Pad du Jour: Beato "Stealth" pad by Cappella

Cappella Percussion, in addition to manufacturing sticks under other companies' brands, also made practice pads for other companies.
Beato -- which once upon a time, had its name on practice pads, drumsticks (I vaguely remember owning a pair of maple Beato sticks in high school) and accessories -- contracted with Cappella to make a practice pad for them. Cappella made a few different models of pad and imprinted them with the Beato brand.


This pad, sold under the model name "Stealth", is a recent acquisition for me from an online auction. Like the other Cappella pad (mentioned last week), it's made from a slightly lighter weight wood platform than most wood-block pads.

 It came still wrapped in its bag.

I decided to remove it but will save the packaging.

Inside were papers with the old Cappella web site (www.cappellapercussion.com), no longer a valid web address.

The pad is slightly heavier than the Rite-Touch, though not as heavy as more modern rubber-on-wood pads like RealFeel.

It also uses a closed-cell rubber foam, rather than a more solid gum rubber pad. The foam on the Stealth pad is denser than the material on either side of the Rite-Touch, but it still encourages the player to do some of the work on balancing rebounds and rolls.
Once I got used to it, I actually enjoyed playing on it even more than on the Rite-Touch. There's enough "there" there to let the sticks bounce a little more, but not obnoxiously so.

The angle of the wedge is not extreme, but it's just enough to provide a good slant for traditional grip playing.

The size makes for great portability.

Sadly, the pad itself is prone to slipping on a tabletop, because the tiny rubber "feet" are not grippy enough to keep the pad in place, especially when playing louder than mezzo-forte.

 

Even placing this pad on top of another larger rubber pad doesn't help very much (as you'll see in the video below). All things considered, this is not a terrible pad and would be quiet enough to use in a hotel room or backstage to warm up on.

Video below.

Stay tuned. More pads on the way!