A closer look at some "Workout" pads

This winter, while I've been dealing with a few health issues that forced me to stay home a lot more, I've had some time to explore several different "workout" pads.

A definition: I consider a "workout" pad to be a pad with lower resistance, a pad that makes you slow down and analyze your strokes and then makes you build speed gradually while your wrists and hands work a little harder than on a real drum.
Most marching-specific pads are high-resistance, meaning they have a fast rebound and often a harder surface akin to a marching snare drum.
Workout pads are kind of the opposite of that. The degree of lower resistance depends on the make, model and purpose. Here's a few that I've tried, some of which I still own:

Reflexx: Now distributed in a partnership with Zildjian, this pad entered the market several years ago and was immediately a revelation. Its rubbery "Flexx" surface offers enough rebound to give some bounce, but just enough that your hands still get a great workout. The underside features a stiff, fine sponge that offers almost no rebound, but is more satisfying to work out on than, say a pillow. I have this pad and like it a LOT. 



Note: several months after the Reflexx-Zildjian partnership was released, Meinl and Vater announced they'd be adding a single-sided version of this pad to their catalogs. Both of these pads are due out sometime next month, and feature only the bouncier "Flexx" surface. The underside will have a non-skid panel and a threaded insert for mounting on a cymbal stand.
As far as I know, these developments were all done with the blessing of (and presumably, compensation to) the fellow who founded Reflexx. It will be interesting to see if the "Flexx" surface has undergone any tweaking at all in these new single-sided versions.

Prologix: There are four degrees of resistance in the Prologix line. The green pads offer higher resistance and won't be discussed here.

-- Red Storm: a medium-resistance pad that's designed to simulate the tension of a drumkit tom head. It has as much or just a tiny bit more rebound than the Reflexx "Flexx" side, but I found it to have a strangely dead feel that I didn't care for.
-- Blue Lightning: A lower-resistance pad that is softer than the Red Storm, but still offers some rebound. I actually like this pad, and find it to have just slightly less rebound than the Reflexx's "Flexx" side.
-- Blackout: Designed to offer similar qualities to the Reflexx, but with far less rebound. I didn't care for this pad, but some drummers love it.

Drumeo's Quiet Pad, first edition: When Drumeo, the online platform for private lessons from dozens of pro drummers, entered the fray with its own practice pad, the first version was labeled "Quiet Pad". It came with a blue silicon rubber surface with plenty of rebound like a snare drum, and the underside was a softer, squishy black foam that was meant to be a workout surface.

This version of the pad, while not a true workout pad, has a more useful foam side in that there's actually a fair amount of rebound.
Later versions of this pad were re-labeled "Drumeo Practice Pad" and utilize a stiffer black foam surface with almost no rebound.  I don't care for this newer version as much, but it's all that's available now. (If you're lucky, you may find an earlier "Quiet" Pad version for sale used somewhere, as I did.)

COMING SOON: I will be testing and reporting back very soon on a new pad from Revolution Drum, based in Bend, Oregon. I was able to order a "blemished," B-Stock version of their Chopping Block pad at a discount, and it should arrive sometime in the next week.

Keep practicing, and happy chopping.

I can still play, so it's all good.

Dear readers: You may have noticed things going a little quiet here of late, so here's a little update, in fits and starts:

1. I was diagnosed, after a few months of difficulty, with Long Covid. I'll spare you the details, except to say that right now I am unable to work. I have a referral coming to get me into Portland's only Long Covid Clinic, and hope I will get some relief there. PSA: If you had Covid and your symptoms are lingering or reappearing, talk to your doctor asap.

2. I can still play drums, as long as I sit in one place. So every day I spend some good, productive and healing time chopping on a practice pad. Right now, it's more meditative than goal-oriented, and that's okay. I will share some of my Pad Music on Facebook from time to time. Here's my most recent.

3. I am preparing for another Industry Interview, this one with Brian Keithly of Ingrained Instruments, a custom and semi-custom stick maker creating some really beautiful drumsticks from ordinary and exotic hardwoods. He's been expanding his workshop and also creating a new web site, which is still in process. But you can check out his Facebook page and get a sense of why I wanted to interview him. Hopefully gonna happen in the next 2-3 weeks or so.

4. Because of the whole Long Covid thing, a great many of my warmer-weather goals have been put on hold for the time being, including rejoining the Unpresidented Brass Band. Rehearsals would be too much for me right now, and they understand that. Still, I have a little marching snare drum all set to go (that sweet little 13 x 11 tom that Kaleb at WestCraft Drums converted for me), and chopping daily on my pad has definitely brought some improvement.
Kaleb has also created a floor tom (from another 13 x 9 rack tom) to complete my drum kit. I'll show that off in a future post when I can set it up here in my studio.

5. I continue to research and study old, vintage practice pads. Here's one I recently acquired:

This pad which dates from probably the late 40s or early 50s is branded "Down-Beat". I don't think there's any connection to Ludwig's "Downbeat" drum kits, but I'm investigating that anyway. It's gorgeous and the rubber is still in good shape.

 

This may be a hard one to research but stay tuned. I think it's gorgeous and I'm glad to have it.

6. In order to make space for the things that matter in my studio, I have slowly been letting go of most of my more modern, marching-specific pads. They don't hold my interest as much and they take up a fair amount of shelf space. If you have a modern pad you're looking for, I may have it here, so feel free to ask.

