Peter Erskine approached the DW design team with a novel question, ‘What if there was a travel kit that didn't sound like a travel kit?’ Seems obvious enough, but the minds at DW had never tackled the quandary head-on, as it wasn't a simple task. So they went to work on a kit that was just small enough to be travel-friendly, but also substantial enough to sound like a 'real' drum set should.
After, literally, years of R&D and discussion, the sizes were agreed upon: a 12x20 inch bass drum with low-mass spurs and lightweight ratchet bass drum mount, an 11x14 inch floor tom, a traditional 8x12 inch rack tom with STM, and a matching 5x14 inch snare drum. The kit also comes standard with True-Pitch tension rods, MAG throw-off, True-Tone snare wires, and DW Heads by Remo.
As is the case with all Design Series drums, the shells consist solely of North American maple with no reinforcement hoops.