This particular set hasn't been available for long from Premier and is, I suppose, the first totally new product put out by 'Premier Percussion'. If you'll cast your minds back you'll no doubt remember that the old company was acquired by several of its key personnel halfway through last year.

APK stands for Advanced Power Kit and is actually, with a few neat refinements, an elongated addition to the Royale range. It has a 6½" snare drum and various pieces of hardware to hold it up, move it up and down, keep it still, and of course hit it with. It's a five drum set for under £500, and Premier asked me to set the record straight on this. Their original advertising may have lead people to believe that a pair of smaller toms were included in that price. Unfortunately they aren't, but you could have those extra-deep 8" and 10" toms on a stand for £86 more.

All this being equal, the set I saw is numbered 5809 and comes with power bass drum and mounted toms, a deep snare, two straight cymbal stands, a hi hat and bass drum pedal, snare drum stand and one of Premier's double tom holders.

The wooden shells are constructed like the Royales from three thick plies of Luan with a top veneer of Birch on the natural wood finishes. However, there is a slight difference in the bass and floor tom; they have strengthening rings fitted to them made from straight grained Beech. All the wood shells have a dark sealer-paint applied to their insides presumably to stabilise the atmospheric action. (This means that both the inside and outside of the shell react in the same way to humidity and temperature changes.)

The Bass Drum: The move over the last few years has been to shells which are slightly deeper than usual, and which will therefore increase the fundamental of the drum without necessarily increasing its overtones. This culminates in a clearer, rounder, and hopefully louder sound. Up until very recently, though, only the more up-market sets could have this facility, but most companies are offering these longer options on all their sets. Premier were one of the first to implement this and their bass drum for the APK series is consequently two inches deeper than usual — it measures 22" x 16". To keep the cost down a little the bass drum has 16 nut boxes, pressed steel claws, and 'T' handled tension screws. These nut-boxes are sort of chamfered bullet shaped and have been standardised size-wise all over the set. The hoops, too, are slightly different being made from solid Beech which in this instance means from several plies with their grains all running the same way and ultimately lap-joined. A normal shell will have its plies cross-grained; ie with alternate layers of wood set at right angles for strength.

The hoops I mentioned are invariably sprayed black for APK, whatever finish is applied to the shells. The spurs are different from the Royale's disappearing type ones too. These are the more salubrious outrigger-type with optional rubber or metal spiked foot which locate into the usual cast, hollow blocks with internal eye-bolts which Premier also use for tom mountings and leg holding. Unlike several manufacturers the company still fit a felt strip damper to each head which I think is totally valid, and jolly useful. The pressed steel tom holder block is positioned at exactly the same distance from the batten head as on the Royale which allows for really good close together tom placement. It looks a little strange on APK though because this puts it roughly dead-centre of the deeper drum.

The Tom Toms: Three toms are supplied, they measure variously 12" x 11", 13" x 12" and 16" x 16". These first two are the mounted toms and are an extra inch deeper than most of the competition; the floor tom is the same size as usual. Tom one has five nut-boxes and square headed tension screws for each head while tom two has six and the remaining one has eight. All three toms and the snare drum have pressed steel triple flange hoops and in common with all other 'Power' toms, no internal dampers are fitted. (Premier produce a very good external one should you need to muffle your heads.) Of course the floor tom needs to have legs if it's to stand on its own three feet. They are double bent items, made from steel rod with rubber walking-stick type ends. They locate into those cast hollow blocks which are fitted to the side.

All these heads are very resilient and contribute to the APK's set's clear sound. The snare drum could be thickened up with a more expensive head; I'd be interested to hear it with a FiberSkyn2.

The Accessories: The particular APK set that I saw comes with the same stands as the Royale set which I reviewed last year (and which a fortunate reader won). So, I'll simply detail their features as I did then.

Trident stands are cheapish stands which have single braced legs made from flat struts. The hi hat has adjustment at two positions on its tri pod legs, one in the normal position, and one just below where the retaining strut joins the tube. This allows the player to always have the bottom of the footpedal on the floor, no matter how wide he has of the drum and lock the leg solid.

