If there ever were an instrument that was not easy to travel with, it would have to be the drums.  With snare drum, toms, bass tom, kick drum, a slew of cymbals and the requisite hi-hat, that’s one heck of a lot of gear – dare we say a small SUV-full at least. So how to be mobile and still play drums?

Cliphit by Korg

Take three objects that can be conveniently struck with drum sticks, attach spring clips to them and you’ve got three selectable “drums”.  Plug in a base pedal to the Cliphit base unit and you’ve got yourself an able – yet very portable drum set.

I found that paperback books worked ideally, while some other people preferred hard back books.  But anything will work if you can attach the clip…buckets, boxes, lamp shades, you name it.

The video is no joke – that’s sounds exactly like the audio that comes from the Cliphit…true drum sounds, plus a dog bark thrown in for fun.

The Cliphit comes with a list of 11 drums “sets” you can select, assigning different drum sounds to each of the spring clips and the pedal. While they offer a great variety of sounds, you cannot pick and choose between lists. In most lists for example, clip one is “Closed Hi-Hat”, clip two is “Snare” and clip three is either “Tom” or “Crash”. The foot pedal is usually “Kick”. Each of those is further tuned for “standard”, “rock” or “pop”.

The core of the set is the egg shaped control unit which has a couple tricks of its own.  Without plugging in any of the spring clips, you can turn on the control unit and play drums (bongo style) on the top of the case.  Great for quick setup and instant percussion backup. There’s also an “audio in” jack if you want to add music to the mix while you practice.

The unit runs on four AA alkaline batteries so it can be used anywhere.  The internal speaker is loud enough for a standard room, but in a concert setting with other instruments, run a cord from the headphone jack to an amplifier. You’ve got a drum section and it fits in your hand instead of taking up the entire back of your SUV.

Check out more information about the Cliphit on the Korg website.

Disclosure:  Korg shared a Cliphit unit with me so I could write this review

Want a whole band in a duffel bag?

Combine the Jamstik guitar with the Cliphit drumset and the K-Board keyboard.  Nothing is longer than 16” and all three together probably weigh under 10 pounds. You’ll have the ultimate orchestra and can travel anywhere with all of them in a carry-on bag.

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  K-Board keyboard

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  Jamstik guitar

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  Cliphit drumset

 

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