DIY Bass mallet

 I was gifted with a couple of handles from old Gauger bass drum mallets.

Neither had the heads attached anymore, which meant that I’d need to fashion one end of the handle into a new head.

I wound stick tape around the cracked half of a handle, then wrapped the end in masking tape to a desired thickness. After that, I wound yarn around the new head stock, and then covered the whole. Thing in boiled wool cut from my old slippers. In the end, I underestimated the amount of yarn, and when the mallets was done it looked like a homemade version of a Little Punk mallet.

I’ll see what I end up doing with the other handle later.

My daily pad -- what's yours?

 

As I’ve tried and tested various pads over the last fifty years of my drumming life, I keep coming back to some variety of the basics for my everyday use: a rubber-on-wood pad (usually tilted for traditional grip), or a tunable pad for a more drum like feel and response.

I’ve tried many of the purpose-driven designs of the last twenty years, and while they’re interesting they are also lacking the broad range of feel and use my old pads continue to provide. That’s why I’ve sold many of those newer pads off and don’t miss them.

 

Among the newer pads I keep and love, here are my daily go-to pads in each category (rubber block or tunable head), in order of preference.

 

Rubber block-on-wood:

— Evans red “Barney Beats”

— homemade gum rubber on scrap wood

— Ludwig slant pad circa 1960s

 

Tunable membrane:

— Rudimental Drummers 12” Chop Pad

— QuietTone pad (12” or 14”)

— Remo gray tunable (favorite size 10”)

 

I don’t use or recommend pads with the fake “snare” sound, as they tend to mask mistakes you’d otherwise hear on a plain pad, and they’re expensive for the money. My technique was developed in the years before Carbon or Kevlar heads were developed, and to this day I only play on Mylar heads. So the high-tension pads for today’s marching drummers are of little use to me. 

 

As my hands age and experience higher levels of arthritis stiffness and pain, my drumming tools have evolved to smaller, concert-sized sticks and plainer, lower to medium tension pads. Making these adjustments has helped me enjoy drumming longer.

 

What’s your go-to daily pad, and why? 

 

And, if you’re up for it, do you think we’ve peaked in the variety and quality of practice pads that the market will bear? Or are we still aiming higher?

 

Remember the first practice pads were simply designed to provide a quieter, more compact practice or warmup surface for drummers when a real drum wasn’t practical or possible. At some point the market for new ideas may get saturated. What do you think?

Respond in the comments below.

 

(Photo: my RD Chop Pad, with morning coffee and VF Jeff Queen sticks. I continue to consume coffee, but the Queens have been swapped out for my new regular, Cooperman #10’s.)