There's something exciting about assembling a drum kit. The satisfaction of turning an assortment of cylinders and circular plastic things and metal rods with various joints and bolts into a solid, attractive unit that you can sit behind and hit really hard without it rolling away is immense. It also has its practical advantages. You soon become acquainted with any time-saving devices that the manufacturers have had the benevolence to include like snap-open nut boxes and quick-release height adjustment clamps.

The Ludwig Rocker 2000 had neither of these and so setting it up took quite a while but the result was well worth the time and effort.

The hardware comes separate from the rest of the kit and you get a choice of three ranges; cheap, mid-priced, or expensive. We opted for the mid-priced range for obvious reasons.

What you get is a snare stand, straight cymbal stand, hi-hat stand, double tom tom holder and a bass drum pedal. They also throw in some sticks. It's all pretty solid and heavy, the feet are lumps of rubber about half the size of those found on your more expensive hardware but they do the job perfectly well for the average drummer, and the bolts are all big wing bolts apart from a couple on the tom tom holder. This fits into the top of the bass drum as usual and is held there by a wing-bolt. There is a memory collar which is tightened around the shaft using a drum key. At the top there are two right-angled rods which are held in place on the shaft by means of two nuts, a spanner for which is provided. Further adjustment is by two more wing-bolts, giving complete control over the final position of the toms.

The hi-hat and bass drum pedals are chain driven. The grip screws are fitted with springs presumably to stop them unscrewing while in action but this does make them quite difficult to screw down. This becomes a bit of a pain when you've got the kit set up and you're on your hands and knees beneath the snare drum trying to make final adjustments.

Neither of the pedals have toe-stops which is a good thing in my opinion but may not be in yours. If you play in ice-skates such things could be a necessity.

What really matters is that the pedals are smooth, sturdy and comfortable to stamp on and these Ludwigs certainly are.

Inside the huge cardboard box we find a 22"x14" bass drum, 12"x11" and 13"x12" power toms, a 16"x16"floor tom and a 6½" snare drum. There are three legs that bend out at the bottom for the floor tom and two legs for the bass drum. These slide into the drum through clamps on the side and the feet are rubber but can be screwed back to reveal sharp points.

There's also a drum key and a bag full of T-handle tension bolts and clasps (sixteen in all) for the bass drum.

Mix all this up with the stuff in the hardware box and you come up with a life-size model of the Batmobile. However, we couldn't get the rockets to fire out the back so we dismantled it and turned it into a drum kit. A very nice drum kit in fact. The colour? Rocker Riot. Before you go scanning your Dulux colour chart let me tell you that Rocker Riot is a deep red. Other available colours are Black, White, Red, Blue and SilverGrey.

When it comes to actually playing the thing the Rocker 2000 certainly lives up to its name. It's loud and boingy.

"What do you expect from brand new Ludwigs?" said the singer in a moment of extreme pretentiousness. When played on it's own the kit resounds considerably but a little bit of tuning cuts out the overtones and, when played with the rest of the band the drums fit in really well and sound beautiful.

The snare drum has a nice cutting crack to it and the power toms really boom in a tribal stylee.

My only real complaint lay with the snare stand in that it wouldn't go as low as I would have liked. Other than that the whole kit was very comfortable to play.

The total cost of the kit we looked at is £723.21. This varies according to what hardware you choose but the drums alone retail for £550. At that price you would expect real quality and that's exactly what you get right down to the heads — Ludwig Silver Dots on the batter heads and Heavy Clears on the bottom.

There's something really depressing about dismantling a drum kit. The emptiness of a pub after closing time, the sadness of destroying a beautiful object, the reluctance to return the loan, the hassle of trying to get the bloody thing back into its box which has mysteriously shrunk to half its original size.