When is a piece of vinyl not a piece of vinyl?

Awhile back, I offered a post about specialty brush pads. My discussion was limited, partly because I didn’t own many myself and partly because there was a lot of redundancy of design and construction among the pads available.

After I shared a link to the post on the socials, Anthony Stanislavski reached out to let me know about his brush pad, being made by Prologix. It was essentially a piece of thick vinyl with a coating and graphics showing the path each hand should take while playing brush beats, with a thin nonskid surface affixed to the bottom. At the time, it sold for over $50, which I thought was a little ridiculous at the time. I carried on and forgot about it.

Now, Stanislavski has gone independent of Prologix and is selling the same design at his own web site. It’s the very same item sans the Prologix branding, and it sells for $70.

I can’t know what prompts artists to step out from behind their endorsing brand and go it alone — or elsewhere — though this isn’t the first time someone has done so. It won’t be the last, either. Retail is a fickle mistress and market forces currently require companies to scale up in order to remain profitable. If the item doesn’t keep up with the scale, it gets dropped. If a company can’t scale up, it folds (as was the case with One Beat Better, which made one of the smartest brush pad designs ever and sadly couldn’t compete with the mega-companies) or is bought out by a larger company (as Prologix did with the original makers of the Chopping Block practice pad — they leveraged their size and scale to merge with the smaller business and then came up with a redesigned version that frankly isn’t as nice).

Here’s the original “Choppin’ Block” pad.

If you click on the link it will still take you to Synced Up’s web page, but you’ll find that the original design is gone, replaced with the new version being sold in “partnership” with Prologix, which is making the pad.

In fact, within weeks of the change, nearly all references to the original pad were gone from the Internet, no doubt erased by Prologix’s request in order to concentrate attention and clicks on the new version.

The speed of the change resonated with me in a negative way, though I can’t exactly articulate why.

But I digress.

The challenge with this vinyl sheet brush pad is the retail price. It could easily be replicated at home by anyone with access to an old industrial binder cover (made of flexible vinyl and large enough to cut a 13” circle out of), some neoprene and some superglue. Add your own graphics with a ruler and permanent paint pen, clearcoat as needed, let dry and voila! You’ve got the same thing for less than ten bucks.

However, the other reality is that there are fewer and fewer Americans who know how to work with their hands in even the most elemental ways. 

Before computers became ubiquitous, generations of ordinary people knew how to do simple repairs around the house, like taping and repainting a room, hanging Sheetrock, repairing a broken table leg with glue and a wooden dowel, and even making their own practice pads. I have a number of user-made pads in my collection, some dating from as late is the 1960s and the oldest dating from the 1930s. The earliest known commercially sold pad dates from the early 1910s and can be found in the 1912 Ludwig & Ludwig catalog. It consists of a circle of solid maple covered with a calfskin head and stuffed with wool until firm. It’s meant to provide the same feel as a drum (which in those days also used calf heads and lower tension than we know today) with far less volume.

 

 

 

 

 

It could easily be made at home today. And if I can get my hands on a broken calf head I might give it a try. But almost no one else these days is interested in making their own stuff -- either because they can't imagine how, or because they don't want to get their hands dirty.

And that’s why there will be ready buyers for these new brush pads, just as there are ready buyers for any of the cheap, mass-produced practice pads on the market. The combination of consumer trends, educational and workplace demands and the entire generational shift of the last thirty years has resulted in a landscape where people are willing to pay far too much money for mass-produced stuff that involves little or no real craft.

 There are, of course, practice pads on the market that are made one at a time by people who understand the value of craft and how that translates to quality and durability. I've mentioned many of those makers elsewhere in my blog so I don't need to re-list them here.
But if you want those craft makers to continue doing what they do, support them by buying their products and encouraging your friends and students to do the same.  That's the only way those craftspeople can stay in business and not be entirely subsumed by mega-corporations that put quantity and profit above quality.

And if you want to make your own brush pad, there are numerous materials out there that are free for the taking which you can experiment with. Those gigantic industrial binders can be found at many businesses that are going fully electronic, and they'll happily give you one or two before tossing the rest. Neoprene wetsuits make great nonskid material and can be found cheap whenever someone needs to replace theirs due to sizing or age. Yoga ats are also a fine nonskid material and can sometimes be found for free at the curb. Hardware stores sell industrial-strength scissors that will allow you to cut through these materials -- buy two or three sets and keep them handy for all your craft projects. (And remember to work outside when using super-glue or any other industrial adhesive so the off-gases have time to dissipate into the atmosphere!)

