Let's be clear: It's just a practice pad.

I’ve decided to create some clarity for folks wanting a pad but wading through the muck to decide which one. Because as we know, todays mass-produced pads are really expensive.

HUN active sand pad: made by HUN in China, and OEM’d (rebranded) by Salyers and RCP. Three different brands, the SAME pad. (I have a HUN pad if anyone’s looking, works fine.)

Offworld Percussion “Dark Matter” pad: popular among the marching set, also OEM’d (rebranded) for Innovatice Percussion as their Corps pad.

Zildjian/Reflexx pad: made by Reflexx under Zildjian’s umbrella, copies of one or both sides of the pad are sold by Meinl and Vater.

Even tunable pads are not immune. After Remo’s design had been on the market for quite awhile, the original patent expired and other companies’ stylistic variations began showing up. Then, new technical variations on tunable pads appeared on the scene from RamPad, Drumslinger, and Rudimental Drummers. What sets these newer pads apart are the quality and durability, rather than something truly new and completely different. (Disclaimer: having owned all three of these brands, and still the happy owner of an RD pad, I can say that quality and durability are a big deal in a pad you use every day.)

And don’t forget outliers like Beetle, made one pad at a time in someone’s garage using sustainable materials. Not mass-produced, but a great pad anyway.

Why am I clarifying this?

Because the various and sundry companies

— note I did NOT say manufacturers —

want us all to believe that these various and sundry companies are all separate innovators of new pad ideas

— they’re mostly not —

and then charge us through the snout

— which, unless you make your pads one at a time yourself is probably not worth the price —

have a lot of gall.

I’m happy to pay more for a pad that is craft-made in the USA.

Not so much for something mass-produced in great quantities.

In my humble opinion,

There is no point in spending crazy money on a pad for its brand name **unless you know who made it, and where, and how.**

How do I know this? Because it’s the same thing that’s been going on since practice pads were first mass produced in large quantities in the 1940s. Look at the catalogs of Slingerland, Ludwig, Leedy and Gretsch, and look closely at their wooden slanted models. They’re largely the same, with stylistic and label differences. Because there are only so many ways to innovate a slanted pad!

By the 1970s, fewer companies are offering such wide variety in slant pads, and they all look like they could’ve been made by the same two or three manufacturers.

I own slanted pads from multiple makers, including the above mentioned and others like Camco and even George Way. (Rogers didn’t make their own “Red Dot” slanted pads, they got theirs OEM’d from a company called J & B.) They’re all so similar that friends who don’t know about pads ask why I bother collecting, and of course, I tell them it’s as much about the history of each pad’s owner as the pad itself.

But I don’t kid myself, and neither should anyone else.

In the end, it’s a practice pad. A tool to help improve your discipline and your playing. That’s all. Try not to get too excited, okay? Just buy a pad that you know you will enjoy chopping on every day and call it good.

Love, Aunt Beth

(Below: my homemade travel pad, made from scrap lumber and some gum rubber for about five bucks. It works fine, is lightweight and fits in my carryon, making it a true travel pad.)