Product review: a second look at Vater Stick Shield

I tried the Stick Shields from Vater several years ago, on a pair of 5B sticks. I wasn't thrilled at the time. The shield performed as advertised but added noticeable weight that changed the balance of the sticks.

I gave that pair to a student and moved on.

I decided to give the Sick Shields a second look, this time on a heavier, thicker pair of sticks.

This time, I think it makes a little more sense.

I have multiple sets of the Cooperman #10 sticks in Hickory. This model is one of my favorites and I use it every day. It's a nice rudimental stick for the days when my hands are really feeling arthritic, and the balance and response are simply terrific.

Because I tend to hit the rim a lot I decided to tape up a pair of #10s. I double-taped them for protection, and to add a little weight to a too-light pair.

They work just fine for my purposes.

I'm not sure I'd want to give this treatment to every pair. They're not cheap at over $30 a pair, and usually it's enough for me to ask Cooperman to send me the heaviest pairs they have on hand when I order.

But it got me thinking about the Stick Shield again.

So I went looking online, and discovered that they were no longer in production. The shops that still had them in stock were selling them off at slightly discounted prices to be rid of them. (I guess this hadn't been a best-seller.)

I ended up ordering three sets.

Installing them isn't difficult, but you do need to take your time and measure exactly where you want the shield. Once it's on, it's hard to remove.

The Stick Shields are made of a carbon laminate with a strong adhesive backing.
Simply measure where your stick is getting dented the most, clean off the dirt, and apply according to the instructions. Rolling the sticks on a tabletop after applying will help the adhesive to hold more firmly.

The Stick Shields in the standard size will add some weight to your sticks, so consider what size you want to use them on.

I didn't like using this on smaller sticks because the weight difference was simply too marked for my liking. But on rudimental or marching sticks -- say, 2B or larger -- the difference isn't so pronounced.

Vater also made this product in a size meant for marching sticks. It's longer and wider, and designed to fit fat marching sticks. It's made in white to look better against sticks that might be taped with white tape (the standard color choice when taping marching sticks).

I was able to find one set for marching. Those are en route to me now, and I will think about where I want to use them.

The Stick Shields perform as advertised, and while I didn't care for the added weight on a drum kit stick, I think it's fine on a fatter, heavier stick for rudimental or marching work.

Note: The standard size may not provide enough coverage on an especially fat stick, say in the .715 range.

A few online retailers still have this in stock, but act soon because it dones't look like Vater plans to bring them back.

If you miss out, there may be some carbon fiber tape out there for industrial applications. Good luck.

I just dumped my 2024 Heavy Hitter pad and I couldn’t be happier.

I tossed it up on Reverb last week after the brouhaha over on the FB Pad Group.

It doesn’t exactly suck, and I did get it cheap, but the Vic Firth Heavy Hitter guard dogs and their drum bro culture left a bad taste in my mouth, and I was just done.

I came home from a nice visit to Revival Drum Shop today and learned that the pad had sold and it was time to ship. After shipping, I still came out a little ahead. 

Screw MDF, screw the mass producers and screw the drum-bro culture, which still exists no matter how many photos of young women playing snare drum they toss up online. 

Harrumph.

Another reason the new Heavy Hitter pads are overpriced. Or everything is, actually.

Just found this for sale online.

Granted, the shell is probably done and would need to be replaced, or cut down and matched up with some shorter tubes to make it work again. Either step would make this a working drum again.

Someone got a little crazy with a torque wrench.

The drum retails new for around $500.

Selling it as is for $150 shipped is either a master stroke, or an indictment of the entire marching percussion industry.

Considering that the new Heavy Hitter pad (my favorite whipping boy for now) retails for a hundred bucks, it might be more economical to buy this drum, toss the shell, sell off the lower hardware and tubes and just keep the top as a super-loud practice pad. Those are selling for a couple hundred bucks anyway, and honestly, one of those will last you as long as a couple dozen of the Heavy Hitters.

 And you can change the head whenever you need to.

Now, to be fair, while the Heavy Hitter isn’t getting a lot of breathless adulation from me, I have to say that the whole damned marching percussion scene is slightly ridiculous these days.

And I blame it on the modern drum corps scene, with its bloated excesses of glamour and piles of money at the top-12 level. 

Today, a top-12 corps can buy a brand new drumline — drums, carriers, stands, covers and cases, for around $50,000, use it for a season, sell it off at 1/2 to 2/3 of what they paid for it, and start again the next season. Some big, well-funded high school band in Texas will happily spring for it, use it for several years and then sell it off to a smaller school for half of what they paid. Eventually, the drums wear out and have to be scavenged for parts, which will be sold in ragged condition for far more than they’re worth.

