Vintage Corner: Remo tuneable practice pad, Part II

While researching this make and model of practice pad, I was also looking for an older version of the pad so I could get a better idea of its technical development.
I got lucky and obtained two within days of each other. They were made around the same time, in the early to mid 1960s (not long after its release by Remo).
The larger of the two pads measures 8” diameter and is constructed with a wood bed covered by a metal rim. Inside the wood bed is a foam muffler covered with a real, tunable Weather King drum head. Below all of this is a Masonite platform that is tilted slightly to give a simulation of the tilt most drummers used in the 1960s; before the advent of modern marching drum carriers, snare drums were carried on the march with a simple webbed cotton sling and a leg rest, which caused the drum to tilt. (This historic “tilt” is why snare drummers have been using what we call “traditional” grip for centuries. Only when drums could be carried perfectly horizontal could drummers begin utilizing “matched” grip comfortably. Oddly, while most drum lines carry drums nearly horizontally now, most use traditional grip, which can place extra strain on the left hand as it’s require to twist farther away to pull the stick from the drum head. But I digress.)

Photos below show the construction of the older, 8” Remo pad.





The other pad was a gift from a fellow drummer back East, who offered to give it to me if I paid for postage. It’s a smaller, 6” diameter pad, with a large Masonite platform designed to allow the snare to be placed on top of a 14” snare drum — a throwback to the rubber pads designed by Billy Gladstone over a decade earlier, which serve as a muffler for the drum while practicing. Since this pad is not especially low-volume, putting it on a drum won’t create quite the same muffled effect; but perhaps some drummers found this feature useful. The 14” Masonite disc was offered as an optional accessory, sold separately and screwing into the threaded hole originally designed to mount the smaller pad on a cymbal stand. My disc came with some damage incurred in shipping, so I fashioned a small “washer” from cardboard that allowed me to re-center the disc under the pad. The cardboard is just stiff enough without adding additional pressure to the fragile, 60-year-old Masonite disc.



Pay close attention to these photos, because there will be another part to this exploration that will show off what I believe was the precursor to the tuneable pad, you’ll be able to see the differences in design that may have led Remo to his idea of a tuneable pad. (No spoilers if you think you know where I’m going with this; I’m waiting to hear back from folks at Remo for verification.)

Below, you’ll find videos comparing the 1960s version of the pad with my plastic-topped pad from the 1970s. While the 1970s pad feels familiar, I find I actually like playing the 60s pad a little more. The sound and response feel "beefier" to me, and I don't think it's only about the size difference, but the materials used as well. My guess is that plastic got less expensive to manufacture with and that helped fuel the switch from a wood and metal base to an all-plastic one.




I think the Remo tuneable pad still has a place in the drum universe; For untold millions of drummers it has been the gateway to sa lifetime of drumming joy. It remains a well-built and very affordable choice for students, and the replaceable head makes it a longer-lasting choice too.
I hope you've enjoyed this little trip down the Remo drum pad "rabbit hole," and don't forget there will be a third chapter to this exploration.
Happy drumming!

Vintage Corner: Remo Tunable Practice Pad, PART I

In the fall of 1973, I moved with my family  to Concord, California. I was in fifth grade, and finally old enough to join the school band.
I went to the music teacher and asked about my options for learning an instrument.
After I explained that my parents could not afford to rent an instrument from the music store, and that whatever I chose would have to be on loan from the school district, the band director told me there weren’t many loaner instruments available.
It also had to be something I could get to and from school on my bicycle, because this was the era of latchkey kids and learning self-sufficiency. Ultimately, the only remaining choice that appealed to me was to learn to play the drum. A practice pad and sticks cost less than ten dollars, fit easily in my backpack and was quiet enough to practice anywhere. Plus, Karen Carpenter was a drummer long before she ever began singing, and she was one of my childhood idols. So that decided it.

I was presented with a copy of the Belwin Band Builder, a pair of 5A Ludwig drum sticks and a Remo tunable practice pad. With a 6-inch diameter plastic head, it looked like the top of a drum, and when you played it, it sort of sounded like a little drum; plus, the head was tunable and if you broke it you could buy replacements — the sort of thing that was sure to please my economy-minded mother.

I wore that first pad out by the time I got to high school, going through two replacement heads before I had cracked the plastic rim. I saved up my babysitting and paper route money and bought another, larger Remo pad in an 8-inch diameter size, which got me through high school. By then, I had gravitated to other styles of practice pad (including scrap rubber duct-taped to a wooden plank), and it was a long time before I bought another Remo tunable pad.

Fast forward to 2005. I was inspired to audition for a community wind ensemble, and needed to fill in my meager supply of drum sticks, mallets and other ephemera. I also needed a practice pad, so I went looking for something cheap — and found a “vintage” 6-inch Remo tunable pad in its original box, with the paperwork. It was being sold as a “collectible” and cost me almost twenty bucks. As it happened, that vintage drum pad purchase became the foundation of the practice pad collection I have today. I wound up hardly using it for regular practice because I had found other, more modern pads that I preferred. So it has mostly sat on a shelf in its little cardboard box.

The Remo tunable practice pad remains a stalwart, the pad you start a beginner with because it’s durable, still quite affordable — and easy to find used at garage sales for even less than I’d paid for my very first pad. The pad is still in production today and remains a best-seller, ideal for student drummers on a budget and anyone else looking for something that just works; though the current version is mostly plastic throughout and has no metal platform to provide a slight tilt, as my old pads had. There's even a version called Silent Stroke, with a mesh head for much quieter practice.

Here’s a few photos of the pad I bought used some fifteen years ago, and the paperwork that came with it. My pad dates from the mid to late 1970s, and utilizes both a “tilt” platform and a threaded hole for mounting on a cymbal stand.

A little instruction booklet that came with the pad

(Click on each page to get a larger photo)

A letter from Remo Belli and a quality pledge. Did these things once matter to customers?

When my interest in collecting pads and researching their history expanded,  I found photos of an older version of this pad, made with a metal rim.

My next quest would be to find an older version of the Remo tunable pad so I could make comparisons. Stay tuned for Part II of this exploration into a really cool corner of practice pad history, and happy drumming.