Will your kit fit?
Whether it’s the kit sizes themselves or your space limitations, size is possibly the most important thing to think about before looking into a new kit.
Checking what space you have available before you start shopping is vital, this factor could determine whether you go for a full acoustic kit or either an electric kit or a practice kit. For example, the standard drum kit footprint is about 152 cm by 122 cm (60″ by 48″) so as long as you’ve got that space available, you should be able to fit an acoustic kit. Not to worry if space is an issue, there are alternatives - an electric kit or a practice kit would take up less room by just under half the size at 69cm by 115cm (27” by 45”), they are also a fair bit quieter too which could be better depending on your living situation.
Once you know what space you have available and what sort of kit you can fit, you can look at the kit sizes and setup. One of the blessings of playing the drums is that drum kits come in so many different size configurations, ranging from smaller Jazz/Bop kit configurations to big, rock setups. The main thing to remember is that the smaller the diameter of the drum, the higher pitched it will be when it’s tuned. So depending on whether it’s a bass drum or a tom, the same concept applies. The shell depth of a drum is mostly responsible for how loud the drum will be and the articulation of the sound, so a shorter drum will have a sharper attack and it won’t ring as long as a deeper drum would.