The mega-companies will keep making their cheap stuff and using every tool they have to steer drummers -- especially kids -- towards their products. The best thing any of us can do is to show up at the park or band practice with something more sustainably made and chop on it.

Happy drumming!

Product Review: Prologix Green Method Pad -- and the pitfalls of redundancy

I'd been wanting to try one of the Prologix pads for several years, but the price of their early models was a little steep for my budget back then. Last week, an old college friend with some money reached out to me. Her son plays in a school band program and she wanted to gift the drumline with a matched set of practice pads. The school's band director isn't a percussionist and couldn't decide which pad to order with this lady's generous gift, so my friend read my reviews and got some info that way. She'd heard about Prologix pads and noticed that I hadn't reviewed them, so she arranged for me to buy one and put it through its paces. ("It's the school colors, green and black," she enthused. "Perhaps this would be a great way to go!")

It arrived a few days ago and I've had some time to hang out with it.

Prologix Percussion makes pads with different densities of rubber compound, and the idea is that you select the density you need based on your playing style and goals. The green compound is designed for "light" resistance, meaning it will provide more of a rebound and allow you to approximate the feel of an actual drum. (They also make compounds with higher levels of resistance, meaning you mjust work on "pulling" the strokes out of the surface, a great workout for hands and wrists. Check their web site for more info.)

I ordered the 12" Method pad, a two-sided affair which Prologix calls their "base level" pad, suitable for drummers at all experience levels. One side has the green rubber surface; the other side uses recycled tire rubber to achieve a feel that's harder and closer to a modern marching drumhead. Both sides have their purposes and both work well.

The pad is heavy enough to stay out on a tabletop, and large enough to work in a standard snare drum stand. At 12 inches it's also portable and will easily fit in a backpack or book bag.

The feel of the light green surface is quite similar to what you'd find on the Evans Real Feel gray chop pad.
The subtle difference in hardness between the two means that on the Prologix you will still have to work a little more to achieve good technique.

The reverse side of recycled rubber is harder and less forgiving in terms of natural rebound, so that you still must use good technique but will get a sound and feel that is tighter and more like a high-tension Kevlar head.

The thickness of each surface is evident from the side view. Both surfaces are mounted to a standard compressed wood platform that looks sturdy and durable for most purposes.

 

 

 

 

 

 Here's a very short video demonstrating the difference between the playing surfaces.

Below is a photo that explains my quandry: All three of these pads -- early Xymox (Promark), Prologix and Evans -- utilize a very similar rubber compound that is designed to offer a high degree of natural rebound while also remaining quieter than a real drum.



But the difference in feel between the three pads is SO subtle that I have to ask:
At what point does all of these different models become redundant?
And at what point should manufacturers take a step back and begin to ask this very question of themselves? The photo above demonstrates just three of the many pad makers out there who are creating pads using similar rubber compounds. Other pads using a silicone base and achieving similar results should be asking this question as well.

..::ducks to avoid flying debris from people who love free market capitalism::..

To be honest, there are already perfectly good pads out there that serve the same purpose as this one by Prologix. And they are similarly priced, which only serves to make things more confusing.

The Method pad is a nice pad. It costs $35 from Prologix, placing it in a similar price-point as the Even Real Feel pad. A smaller 6" version is available for $20. But to my perspective it doesn't really break any new ground from a technical standpoint. And since the Evans Real Feel pad has been around a bit longer, it's easier o find used pads at a considerable savings, something I generally encourage for individual students on a budget. There really isn't enough of a difference between the Real Feel and the Prologix Method pad for me to say one is unequivocally better or worse.

Because of all the redundancy in modern pad design, I've decided that, going forward, I will probably focus more of my attention of pad designs that truly count as breakthroughs, rather than re-hashes of similar designs already out there.  Nothing against any of these brands; but in a world where environmental and financial concerns are only increasing it makes sense to focus on that which is truly innovative.

Happy drumming!