And yeah, the recycling is nice. But it’s not a solution when the starting price is more than the annual salary for a first-year high school band director at an average, non-powerhouse school.

The whole marching arts movement has become bloated, with overpriced gear and uniforms (LEOTARDS, people!). Top-12 drum corps have annual operating budgets of a million dollars a year. DCI itself is a juggernaut with an estimated 2024 budget of $28 million. And yet, the kids still have to pay in excess of $4,500 a season to march.

This is so far from the vision of the drum corps activity of forty or fifty years ago, when drum corps was an activity that gave kids something to do and keep them out of trouble.

A friend pointed out recently that childhood and adolescence are different now, and that high schools offer many kids the opportunity to march in a quality program (that is still too expensive for many families), and that with the advent of smartphones and the internet those old fashioned kinds of trouble aren’t as readily accessible by kids.

And yet, in order to get into a top-12 corps, you’re expected not only to play and march at the highest level, but you’re also expected, apparently, to be active on the socials and market your musical skills there, so that the corps you join can use your socials as another marketing mouthpiece. (I just learned this the other day by lurking on Reddit, where the kids generally hang instead of Facebook.)

I’m an old fart, I admit it. 

And this kind of sickens me.

If this is what drum corps has come to then I’m glad I’m not involved.

But it does help to explain why marching percussion gear sells for so damned much money with folks no longer bat an eye.

And it reinforces my love for homemade pads. 

The excess of the activity is really getting to me today.

I’ll just show myself out.

The return of AeroFactor?

Rich Chiappe have traded emails back and forth over the past two days.

He is surprised and excited at the attention his pad is awakening, both in pad enthusiasts and in himself.

He tells me that he is in discussions with one of his kids to possibly reignite AeroFactor, at least long enough to sell off the pads he still has in stock. He has enough left to make it worthwhile to restart things.

No timeline, but he sounds very positive about it.

Stay tuned.

AeroFactor UPDATE

I found Rich Chiappe, the designer of the AeroFactor practice pad.

I located his current place of business and emailed him at his office.

When I got home in the evening, I found his very friendly response waiting in my inbox.

Here is his story:

*********

“The back story of the Pad is basically this (in a nutshell):

I’ve been a drummer for nearly 50 years.

I raised 3 kids — all of whom played percussion in band — one of whom is a professional drummer in Nashville.

They all needed practice pads.  So we bought them practice pads.  Lots of them.  All basically a circle of rubber glued to an MDF substrate.   

Some were big like a real drum - great for practicing in different stike zones but each zone sounded and reacted the same. And big pads are hard to take to school and home again without damaging them after shoving them into lockers, dropping them, etc.  So we buy another one.  And another one.  I wasn’t impressed. But they could be mounted in a 3-point snare stand for proper standing practice.

One of them was small and fit in a drum bag.  More practical but still saddled with improper technical response and now a limited number of strikable zones.  And it couldn’t be held at standing height other than placing it on a music stand (lame).

None of them had a rim. And come-on. Without a rim, what are you practicing!?  Shoulder strikes are NOT rim shots.

I was running an aircraft parts manufacturing business that was basically running itself and I got bored and creative. 

I dreamt up a better mousetrap:

• Use durable materials (aluminum)
• Design the bed of the primary strike zone to be a “spring” so strikes react like a real drumhead does
• Remove all the rarely used strike zones but retain a “runway” for practicing over the snares or up to to the rim for pianissimo dynamics and have the pad react like a real snare drum would there - tighter spring/return action.
• Make it mountable in a 3-point snare stand
• Utilize the unused nearside strikezone to simulate a warm-up pad (think “phonebook” action).  Put a cook graphic under clear soft silicone there that could be customized for a School or Drum Corps.  I designed the graphics there and put my Daughter’s name in there - see if you can find it. ; )
• Make it carryable in a (large) stickbacg
• Make it well - precision manufacturing - premium pricing.  A $100 drum pad you buy ONCE instead of 3-1/3 “cheap” ones.
• Kids were walking around with $1,000 cell phones in high school.  There would be plenty of families that could afford a quality drum pad.  Not to mention the professionals out there.
• Package it like an iPhone — beautiful boxing, detailed instructions, neoprene case that holds a drumkey, pencil and drumsticks and inserts that explain it all
• Make it a prestigious product — something a kid might strive for and cherish
• Emphasize our aviation roots and expertise in how we market and brand.  Note all the aviation references in the box art etc.

**********

I asked him about the sticks and he told me that had been a very small side quest, only a couple dozen sets were made and sold on Amazon. (He kept one pair for himself.)

He told me that about 400 pads were made and they were offered for sale on Amazon.

The original retail price for the pad in its neoprene case, in 2015, was $100.

(Imagine what that pad would sell for now, eight years later. I figure at least $150-200.)

