Yamaha Stage Custom Birch Review – Right Kit for You?

The first thing that hits you, depending on the color, is the natural wood grain. Finding that in a kit under a thousand bucks is already an achievement. That said, the shells are made of pure and real 100% birch, which is something you don’t think you’d get in this price range either.

Moreover, every shell is treated with Yamaha’s Air Seal System. This translates into perfectly round shells that, frankly, look like a kit from a higher price range.

The drums have low-mass lugs that cause the shells to vibrate freely, giving the drums a pure tone, adding sustain and resonance. These lugs allow you to tune the drums pretty easily. This is a great feature since tuning can become a bit of a chore in entry-level and intermediate drum kits.

Believe me, I tried these as I replaced every skin on this drum to take the sound to the next level. The whole process was smooth and fast.

These drums also offer the Yamaha Enhanced Sustain System, which stops contact between the hardware and the shell, stopping any interference and letting the drums vibrate freely.

In the same vein, this suspension system lets you place the rack toms very closely together, giving you many positioning options. This makes the Stage Custom a very comfortable kit to play on, regardless of what feels like home to you.

The toms are connected to ball-in-socket mounts that attach to the kick drum. The kick drum has die-cast claw hooks with rubber insertion plates to help reduce unwanted noise.

Overall, the build quality of the Stage Custom is very high, making it comfortable and extremely durable. Speaking of which, the Air Seal System and its perfect round shapes also enhance durability since a warped tom is, sooner than later, a build problem to take care of.

This kit feels and looks like a kit that belongs to a different price range. Judging the materials, the hardware, and the technology used to make it, this kit is going to last you a long time if taken care of properly.

Sound Quality

The shells of the Stage Custom are made from 100% birch which gives the drums sharpness and punch. Birch is the perfect rock material since it’s slightly scooped in the midrange but excels in the high and low end. Also, the short sustain and the fast attack make it tight and focused; perfect to cut through the mix.

The sound of this drum kit matches that description perfectly. The lugs add a bit to the short sustain, but it’s still punchy and tight rather than loose and big.

The rack toms are punchy and resonant while the floor tom has a significant thud. The kick drum has an aggressive, round tone that feels like pushing the entire band forward, especially when playing quarter notes. I wish I could attach here a photo of the smile my bass player gave me when she heard it for the first time. Yet, that’s one of those rehearsal-space moments that you just record in your memory.

I dare to say that, regardless of what style you play, you will feel the strong attack every time you kick the pedal.

When playing patterns involving all the drums, you get musical overtones that create a nice, open sound. You might feel it’s even too resonant for a birch kit. If that’s the case, and you don’t want the drums to ring so much, you can easily just add some muffling to them.

The snare has a great rimshot crack and a moderately good sound. I know that sounded unimpressive on my side. Don’t get me wrong, it’s quite responsive, reacts well to hard playing and soft ghost notes.

However, the sound quality of the rest of the set is so high that the snare drum, even when it’s a good snare, isn’t as great as the rest of the kit. I would say it’s the weak point of this kit.

It will work for beginners and intermediate players, but pro players will quickly want to swap it out for something better.

I was pleasantly surprised by the wide tuning range these drums have. However, you’ll find that they sound best when tuned somewhere in the middle. This makes them versatile, working for a lot of different situations. I mean, unless you play in a big rock or a small jazz trio for which you can make it looser or tighter respectively. They just won’t be the absolute best choice for certain situations.

For example, I was kind of nervous the first time I played it in the rehearsal room of my small ensemble, but with a little adjusting, I found out they’ll work just fine for a jazz gig. Don’t get me wrong, they did the job but they just aren’t the best option for a jazz gig.

On the other hand, the Stage Custom Birch kit is great for rock, metal, hip hop, and alternative styles. The slightly scooped mids and the prominent lows make this a great kit whenever you need it to be present and driving the band forward. Adding to that, the punchy, aggressive attack and the cutting high mids make this a good kit for those about to rock.

Overall, you won’t find better sounding drums at this price point. This is why the Stage Custom is such a popular drum kit. You’d just need to replace the stock drumheads to get the absolute best sound that you can.

If you pour your heart into every hit, these drums will deliver that perfectly to your audience.

Visuals

The great thing about Yamaha’s drum kits is that their appearances are pretty uniform. The lower-end kits share a lot of qualities with the higher-end kits. The Stage Custom doesn’t look very different to the Tour Custom or the Absolute Hybrid, meaning it’s a professional-looking drum kit!

Believe me, as a session player, I’ve been there too. You get to the studio, unload your stuff, and unless you know the other musicians, everybody is trying to find out what the others play judging by the tools.

For example, it’s not the same if the bass player pulls out a Fender Precision or an active Ibanez bass. The same happens if you see a Squier logo, you form a preconception about what they can play.

Yamaha kits, and especially this one, are so alike you start every session with a blank sheet.

The Stage Custom has 5 different finish options. These include Cranberry Red, Honey Amber, Natural Wood, Pure White, and Raven Black. All the finishes have a single color that fills the whole shell and makes the drums look very clean.

The Natural Wood finish is particularly interesting, since it makes the drum kit look like it just came straight out of the factory. The wood’s natural grain shows while the clear lacquer adds that glow we all love from a new drum kit.

The Y.E.S.S mounting system isn’t just great to hold toms as you try your best Bonham impression on them, it also holds the appearance of the kit together. You can configure the drums for that classic, timeless look with a tom on each side of the kick drum. That’s what I call “a tight look”.

If you’re more of a Travis Barker fan and want to experiment with more modern configurations, the good news is that the toms can be mounted onto cymbal stands if you have extra clamps. Personally, I like the center thing, but I’m an old school drummer. A lot of people prefer how that looks, so it’s great that this kit has that option.

The Yamaha logo is boldly displayed on the resonant kick drum head, showing the whole world that you proudly play Yamaha drums. Hey, doesn’t that bring you closer to Eloy Casagrande and Mike Bufford? The logo is a small start, but it’s a start nonetheless!

Final Word

This Yamaha kit punches above its weight. It’s very difficult to find a kit with these features, craftsmanship, and materials under the thousand-dollar mark. We don’t know how, but Yamaha made it possible.

It’s important to remember that this kit just comes as a shell pack. It doesn’t include hardware or cymbals. If you’re an intermediate or pro player who already has some equipment, this won’t be a problem. Furthermore, in that scenario, this makes a terrific touring, rehearsal room, or leave-at-home secondary kit. Yes, moving just cymbals and hardware is great.

However, if you’re a beginner who’s looking to buy a kit, you’d have to get hardware and cymbals separately, causing you to spend a bit more money. Take that into consideration when you compare the price of this kit to some other offer that’s a bundle with cymbals and hardware.

The Yamaha Stage Custom Birch shell pack is an absolute bargain when it comes to price and value. This kit sounds amazing, looks great and it has durability to spare. It can definitely be the right kit for you as long as you make sure that you have hardware and cymbals to go along with it.