Best Practice Pad Type

[Scarlet O'Hair]

Hi

There are several practice pads laying around my house...a soft type (xlylis I think) with bearings inside designed to give a snare sound, an octagonal shaped one with a build up of layers that has a medium feel to it (can't remember the name) a "cadet" round by Hugh Cameron and a "hard" by Hugh Cameron. There is also some black rubber mat thing that is meant to cover the drum head.

I have also seen (and tried) KP's eraser gum coloured flat one that was made of something in a Dental office I believe, and his new remo thingie that can be adjusted for angle, and a couple of things that look like drum rims with heads that 2nd mechanized drummers have used. OH! and the old remo (?) grey adjustable pad thingie that you adjusted with screws all around similar to a snare head adjustment.

I get that they are all different, but want I want to know is what type is preferred. Is it based on player preference? Are there some out there that are meant to have a feel closer to a snare?

I would imagine stick type would have a little to do with it as well?

[BARR_R]

Practice pads are really a personal preference. I have found through the ages that most lead drummers prefer a matched set of pads for clarity but some lead drummers do not really bother with this. If every drummer is playing the same pad then when corps practice togeather on pads the clearer it is. If everybody has different pads then you get 15 different sounds.

As far as what pad is best: I think that either the Hardcore pad made by Dominic Tancredi is a really good pad. It offers a clear sound with a nice feel and bounce. The Hugh Cameron pads offer the soft, medium, hard so a drummer can pick which best suits them. The pads that JK use are something that can be picked up for free at most Eye doctors office. They use a piece of rubber to polish eyeglasses and the rubber can only be used once, so they are thrown away after the first use. As a drummer this is probably the cheapest route.........................These are also really nice to play on! My personal favorite for feel and playing.

To get a pad that gives the "feel"of a drum has been a long sought after solution. Many products out there just not many winners. There is a pad made by Remo called the Heavy Hitter that has a top you can put over the pad to give the feel of a drum. Will Kemler in here can expand on this. (they use them) I tried the heavy hitter and felt the rubber was not thick enough and it was almost as if you were playing on the wood? Hopefully that makes sense. They also make pads that are "tuneable" with an actual key. I do not have any expierence with these.

Pads are funny creatures, so are drummers. You might find a spare piece of tire you found in the back yard to be the best and I might have to spend 100 bucks to get the top of the line pad to satisfy myself.

ALSO, the TG pad is really nice!

there you go...................8 cents worth

Ryan

[BARR_R]

Kyle Heney is now making pads that I have tried and LOVE. I am not sure if these are in production yet but these will be a hot seller! Keep your ear to the pavement for these. Kyle is on here.....................................

Kyle, why don't you enlighten us?

Get's my endorsement!

Ryan

[tankiedrummie]

Originally Posted by Scarlet O'Hair

Is it based on player preference? Are there some out there that are meant to have a feel closer to a snare?

I would imagine stick type would have a little to do with it as well?

You have answered your own question, it goes down to players preference. I have several pads lying about the place, all sorts bought over the years. Favorite this now is the Farqhar drum pad, it was cheap. Also just bought one with a metronome on it. I have given alot of them away recently. Alot of drummers buy kit because other people use it, more money than sense the best "practice pad" is the drum itself.
I teach on the drum, always have, if no drums then its on the table top or hard pads like the Farqhar. The guys I teach play on pads at home so they don`t annoy folks, but apart from that its on the drum and that includes rudiments for the beginners. Gives a better sense of stick control and also the noise aspect for the beginners so they are not afraid of the top skin noise. Stick selection has never came into my selection of pad, a piece of timber is a piece of timber at the end of the day.

[Robbie.Crow]

I have to agree on tankie with this one, is just comes down to personal preferrance.

When i started i started on a soft pad, the whole corps do, so that you get used to "the bounce", then i moved onto a hard one, right now im using the TG brown and some other big wooden round think the size of a drumskin, but with a bit of rubber inbetween.

@ tankies comment about learners learning on the drum, aside from his points that it gives them a feel for it, it can also point out when someone is making a mistake better than a pad can.

[Pete Walen]

Strictly opinion here - nothing scientific to back it up...

Personally, I dislike the tunable pads. They're fine if you want to play away on your own, but if you get more than a couple of guys in a room, they are right loud.

I think I'm like a lot of folks who have done this for a while. I have a stack of pads to choose from. I tend to choose pads that suit what I want to work on. A softer pad makes me work harder for some exercises. When I move to a harder pad after working on a softer pad, the sticks fly back and I actually find it easier. That could just be me tho. When I feel like torturing myself drumming, I'll dig out my Real Feel soft pad and run through some stick control exercises.

Generally, I do like the TG pads. They give a good response and decent drum-like reaction. The Woodshed Percussion Hardcorps pads are nice as well. Haven't tried Kyle's.

I dislike 99% of the novelty pads out there - for example, the ones with little bb's under the rubber so they sounud like a snare drum (they don't, Sorry Scarlet). The only novelty pad I've hung onto was the "putty pad" - stuff looks like silly putty, spread it out on a table - POOF! Practice pad. Fun ta bang on for a minute or two, but with pipe band sticks, or pretty much any sticks except for pencils, they tend to wear thin where the sticks make contact.

[Scarlet O'Hair]

Originally Posted by Pete Walen

I dislike 99% of the novelty pads out there - for example, the ones with little bb's under the rubber so they sounud like a snare drum (they don't, Sorry Scarlet). The only novelty pad I've hung onto was the "putty pad" - stuff looks like silly putty, spread it out on a table - POOF! Practice pad. Fun ta bang on for a minute or two, but with pipe band sticks, or pretty much any sticks except for pencils, they tend to wear thin where the sticks make contact.

LOL! No worries...I didn't say it was my fav, I said I have one! I forgot about the goop...got some of that too!

[Robbie.Crow]

example of novelty pad that is no good, i prefer pads to be of a decent size

http://www.musicroom.com/es-ES/se/ID...3/details.html

[piper_dancer]

Originally Posted by BARR_R

Kyle Heney is now making pads that I have tried and LOVE. I am not sure if these are in production yet but these will be a hot seller! Keep your ear to the pavement for these. Kyle is on here.....................................

Kyle, why don't you enlighten us?

Get's my endorsement!

Ryan

Is it Kyle making them?

Just an addidtion to this thread, back in my early days, there was no such thing as Practice pads, all we had was "a Table top" or the back of a chair, and there were some pretty useful drummers out there. Dont get me wrong I am not knocking the pads, far from it, i dont have a great deal of experience in using them, so cannot make a constructive or derogatory comment. Just ppinting out that "progress" can sometimes cause more problems by offering perhaps "too much choice"??