The hi hat has a centre pull action dampened with a felt washer. It also has a two piece cast footplate and a thick double stretcher which is spring joined to the down tube. This is where the sprung, adjustable spur is fitted.

Each Trident stand is fitted with those old style cast adjustment blocks which contain a nut to locate the 'L' shaped locking screws. (Another of these blocks is fitted to the tube to act as a memory-jogger). The hi hat's action is not at all adjustable, it still feels solid though and reasonably strong. The top cymbal clutch and bottom cup are the usual tried and tested ones from Premier.

A pair of Trident cymbal stands are provided with APK and each has an extension section to give a little extra height. To usual collection of washers and plastic sleeves.

Trident snare drum stands have tripod bases too and rubber sheathed bent cradle arms to embrace the drum. Two of these are fixed, while the other moves in an upwards arc. Its position within this arc may be locked against the snare drum itself via a thumb-screw. The playing angle adjustment uses a sandwich clamp with rubber washers. It's a simple but effective way of holding the desired position which is maintained by a large wing bolt. A 251 bass drum pedal comes with the set which I've talked about before. It really is not too bad. It has twin adjustable expansion springs, a cast two-piece footplate to match the hi hat's and a cast cam with a metal linkage. There's a felt beater and a pair of spurs tapped arms are located. These steel rod arms further locate into cast blocks fitted to the side of the tom shells. That's about it. The oval section fits into the receiver block which I mentioned is already fixed to the bass drum. It all works well, and I'm sure the company will find a use for it in the future. These Trident stands, by the way, are not exactly chrome-plated — simply polished Mezac. However, they still look pretty good.

The Snare Drum: This one measures 14" x 6½"and is numbered 1006. It uses eight, double-ended, waisted nut boxes (which are fixed to the shell with a single screw), triple flange hoops and, of course, square headed tension screws. It's a very simple and clean drum without any centre bead and with roll-over flanges and a slight snare 'touch' area. This particular drum is fitted with 20 strand wire snares which are attached to the pressed steel, sideways cam action, adjustable strainer with strong cord. The other end attaches to what is known as the 'butt', which in this case is made from pressed steel with a screw locking jaw to grip the other end of the cord. This drum actually does have an internal, under batter head operating, adjustable damper. It's made from spring steel and has a button outside the drum as per usual, to press it up against the head, or not. That's about it for the snare drum.

The Heads: Of course all the heads are actually made by Premier. The batters on the toms are all Powerplay; these are those single ply ones with the black doughnut in the centre. Below these are fitted what I suspect are called Cleanplay, apparently the same as the Powers but without the centre ring. The snare drum has a 'brush-coated' Everplay batter and an Everplay snare, while the bass has a distinctive black, front sympathetic head with a smoky, see through head on the playing side.

Appearance/Conclusions: The set I saw was in a natural wood finish which looked fine to me. It is one of several new finishes, some of which are only available for APK. You don't appear to have to shell out any more for the natural wood ones so these must be something of a bargain. If I were asked to stick my neck out I would suggest you specify the accommodate this section the middle tube is swaged a little for a couple of inches at its bottom. This, of course, makes it the same diameter as the top stage so, if you wish to put your cymbal in a low 'ride' position, simply remove the extra stage. The topmost tube also has a memory clamp (as per the hi hat's), with a cast, splined, ratchet tilter which is locked and adjusted by a drum key. The filter itself boasts the into the framework. The whole unit clamps without difficulty to the bass drum hoop and feels reasonably smooth.

The double tom holder supplied is the usual one which (so far) is to be found on the whole Premier range. You must have seen it. It has an oval downtube with a cast 'T' bar joined to its top. This bar is fitted with a pair of ratchet clamps at each end into which a pair of shaped set with more upmarket stands. However, if you can't run to the extra cash, then I'd suggest you buy it as it is and update the stands when the balance of payments allows you to.

Talking of stands, the 'Accessory check' that follows this article looks at Premier's new Dual-lock stands.

PREMIER APK 5809 — RRP: £499 with Trident stands