Look what showed up today...

 

 Not a surprise, I knew this was coming.  It's another product from Aeroband, the company that makes the digital guitar I recently reviewed.  Here's a look at the exterior of the box...

 This is the Aeroband PocketDrum 2 Max.  We've all seen "air guitar" - this kit allows the player to make drum sounds, without physical drums.  Yep, "air drums" - but, you actually get the drum sounds.  The kit comes with 2 drumsticks, bass drum and hi-hat pedals, and a small controller (what would be the "brain" on a set of e-drums).

In the next few weeks, I will be doing a review on these.  Of course, I did get them out of the box, turned them on, and plugged in my Bose headphones.  Yes, they sound like drums.  No, it isn't like actually playing drums, because you are moving the drumsticks in front of you "in space."  Like a physical set of drums, the hi-hat is to your left, the snare drum is between your legs, the mounted toms are in front of you and at a 45º angle, the floor tom is to your right, and the ride and crash cymbals are up and to the right and left.

The lady from their marketing told me that these can be "quirky... don't expect them to play like real drums."  Having researched them, I knew what to expect.  Mostly.

These arrived with some charge on them.  Each part of the kit is rechargeable; according to the instructions (yes, actual written instructions), once fully charged, these will last "up to 16 hours."  There are 8 different "drum kits" (all drums do not sound the same) that you can shift through.  In the short testing I did today, the volume level of each drum is not controllable... the hi-hat is much quieter than the bass drum, and so it goes with each of the drums.

I will play with this as time permits over the next couple weeks.  The "action" isn't anything like playing real drums, since you are just moving the sticks through the air... no "bounce back" as when a real drumstick hits a real drum.

As with the guitar, these are mine to keep.  I'll take them next time I get together with Mark and the guys to see what everybody thinks.  That will be a couple weeks from now, since Mark and Cindy are on vacation for a while.

If nothing else, I can see a use for the foot pedals (foot switches, actually) as a bit of rhythm when playing guitar.