I woke up much too early this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. So I got up, fed the cats and slipped into my studio to play quietly on a soft pad. I also checked my messages and feed, and I’m glad I did.
Because something popped up for sale I never thought I’d see.
YeeeeUP. The one, the only, the very first Vic Firth Slimpad. A guy in the Facebook Drum Pad group had just posted one for sale. And I was the first in the group to see it. So of course I contacted him, and two minutes after that I pad for it. I should have it in my hands by later this week.
For an explanation of why this is such a holy grail among practice pad enthusiasts, feel free to check out my post from 2020 about the other offering from this series, the original VF Stockpad:
These pads had a response that was unsurpassed. Designed by Bill Bachman and a couple other stars from the marching arts in the mid-1990s in conjunction with Vic Firth, and when they were introduced they made a big splash. Non-marching drummers discovered that the Stockpad, with its 1/4” gum rubber playing surface, could also be useful for concert and rock practice, while the 1/8”-topped Slimpad was pretty much strictly a marching-specific pad — possibly the first of its kind in the industry.
Because kids in the late 90s didn’t have the kind of pocket money that today’s kids do, the pads didn’t take off quickly at first. Finally, when they did become popular, production costs forced the company to switch to a rubber compound, rather than a pure gum rubber used in the beginning.
While they swear there was no change in the rubber playing surface for either model, a few thousand drummers who’ve tried both still beg to differ.
As a result of the change in rubber “recipe,” the original versions of the Stockpad and Slimpad are highly sought after by drummers and pad collectors, and especially hard to find. I scored my first Stockpad when it came out and I was teaching privately. One of my students stole it and I never saw him or the pad again. I was able to replace it a couple of years ago, but I basically gave up on ever finding the rarer Slimpad.
(The Slimpad is harder to find because, being marching-specific, it was slower to catch on, fewer were sold before the change in materials and most ended up being played literally into the ground by their owners.)
So when this one showed up, I was very surprised. And I had to act fast before someone else bought it.
I look forward to laying my sticks on this beautiful pad when it gets here.
Happy drumming.
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