The Deal: Dixon Drums is hosting Beats for Eats: Rock Out for a Good Cause, a series of food drives taking place in April 2009 at select independent music retailers to benefit local food banks and city shelters throughout Southern California.

The event will showcase a Dixon drum set interfaced with Playstation 3’s popular video game, Rock Band — allowing attendees to test drive an actual drum set while playing along with the video game. Free food, refreshments, valuable door prizes and professional drumming tips and tricks will be provided, courtesy of the pros at Dixon Drums. Attendees are encouraged to bring canned or non-perishable foods to be donated to selected city shelters.

If you’re in SoCal, please stop by these shops and join these events:

Saturday April 18th
Singer Music, 12pm-3pm
La Puente, CA

Wednesday, April 22nd
Santa Monica Music Center, 5pm-7:30pm
Santa Monica, CA

Thursday, April 23rd
Tom’s Music, 5pm-7pm
Victorville, CA

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The Deal: Modern Drummer Magazine has put together three prize packages full of Mapex and Zildjian gear.

There’s a lot going on here, so let’s get right to the prizes:

First Prize

• From Mapex: The new Meridian Maple drumset six-piece Studioease configuration: 18×22 bass drum, 8×10 and 9×12 rack toms, 14×14 and 16×16 floor toms, 5½x14 snare. Hardware includes a snare stand, a bass drum pedal, a hi-hat, a cymbal stand, and a boom stand. Your choice of color.
• From Zildjian: a three-piece set of K Custom Hybrid cymbals, including 14¼” hi-hats, a 17″ crash, and a 21″ ride, plus twelve pairs of Zildjian 5A drumsticks.
• From Modern Drummer: The 25-Year Digital Archive + Year 26.

Second Prize

• Mapex Meridian Birch drumset five-piece Standard configuration: 18×22 bass drum, 9×12 and 10×13 rack toms, 16×16 floor tom, 5½x14 snare. Your choice of color.* Hardware: snare stand, bass drum pedal, hi-hat, cymbal stand, boom stand.
• Zildjian three-piece A Custom ReZo™ cymbals:, 14″ hi-hats, 16″ crash, 21″ ride, plus twelve pairs of Zildjian 5A drumsticks.
• Modern Drummer 25 Year Digital Archive.

Third Prize

• Mapex’s new MPX snare drum: 6×13 all-birch shell in transparent black finish with black hardware
• Zildjian 5A drumsticks (twelve pairs)
• Year 26 of the Modern Drummer Digital Archive

Entry Deadline: March 31, 2009
Get It: Click Here to Enter

These are currently the top 10 best-selling china cymbals at Musicians Friend.

1. Wuhan China Cymbal
2. Zildjian Oriental China ‘Trash’ Cymbal
3. Sabian B8 Pro Chinese Cymbal
4. Paiste PST 5 China Cymbal
5. Zildjian Z Custom China Cymbal
6. Zildjian A Custom China Cymbal
7. Wuhan China Cymbal with Rivets
8. Sabian AA Chinese Cymbal
9. Zildjian ZBT China Cymbal
10. Sabian Neil Peart Paragon China Cymbal

Check out the Best Selling Musical Instruments Archive.
Search for China Cymbals on eBay.

The Deal: If there’s a young drummer in your life looking to move from the snare drum or practice pad up to a real drum set, check out this deal.

From Musicians Friend, you can get a Sound Percussion SP 4-Piece Drum Set with double-braced hardware (cymbals not included) for just $199, which is 60% off the retail price.

MSRP: $499.99
Regular Price: $249.99
Current Price: $199.99
Savings: $300.00(60%)

Get It: Click Here For More About This Deal

The Deal: For the recording enthusiasts out there, Sweetwater Sound is a store you’re probably familiar with. They’ve been the top catalog and web retailer of studio equipment for years. What makes them #1, though, is their customer service staff. If you’re a customer, you’ll always talk to the same person, who has been trained on the gear.

A few years ago they expanded into guitar products which, from what I’ve heard, has been a successful move for them. They’ve just announced they’re getting into drum and percussion products. They’ve actually offered electronic percussion products for a while, but acoustic drums and percussion is new to them.

It looks like they’ve got some good brands to start with: Yamaha, Tama, Zildjian, Pearl, DW, Latin Percussion, and more.

So, if you’re already a customer and want to buy all of your gear from one spot, check out the drum section of their website.

Get It: Click Here For More About This Deal

The Deal: I have to admit, this does not look like the most enticing cash-back rebate I’ve ever seen. I guess, though, if you’re going to buy a new cymbal anyway, you might as well get a few bucks back.

Through the end of March 2009, when you buy qualifying models of Zildjian A Custom or Armand Series cymbals, Zildjian will send you a dollar back for each inch you buy. So, if you buy an 8″ splash cymbal, they’ll send you $8, a 20″ ride, $20.

Get it? Again, not the greatest deal in the world, but 20 bucks is 20 bucks!

Expires: March 31, 2009

Get It: Click Here For More About This Deal

The Deal: These days we’re all trying to pinch pennies. Whether you’re an established musicians looking for an new instrument, or you need to buy that first guitar or horn for a child, you’re probably looking to spend less that you would have a year ago.

Through the end of February, Woodwind and Brasswind is offering an extra 10% off the already reasonable “value brands” on their website, thanks to a new coupon code. This includes brands like Pulse drums, Laguna and Rogue guitars, and Bundy horns.

