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Environmentalism and the music industry don't always make the easiest of bedfellows. The familiar sound of rock stars spouting environmental platitudes while touring the globe in private jets is a classic example of good intentions gone awry.

Away from such obvious ironies, drummers have had few opportunities to publicly display any green credentials. With concerns for the environment growing each year, an instrument that relies heavily on a natural raw material - wood - ought to be a prime candidate for an eco-friendly redesign.

DW's Eco-X Project kit is just that: taking the environmental message and turning it into a marketing opportunity.
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"The core of any kit is always the shells and in the case of the Eco-X Project kit, that's doubly true because they're the main reason for its existence"

DW is primarily a custom drum maker, building kits to individual customers' specifications. What's impressive about the Eco-X Project kit - aside from its green credentials - is that it enables the company to enter the world of standard production kits.

It's a clever strategy that brings the DW brand into a new price territory (Eco-X drums are around 30 percent cheaper than Collector's Series equivalents), while making a virtue of its environmental responsibility.

As a fixed range, Eco-X Project drums don't feature anywhere near the number of options found in the Collector's Series, but they are bona fide US-built DW drums.

The core of any kit is always the shells and in the case of the Eco-X Project kit, that's doubly true because they're the main reason for its existence. They're made from equal amounts of birch and bamboo – eight-ply for the toms and 10-ply for the snare and bass drums.

Both woods are, of course, sourced from sustainable supplies. The birch comes from Michigan, while the bamboo is Chinese.

The drums are formed using DW's X Shell technique, whereby the plies are cross-laminated at 90 degrees to one another with the grain at 45 degrees to the vertical, creating the X-shaped layers referred to in the name. DW measures shell thicknesses in imperial rather than metric (this makes sense, because shell diameters and depths are universally quoted in inches).

By our rough conversions, each layer of ply measures approximately 0.7mm, making toms around 5.6mm thick, while the snare and bass drum come in at 7mm. DW is keen to point out that, because wood is a natural material, minute variations do occur, but all of the individual plies are the same thickness.

There are two angles of bearing edge used in the kit. While the toms are cut at a slightly rounded 45 degrees, the snare and bass drum share a wider 60 degree cut, again with a slight round over.

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