Drum Kit Sizes

The standard five-piece kit consists of a 22” (diameter) bass drum, 12” and 13” tom toms mounted on the bass drum, a 16” floor tom tom with its own three legs and a 14” snare drum, plus the aforementioned hardware n stands and pedals.
This configuration is often called the standard erock’ kit. Many manufacturers also offer an alternative with smaller sizes and call it their “fusion” kit. A typical fusion kit comprises a 20” bass drum with 10” and 12” mounted toms and a 14” tom suspended from a floor stand rather than mounted on its own legs. Don’t be put off by the terms “rock and fusion”. They are just convenient marketing terms.
Almost any kit can be used to play almost any style of music. Bigger drums are just a little louder and deeper sounding. The snare drums provided with starter kits have traditionally had chrome plated steel shells, which are the cheapest and easiest to produce.
These are either 6.5” or 5.5” in depth, again sometimes referred to respectively as rock or fusion sizes. The trend today however is towards including a wood-shelled drum n the implication being that this is up market from the standard steel shell model. This is not always the case in terms of performance. Since rather more craft is required to produce a quality wood snare drum, some may prefer the steel alternative.