Thanks for reading.
Happy chopping.

Interview with Bradley Lomax, Beetle Percussion

Bradley Lomax got his start in drumming as a child. Participating in school music programs and drum corps, majoring in music in college and growing a massive set of drumming chops, like many who read this blog. Along the way, he became aware of the impact that our lives have on the environment, and how the environment has responded to our impact; and at that point he became a champion of sustainability in all things. Because of that commitment he makes each Beetle Percussion product himself, using as many recycled or repurposed components as he possibly can, and his practice pads are some of the most beautiful in the world.

This makes him something of a rarity in the drum industry, and someone I’ve been dying to chat with for almost a year.

Here’s our interview.

BH: How did you go from playing to making drum equipment?

BL: I got really serious about drumming in high school, and after high school I marched a few seasons of drum corps (first with the Sky Ruders and then with Pioneer). My sophomore year in high school, I got a job working for Bill Cardwell at C&C Drum Shop, where I taught private lessons and in my spare time I watched and learned about the craft of drum making.

I got so into making stuff — learning at C&C and also taking jobs in construction — that eventually I left college and went into teaching lessons and doing construction pretty much full-time.

BH: What was your inspiration for starting Beetle Percussion?

BL: When I was growing up, my parents would take me on vacations in Colorado, and I loved it. Everything was so green and beautiful and I loved going back again and again. After I left school, my parents went back to our favorite vacation place and returned to tell me that beetles were destroying the trees there, eating them to death.

Global warming was forcing the Beetles to turn to these trees for a primary food source in increasingly huge numbers, and whole forests were being destroyed. The whole area was transitioning into some kind of arid desert because the trees were dying. I was horrified.

Since I work with wood, I decided to create something that would use the wood from these trees  and I hit upon the idea of practice pads. I called the US Forest Service to ask about getting some of that wood, because they had to clear it out of there before it became fuel for a forest fire; and they referred me to a bunch of mills who were taking the reclaimed timber and turning it into furniture and stuff.

I established a relationship with one of those mills, who brings me some of the reclaimed lumber; they deliver it on pallets right at my workshop.

At first, I tried making pads out of natural rounds, with the bark and everything, because I thought they’d look cool. But working with wood that way is really, really difficult and trying to force it into shape just wasn’t working. So ultimately, I had to set up a serious wood shop with all sorts of planing saws and things, learning how to treat the rough wood like potential furniture. After that, my vision for the pads became easier to clarify. Basically, I make practice pads like furniture, and that’s why they look so finished and smooth. There really isn’t any other way to make them turn out so good.

We source recycled car tire rubber from a company that supplies  it to flooring manufacturers. Because it used to be car tires, we sometimes have to pull out bits of metal — old nails, sidewall material, and stuff — so that we can work with just the rubber and mold it into a playing surface.

BH: What’s your target market? I assume it’s more connected to the marching arts, because your pads are fairly hard. I don’t currently own a Beetle pad but I’ve tried a few and that’s my takeaway.

BL: Yes, the overwhelming majority of people who buy our pads are marching band and corps members who want a pad that feels more like a marching drum head. I’d say almost 90 per cent of our customers fall into this category.

What’s great is that college instructor are excited by the “green” aspect of our pads, and they hype that to the kids and get them thinking about it, and suddenly it’s cool to play a “green” pad.

As to why the pads feel harder, a lot of that is the wood that’s used. Ash is a very dense, hard wood and that makes it great for building a marching pad around; pine, on the other hand, is a softer wood and will give you a response that’s a little closer to a concert or all-around pad.

BH: What about different thicknesses of rubber? Would that affect the response?

BL: It would, but only to a point. Thicker than a quarter-inch and it gets kind of dead-feeling. That’s why we stick with 3/16” and quarter-inch thicknesses on our pads — they just give the best response and feel.
And honestly, we have to respond to what our customers tell us they want. Since they’re mostly marching drummers, we have to give them a pad that responds the way a Kevlar-headed drum would.

BH: Fair enough.
In addition to your commitment to using reclaimed timber and recycled rubber, how else do you promote sustainability at Beetle?

BL: For every item sold, a tree seedling is planted to replace the tree that was destroyed by the beetles. We partner with forest management agencies in Colorado to accomplish this. Removing harmful material and planting new trees helps to stabilize the watershed, restores wildlife habitat and promotes regrowth.

BH: Now, for the hard questions: You make your pads as sustainability as possible. But the carbon footprint involved in that process, from gathering raw materials to shipping out finished pads, cannot be denied. How do you weigh this reality against your efforts? And how wide-angle can you go in your vision before it drives you crazy?

BL: (laughs) Yeah, it’s true. I plant trees, I use reclaimed and recycled materials, and I know it only goes so far. The truth is that none of us can control everything. We can only control what each of us can control, right where we are. It’s a double-edged sword and I do what I can. When my HOA lets me put solar panels on my roof, when everything can be delivered without relying on fossil fuels, that will be wonderful. In the meantime, just getting the kids to be more aware of the need for a more sustainable way of life is a win. We plant seeds and they carry them forward.

I can only do the best that I can do. And hope that enough people will notice and start to pay attention to the places in their own lives that can be made and done more sustainably.

BH: Well, you get no argument from me. I LOVE that there’s a company promoting sustainability and I look forward to more people taking notice and paying attention.