Review: ODIKALA Tabletop Electronic Drum

Fantastic sound in a transportable package that's loads of fun even for casual drummers.

Bill Loguidice October 21, 2021 2 min read

The ODIKALA Tabletop Electronic Drum promises a semi-portable, mostly self-contained electronic drum experience with big sound. In every way, including price, this high-quality electronic drum kit really delivers.

In the box, you get the tabletop electronic drum with built-in speakers, two wooden drumsticks, two pedals (one for bass drum and one for HI-HAT), an AC adapter, and an instruction manual. The instruction manual indicates that instead of the AC adapter with barrel connector you should get a USB-C power cable, as well as an audio cable, but neither are present. I did test my own USB-C cable with 65W power source, however, and it was able to power the drums without issue, as well as charge the built-in batteries (one downside is that there’s no indicator the battery is charging unless the drums are powered on).

Setup is straightforward once you take everything out of the box. Remove the protective film on the display, plug the pedals into the 3.5mm PEDAL jack, and plug in either the included AC adapter or a compatible USB-C cable to fully charge the batteries, you’re good to go. You can either play with the included drumsticks or set it for hand percussion.

The underside and rear ports. That single speaker is quite loud and clear.

The drums provide a full set of controls, allowing you to adjust sound properties like tone and reverb. There’s are also demo songs built-in, as well as a metronome to play along to. Finally, you can record and playback your creations.

It's a lot of fun to use. It's just a shame that the DTX electronic drum compatible game is not easily available. I'll have to investigate other cool software to use with this beyond just independent play. — It’s a lot of fun to use. It’s just a shame that the DTX electronic drum compatible game is not easily available. I’ll have to investigate other cool software to use with this beyond just independent play.

The built-in speakers have plenty of punch and do a good job of showing off the sampled drum sounds. You can of course plug in your own headphones or external speakers via the 3.5mm audio output jack. There’s also a 3.5mm audio line-in for connecting an external audio source.

For advanced users, the ODIKALA is compatible with MIDI devices and can be a trigger device or sound source. Of course, since there’s only a USB-C input, you may need an adapter, but otherwise, it should work like any other standard USB-driven MIDI device when interfaced with an external sequencer or computer.

I can’t say enough good things about the ODIKALA drums. It packs a big punch in a small space and has a ton of options with great sound quality. Whether you just want to casually explore percussion like me or are an experienced drummer wanting to practice some slick new drum licks, you won’t be disappointed.