Rich was tickled to be contacted, and happy that I had managed to get my hands on one of his pads.

He has no plans to revive the company at this time; he and his wife are enjoying their empty nest now that their kid are grown and gone, and he’s in a completely different line of work today. 

But he graciously shared these photos with me. The first is of the liner card that came with the pad. The other two are his sketches of the idea, before it went into production.

It was a lovely conversation and I am glad to know more about the pad.

Happy drumming.

Future Vintage: AeroFactor practice pad

I just acquired this practice pad, made for a short time and sold under the name AeroFactor.

It’s a cool, interesting pad. Came with a single heavy workout stick.

 

I would love to find a mate, but AeroFactor simply does not exist anymore. No functioning web site, no contact info or location. It existed 2015 through maybe early 2019 before vaporizing completely into the ether.

 

I did, however, find some info.

 

1. The pad was designed in 2014 by Rich Chiappe, who worked in aviation technology in Texas and had kids in his local HS band. The pad clearly shows influences of aviation design.

 

2. The pad went on the market in 2015, and was made available through Amazon and its affiliates. I could not find a retail price, though the item still shows up in an Amazon search with the words “Currently unavailable.”

 

3. The pad came with a neoprene slipcover, a pair of weighted metal warmup sticks with rubber tip covers, and a second set of rubber tip covers in a pouch. My pad came with only one stick. I hope at some point to find a mate.

 

4. There are three playing areas: the black rubber center, a slightly thinner black rubber end, and a thick, clear section at the other end that’s nice for lower resistance chopping and warmups.

 

5. Two “wings” swing out at angles to allow the stand to be used on a standard snare drum stand. Placing it on the stand will give it a different sound and slightly different response, though I haven’t tried that yet.

 

There are a couple of videos on YouTube, and a few more at the Aerofactor Pads FB page, which is still up. Here's a little video I took. Although the company's videos show someone playing this pad with big marching sticks, I found that it was more responsive with concert sticks, so I used some lighter weight Cooperman #10's to make my video.

Based on how short-lived the company was — only three years — and how involved the manufacturing process probably was, I’d guess the pads were expensive when sold, relatively few in number, and pretty rare now. I’m glad to have found one and I enjoyed going down the research rabbit hole.

 

Rich Chiappe left Texas in 2019, a year after AeroFactor ceased production. He also seems to have left the aviation industry and is now working in high-end real estate somewhere in Colorado.

It does not seem that he ever had anything to do with music products again after AeroFactor.

I’ve reached out to Mr. Chiappe for more information. He has a FB account, though it has not been added to in several months. I hope he will respond. And if he does, I’ll let you know.

DCI will eat itself. And maybe it should.

Over on a drum corps discussion group, someone went to a lot of trouble to consider how Drum Corps International might be restructured as a response to the shrinking number of competitive drum corps, in order to keep the activity financially and socially viable.

It was a detailed plan.

And I think it would fail.

Here’s my response:

*****

Clearly a lot of thought and care went into this plan. But at the end of the day, there simply are not enough competitive corps left *in existence* to make it viable, for the management and funding of the activity or for the fans.

If someone saves up several hundred dollars (tickets/gas/lodging/potentially unpaid time off work) to travel to watch a drum corps show, they *might* fare better getting to a show that’s closer to home. If they do, how many will travel farther to see a second show somewhere else?

DCI has changed because the whole world has changed. While they have done an admirable job in bringing the marching arts to new levels of quality and artistry, it has ultimately come at the expense of high levels of participation. There are far fewer competitive drum corps today than forty or even thirty years ago, because there are now far fewer people who can afford to participate. (The root causes of the higher costs have been covered elsewhere.) DCI’s continued refusal to see this is evidence of the leadership’s own hubris.

As much as I love the marching arts, I can see a time when independent competitive drum corps in the style of DCI and national touring no longer exists, and it may well happen in my lifetime. Everything is just too damned expensive now, and wages and schedules and real life cannot keep up with the man-eating leviathan that DCI has become.

Want to save drum corps? Make it local and grass roots again, and make it smaller. Make it shoestring. Make it gritty and scrappy again. And reach out to the communities who are really good at doing gritty and scrappy. Examples that come to mind include orgs like Bay Ratz Marching Battery in southern Mississippi and Mad Beatz in Philadelphia. And don’t make it competitive, at least right out of the gate. Make it performative and community-minded, period.

The beats will be dirty to begin with. That’s okay. The average parent or city leader doesn’t care about dirty beats. They care about kids marching down the street in matching t-shirts, making beautiful noise and bringing smiles to peoples’ faces, and hope to their hearts.

DCI will eat itself. And that’s too bad. But that is what the weight of hubris can do.

Make drum corps truly relevant to the community again, and you just might save it.