro, then the flagship model in the Alesis range. It’s still a great, pro-level kit, and currently available is the Strike Pro Special Edition kit, which replaced the original kit’s modern looking electronic kick drum with a conventional looking, 20-inch drum, along with an improved hi-hat with better sensitivity.
Having lived with the Strike Pro for years in our studio (we loved it so much we purchased it), it was used on countless recordings as well as hitting the stage for some live gigs. In the studio, though, we typically ran MIDI from the brain to our DAW and triggered higher-quality sounding drum samples from various popular packages. The only other thing that we hoped to one day find improvement with was, in fact, the hi-hat sensitivity, though we never had an opportunity to test the improved hi-hat that was introduced in the Strike Pro SE kit.
Fast forward to 2024 and Alesis has a new flagship: the Strata Prime. Not only does the new kit address the previous generation’s shortcomings remarkably well, but it also offers a range of other improvements that make the entire drumming experience even better than before—and it does so while looking like a pretty hot, acoustic kit, too! This kit should be on the short list for any drummer looking for a pro-level kit that won’t break the bank.
Features
The Strata Prime kit is a beautiful six-piece, acoustic-looking, kit wrapped in a dark red and black striped, wood veneer finish with dark chrome and black hardware. Included are a 20” kick, 14” snare (which is really the same pad as the largest floor tom), and 10”, 12”, and 14” toms. Each of the drums feature familiar mesh heads and dual zone sensors.
Don’t think of dual zone as meaning “two sounds” because Strata Prime is more advanced than that. First, when talking about the snare, you can trigger independent sounds on the head, rim, and rim shots. And then to go even further, each zone can trigger a main sound and up to three additional “Stacks” per zone. You can layer sounds in any imaginable way, such as stacking a cowbell on top of your rim shot or trigger completely unrelated sounds based on the velocity of your strike for direct access to a wider variety of percussion sounds. And just wait until we talk about the amazing sounds!
First, let’s check out the cymbals, which are improved over the previous generation in feel and response. There are 14” hi-hats (really a single pad stacked atop a bottom sensor), two 16” crashes, and an 18” ride cymbal, though of course you can assign anything else you’d like to them. The cymbals are all 360-degrees responsive, have three zones each (bell, cup, edge) and feature dual-edge sensors.
The hi-hat uses a new, contactless, magnetic sensor for precise sensing detail/accuracy, and are also triple zoned with 360-degree surface playability like the other cymbals. Speaking of nuanced control, the mesh heads have familiar drum lugs to adjust head tension, plus patented technology to avoid dead spots on the playing surface.
The completely reengineered Prime Drum Module catapults this kit to the next level, surpassing most if not all other eDrum products currently on the market. While the Strike Pro’s sounds were solidly “good,” they didn’t win rave reviews like the sounds in some competitors’ premium offerings. But Strata Prime strikes back in a huge way: sounds are delivered courtesy of the amazing BFD drum engine! In the past, BFD drums were some of our go-to libraries in the studio to trigger from any eDrum kit or for programming. Now, having access to over 40GB of BFD material in the brain itself means you can truly do it all from stage to studio completely in the box. There are 75 kits, 440 drum pieces, 1,000 sound articulations, and over 215,000 total individual samples.
In addition to the factory kits, there are four additional sound libraries included:
- Alesis Prime Acoustic: collection of drums recorded at Powerstation Studios in New England
- BFD Dark Farm: a metal themed expansion pack from BFD
- Alesis Prime Electronic: one-shot drum sounds from the popular Alesis Strike Multipad
- BFD Percussion: collection of percussion sounds taken from multiple BFD classic percussion packs
You can also load your own samples and assign them to slots in your drum kit layout.
The Strata Prime brain is significantly more powerful than its Strike predecessor. It features a very generous 10.1” touch screen interface, surrounded by knobs for tactile adjustment of key features/sounds/levels on-the-fly.
The rear features individual trigger inputs for the drum pads, stereo outputs on balanced XLR jacks, four assignable outputs (quarter-inch), a pair of stereo aux inputs, an SD card slot for additional storage beyond the 128GB internal SSD, USB for host connectivity (both for computer-based editing and also to function as a digital audio interface), secondary USB for additional storage, and a pair of DIN-5 MIDI jacks. The brain includes a mount to attach to the supplied rack. The power supply is external.Another great feature of this kit: automatic Internet updates! Our drum module easily connected to our WiFi network, and rather than having to download firmware updates to USB memory sticks and doing special setting things to install (which is still an option if you’re on the road without WiFi), the unit downloads updates automatically and prompts you when it’s ready to install them. Nice!