Coupon Code: MusicTen
Expires: February 28, 2009

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The Deal: HB Drums has just announced a new coupon code that will be good through the end of 2008 on their factory direct drums.

Just enter the coupon code below at checkout and receive 10% off all drums and accessories on your order. HB Drums also offers free US shipping on orders over $50, so if you want to get some early holiday shopping done for that drummer on your list, here’s a good opportunity to save some coin.

Expires: December 31, 2008
Coupon Code: HBVIP
Get It: Click Here For More About This Deal

The Deal: I just stumbled up the X8 Drums website, which I had never heard of.

X8 Drums is an online retailer of hand drums and ethnic percussion. It looks to be a site with a wide selection and some informational hand drum buying guides.

They also give away a different djembe drum each month. According to the website, you only need to enter once for the whole year, so you don’t even have to return each month. They actually appear to be a month behind, as the September contest is still up (the drum that I have in this post), but they’ve got all of the previous month’s winners listed, so it looks to be legit.

Entry Deadline: Last day of each month
Get It: Click Here to Enter

The Deal: A few months ago I posted about the Dixon Drum Your Way to Hollywood Contest. They’ve just announced their grand prize winner, Lou Mars.

Lou will be flying out to Hollywood, CA to play at Westlake Studios in front of an A&R panel. Lou, who won a Dixon Demon drumset, will have his session filmed and will air on the A&R channel. Runners up received a Dixon snare drum.

Here is Lou’s winning video, filmed at Herreid Music:

Get It: Click Here for More Info

This contest has expired, but check out our other musical instrument giveaways
or Subscribe to our Contests & Giveaways category.

The Deal: While supplies last at Musicians Friend, when you purchase a set of Latin Percussion Aspire Congas with double stand, you’ll get a pair of Gator rolling conga bags for free, a $199.98 value.

Also, Musicians Friend is running a free shipping promo on heavy items, which these congas are. So, not only do you get the free Gator bags but you get the whole thing shipped for free.

Get It: Click Here For More About This Deal | Gator Conga Bags

The Deal: Evans, HQ Percussion, PureSound, and ToonTrack have joined forces to bring you the Superior Drummer Sweeps, with $1,300 in drum gear and sampling software prizes.

The package includes these Evans, HQ and PureSound products:

• Evans EC2 Clear Tom Pack
• Evans EC Reso Heads (3 Sizes) (Standard or Fusion)
• Evans EC1 Snare Head (14″)
• Evans EMAD Bass Head Clear (Standard 22″ or Fusion 20″)
• Evans EMAD Bass Head Clear (Standard 22″ or Fusion 20″)
• PureSound Custom Series Snare Wire
• HQ Percussion RealFeel Practice Pad

As well as the following EZdrummer Sampling Software:

• Superior Drummer 2.0 with EZplayer Pro and Toontrack Solo
• Nashville EZX, Twisted Kit EZX, and Claustrophobic EZX
• DFH EZX, Vintage Rock EZX, Latin Percussion EZX

Entry Deadline: December 23, 2008
Get It: Click Here to Enter

This contest has expired, but check out our other musical instrument giveaways
or Subscribe to our Contests & Giveaways category.

The Deal: For those old-timers out there, you remember Rogers Drums as one of the most popular drum brands of the 20th century. Although plenty of rockers played Rogers, jazz drummers like Buddy Rich and Louie Bellson were some of the most famous Rogers endorsers.

Since the 60’s, the Rogers brand name has been passed around the music industry, but landed in the Yamaha portfolio in 2006. Yamaha introduced a new line of Rogers Drums in early 2007. Musicians Friend has just announced that Rogers Drum kits will now be available on their website.

Be advised that if you’re looking for a rebirth of vintage Rogers products, you’re going to be disappointed. These kits are inexpensive and geared toward the beginning to intermediate drummer. With Yamaha behind them, though, I’m sure the new Rogers Drums are a good value.

Get It: Click Here For More About This Deal

The Deal: Although they are usually pretty sweet deals, I typically do not post the Musicians Friend Stupid Deal of the Day. This is only for the fact that the deals have such a short shelf life.

I just checked out today’s deal, though, and it really seems worthy of a quick post. They’re offering up 14″X3.5″ Pulse steel piccolo snare drums for just $29.99. From my experience, the Pulse drums are pretty solid (certainly not close to pro level, but they don’t fall apart when you hit them), and for $29, why not???

MSRP: $139.00
Regular Price: $49.99
Current Price: $29.99
Savings: $109.01(78%)

Get It: Click Here For More About This Deal

These are currently the top 10 best-selling marching snare drums at Woodwind and Brasswind.

1. Pearl Articulite Series Indoor FFXS Marching Snare
2. Pearl FFX Series Marching Snare Drum
3. Dynasty Wedge Lite Series Marching Snare Drum
4. Mapex QCH1412SK Quantum HT Marching Snare Drum 14″ x 12″
5. Dynasty 10×14 inch Marching Shorty Snare Drum
6. Yamaha SFZ Marching Snare Drum w/ Carbon Carrier & Case
7. Dynasty P01DFST14 10×14 inch Indoor Marching Snare Drum
8. Mapex QLS1310SW Qualifier Marching Snare Drum 13 x 10 Inch
9. Premier Revolution Series Marching Snare Drum
10. Ludwig Strider Series Marching Snare Drums

Check out the Best Selling Musical Instruments Archive.
Search for Marching Snare Drums on eBay.