As far back as the late 1950s, drummers valued the ability to toss a pad into their suitcase for hotel room workouts between gigs, with enough substance to the pad to give them something that felt "real" while at the same time being quiet enough to avoid disturbing the neighbors.
I've made three videos of various examples of these smaller travel pads.
1. WFL "Porto-Pad", early 1960s.
This is a solid hunk of rubber shaped like a wedge to simulate the slant of a "side" drum and accommodate traditional grip, which was almost exclusively in use by kit drummers at the time.
The rubber is surprisingly bouncy for its age (over 50 years old!) and in a pinch would serve well enough. But it's not so bouncy that you don't have to do some of the work, which makes for a good workout. Sadly, the rubber isn't quite "grippy" enough to avoid a little skidding on a tabletop, or even when placed atop another rubber practice pad.
In the late 70s, studio drummer Rick Trankle developed a very small, portable pad consisting of a steel plate sandwiched between two slices of pure gum rubber. The result was a pad heavy enough to avoid "creep" and bouncy enough to approximate the surface of a drum. Its small size (3" square) required greater accuracy. A 1/8" thick rubber slice and a 1/4" rubber slice could be switched back and forth to approximate the feel of either a concert or marching snare drum.
In 1979, my high school drum section leader got one of these, declared it awesome, and
It was one of those rare times that I agreed with my otherwise chauvinist ass of a section leader. The pad was amazing. It felt great on either side, was small enough to fit in the pocket of my homemade stick bag (sewn from a pair of jeans), and it forced me to be more accurate with my strokes.
I still have this very pad today, mostly because I babysat too many nasty little children to buy it. It's still a great little pad, but I no longer travel with it because if I lose it, I can't find another one.
3. Xymox "Pocket Pad", 2008.
Xymox patented a pad with a mechanism of steel beads inside that allowed the pad to sound a little like a fake snare drum. It was an interesting way to entice kids to practice more, and it worked, because soon other companies were paying Xymox for the right to use the patented design in their pads. Eventually Xymox was making their pads and stamping them with other companies' names (like Ahead and Promark). The pocket version did not include the fake snare sound.
This is a Xymox-branded Pocket Pad that I got online from a music store that was closing and had a couple left. It's the lightest of the three pads shown here. The very thin rubber sheet on the bottom does help a little with reducing "creep" but if you hit this hard enough it WILL move. The rubber surface on top gives a satisfying bounce and diddle exercises are fun to play. It also just fits in an actual pocket. I got it to add to my collection of early Xymox pads.
Pocket-sized pads need to be heavy enough to avoid "creep" and bouncy enough to be satisfying to practice on. two of these three come close enough to fitting the bill that I'd toss either of them in a bag; the WFL gives me pause but if it were my only pad I'd use it until I could get another model.
Next time: how heavy a stick do you warm up with?
Happy playing!
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