DIY practice drum: because why spend a fortune if you don't have to?

Gretsch recently brought out what they call a tuneable practice pad.
The thing is actually a single-headed 12-inch drum with a rubber insert mounted beneath an ordinary batter head. Finished in white marine pearl, it's very attractive.

The sound is rather loud for it to be called a "practice pad" when it's really just a muffled drum. Even with the rubber insert it's still pretty darned loud, too loud for warming up with in a hotel room on tour or practicing in the spare room at home without bothering someone.
(Don't believe me? Here's a video. You decide.)

It's also -- sit down -- $300 new.

Yeah, I know. That's crazy. Right?
Of course right. The most I've ever paid for a brand new practice pad was the $42 I spent on a Xymox 12" reserve snare pad. 

(It was a seasonal half-price sale and I jumped on it back in early September. I'm not holding my breath and I expect to see it sometime next summer if I'm lucky. Xymox supply issues are beyond the scope of this blog post.)

Still, it sounded like a cool idea. So I cast around the piles of junk in my studio to see what I had that I could turn into something similar, mostly for the fun of proving a cheapskate point of view.

Sitting in the corner was a 10-inch kiddie snare drum with a Gammon badge on it. I scored it for $4 at my local Goodwill a couple summers ago, thinking it might come in handy for a PreK music class. I never got hired to teach that class, and so the drum sat collecting dust.

Until tonight.

First, I took the drum entirely apart. My readers mostly know how a snare drum, even a really cheap one, is constructed, so I felt no need to photopgraph that part. I pulled the snare mechanism -- something shockingly similar to Remo's Rhythm Bucket snare assembly but with quasi adjustability -- seriously, Gammon should sue Remo -- and I chucked it. It was really that bad.

Then, I inserted pieces of cotton ball into each lug to quiet the springs inside.
Finally, I lightly sanded the edges of the wooden shell with very fine sandpaper.
Then I reassembled it.

Because I knew I wanted something at least a little quieter than the Gretsch, I decided to lay an old t-shirt across one side, underneath the head. I pulled the shirt taut as I tightened the drumhead on that side. When I was done, I trimmed away the excess.
Before replacing the other head, I placed an entire pair of old sweatpants inside the drum. It filled the drum without packing it super-tightly, which was what I'd hoped for. Then, I installed the other drumhead and rim.

When I was finished, I had a small, unassuming little practice drum.

Yes, it's hideous Pepto pink, and it only has four lugs, but what do you expect from a four-dollar kiddie drum at Goodwill? 

The prooif is in the playing. And even though I'm doing this without my usual morning warmup routine (soaking my arthritic hands in warm water for a few minutes in the morning makes a huge difference!), it still doesn't sound terrible. And I'll bet it's even a little quieter than the practice-pad-that's-really-a-drum up top there.
Would it sound and feel different if I removed the stuffing, or removed even half of it? Probably. But for now I'm going to live with it this way and see how I like it in the longer run.

Snce I now seem to be getting a tiny bit of traction here at this brand-new blog, you should know that on Thursday I'm heading out on a tour (in my day job capacity as a Jewish artist- and educator-in-residence), and I'll be busy through December 11. So I've prepared a couple of posts that will be time-released on December 3 and 9. Stay tuned!