In raising our boys, Nikolai (age 7) and Caleb (age 4), Tonya and I have tried to instill in them an appreciation of the many aspects and forms of music. So it was no wonder that they should develop eclectic tastes, switching at a young age from Nursery Rhymes to the likes of the Ramones and The Flaming Lips. Recently Nik has taken up playing the cello, because, to paraphrase him, the cello has tonal qualities akin to a Lightsaber. Caleb, on the other hand, likes to pound things… Read that as “future drummer”. So when the opportunity presented itself to take the path less beaten (pun intended) and test out the mi Jam Pro Air Drummer, well who doesn’t wanna be a Rock’n Roll Star?

Air Guitar Meet Air Drums

Now before I get into this review, I should point out first and foremost that the mi Jam Pro Air Drummer is a toy… Let me say that again, it is a toy. You can no sooner come away mastering the mi Jam Pro Air Drummer and say that you are the King of the Skins than you can rock out on every song in Guitar Hero or Rock Band and claim that you’re ready for the Rock’n Roll Hall of Fame.

As a matter of fact, mi Jam Pro Air Drummer has 5 things going against it that negate it from ever being a true member of the percussion family: 1) In order to play the Air Drums, you must hold the drumsticks incorrectly. 2) As the name implies, you drum air and not a physical surface. 3) Because there is no physical striking surface, you can pretty much swing your sticks anywhere in space that can be detected by the infrared sensor. 4) Because there is no physical surface, you don’t feel the satisfying bounce off the drum skins. And 5) There is a volume control and headphone jack on the device.

Okay, so maybe the mi Jam Pro Air Drummer is toy and not a true set of drums. Should we count that fact against it? Well, no. And why not? ‘Cause as far as toys go, the mi Jam Pro Air Drummer is the next best thing to having a real drum set and did I mention the volume control and headphone jack?

A ‘Drum Set’ That Fits in a Shoebox

The mi Jam Pro Air Drummer is a 4-piece set of air drums consisting of two drumsticks, one foot pedal, and one speaker unit, all of which require their own set of batteries (AA and AAA variety). The speaker unit contains the infrared sensor and provides the volume control, using either the built in speaker or headphone jack. Stepping on the foot pedal results the low ‘thump’ of a base drum. Drumming the air with the left drumstick results in the ‘thump-rattle’ of a snare drum, while striking the air with right drumstick results in the ‘muted-crash’ of a hi hat. On both drumsticks there are joysticks controlled by the thumbs. Pushing the joystick up on the left drumstick gives you your tom tom and pushing down gives you your floor tom. Pushing the joystick up on the right drumstick gives you your crash cymbal while pushing down gives you your ride cymbal. Finally, pushing either the left joystick to the right or the right joystick to the left activates the ‘Follow’ command, thus allowing that drumstick to mimic the sound of the other drumstick. In other words, it’s what you need to perform a drum roll.

The speaker unit also comes with six built in rhythms with tempo control in order to train one in the finer art of air drumming. And bonus, the speaker has a ‘line-in’ plug, which allows you to connect to most music players so you can jam with your own music.

Buddy Rich I’m Not

It takes about a second to learn how to step on the foot pedal to hear the bass drum, and drum the air with the left drumstick to hear the snare and the right drumstick to hear the hi hat. It takes a quite bit longer to perform a slightly complex maneuver like a drum roll followed by a cymbal crash. Performing a drum roll involves using the follow button on the right drumstick so that striking the air with both drumsticks results in the snare drum sound. Then you perform your drum roll and at the last strike you push the right joystick from ‘follow’ up to hit the crash cymbal. Yes, there is a bit of a learning curve. I should point out that I discovered while performing a drum roll that it is all or nothing with the sound. You cannot strike the air softly or loudly and get a corresponding soft or loud ‘thump’ from the speaker unit. This means that it is impossible to get that ebb and flow sound effect that one hears in some really long drum rolls.

Next I tested out some of the rhythms, which involve a complex set of different drum strickes and quickly found that even with the slowest possible tempo, I need a lot of practice. Did I mention the learning curve?

Finally I decided the heck with it all and figured it was time to get into some serious jamming. Tonya suggested YYZ… Yeah, not knowing what she was talking about, I decided to ignore her. Instead, I grabbed my iPhone and selected Benny Goodman & His Orchestra performing Sing, Sing, Sing (With A Swing) and quickly realized why these guys are paid professionals. I should also point out that the headphone jack performed stupendously by keeping my drumming faux pas from polluting the environment around me.

Overall Impression

If your goal is to become a drummer through lessons and whatnot, I’m pretty sure that there is a fair share of drum teachers that would tell you that it is time to grow up and put this ‘toy’ away. However if you’re just looking for a chance to play Rock’n Roll Star and jam with your favorite band… Well rock on dude! As the technology advances, perhaps manufactures can allow for soft and loud drumming as well as using position sensors to tune the sound one hears to the space where one strikes their air drum. Those tweaks would bring the mi Jam Pro Air Drummer closer to a real drum set. Well, with that in mind, Caleb has decided to give the mi Jam Pro Air Drummer 10 out of 10 stars because it is fun, while Nikolai is giving it 70 out of 100 Thumbs-up because it is just okay. As for me, I’m giving it 6 out of 8 Dancing Elephants because it is fun and the learning curve keeps it challenging.

Parting Thoughts

Have toys like the mi Jam Pro Air Drummer and video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band robbed us by making it easier for us to pretend to be Rock’n Roll Stars rather than actually putting in the effort to become Rock’n Roll Stars?