Included with the kit is a new, black rack with chrome cymbal booms and snare stand. You’ll need to supply your own hi-hat hardware and favorite single or double kick pedal. Alesis also bundles a copy of the free BFD Player and a 5GB sound library so you can work with BFD sounds whether or not you’re behind the kit.
Our only gripe about the kit has to do with the aesthetics of the snare drum. Because it’s the same pad as the 14” floor tom, it includes the same tom mount on the side that serves no function with the snare in a snare stand (included, or you can use your own). The black anodized metal with a hole through it for tom mounting is kind of an eye sore when you don’t actually attach the drum to a rack or tom stand.
Usability
The most complicated thing about the Strata Prime kit would be assembling the drum rack, which is to say, this kit has fabulous usability without a steep learning curve. An hour after assembly, we were playing through sounds and adjusting the setup to our liking.
The new rack hardware is even better than the previous generation, and the double sets of rails both looked sharp and added rigidity to the setup. The tom mounts were extremely secure and we never experienced any slippage.
The new cable snake that runs wires to all of the pads and cymbals seems to be longer than the one included with the Strike Pro, which was sometimes at odds with our desired kit layout. We had no trouble reaching any position along the rack, and with the generous helping of cable ties, it was easy to keep the wiring nice and tidy.
New sensor technology eliminated the former need for dual cables attached to certain drums in the kit. Now, one cable per trigger does all.
The new brain was a breeze to work with. The 10.1” touch-screen interface was extremely responsive and easy to work with, and there are a useful array of knobs surrounding the display for tactile control of various settings, levels, etc.
If you’ve ever dealt with cross talk in an eDrum kit—where hitting one pad triggers another due to sympathetic vibration, the brain has a useful auto-adjust feature that makes it a breeze to fix this issue, simply hitting the primary trigger while it auto adjusts sensitivity until you no longer hear the unwanted trigger. In our months of use, though, we never needed to make this adjustment to suit our playing.
Playability definitely jumped to the next level. Where the previous generation Strike Pro pads had great sensitivity and the cymbals had very good sensitivity, the Strata Prime kit improved both of these. Working with professional progressive rock and session drummer, Matt Maldonado—who also happens to have a Strike Pro kit in his studio, he marveled at how much more sensitive the snare drum responded to his dynamics over the older kit. Our feeling was that nothing was lost among everything from rudiments to ghost notes, and with so many layers of samples in the BFD library, this was as realistic as we could play.
The drum head tension was adjustable with familiar drum lugs, and we never experienced any dead spots on any of the drums.
The hi hat is indeed a major advancement in sensitivity. Typically the most frustrating piece of an eDrum kit to any drummer who plays with finesse and nuance, the new hi hat offers a significantly improved design, and coupled with the improved feel of the cymbal pads themselves, the playing experience was markedly improved, advancing from very good to great. There was no need to adjust our natural style of play to make the hi hats “work.”
With aux inputs and a dedicated level knob, it was easy to jam along to songs we were working on… or have our band send us a monitor mix. A metronome also made it easy to nail time on our songs. And one great feature for gigging pros: it was a breeze to generate a click track and have its output only go to our headphone mix, not to the main outs. Details like this are huge for professional use.
Sound
Part of our sound review is covered by Usability, where multi-sampled (layered) sounds provide for enhanced realism in your performance. The other part of the evaluation of sound is to evaluate the actual sound of the drums. In this case, you may as well be reviewing BFD Drums, because it’s their drum sounds and sound rendering engine incorporated into Alesis hardware. The end result: amazing sounding drums for stage or studio.
Where in the past we would run MIDI from our electronic drum kit to the studio computer to replace more limited samples with serious drum libraries like… BFD, you don’t need to here. The drum sounds are truly authentic, with sampled toms sounding like real acoustic drums instead of pseudo-realistic toms, unless, of course, you’re loading one of the cool electronic kits for an ‘80s tribute act or a hip hop performance.
Effects are somewhat limited primarily to reverb and ambience, but if your goal is to have acoustic drums options, you will spend more time playing than worrying about why you don’t have crazy studio drum effects on tap like adding modulation to a cymbal or delay effects like you’d find in random classic rock records.
Documentation and Support
The Strata Prime kit comes with an easy-to-follow user’s manual, but you’ll be up and running with 80% of the kit before you ever need to look at it. And as mentioned earlier in the review, the kit downloads updates automatically over WiFi.
The drums have a one-year warranty.
Price
The Alesis Strata Prime sells for $3,499 street. It’s well priced for a pro kit with such an expansive feature set and incredible sounds. If you want an even larger kit, the Expanded kit includes an additional 14” tom, 16” crash, and two more 18” crash/ride cymbals for $4,149. Having the ability to load additional BFD drum packs and samples makes the kit even more versatile.
Contact Information
Alesis Drums
www.alesisdrums.com
