The last experiment with the Beetle Last Pad

So I think I’ve dialed in the Last Pad from beetle percussion.

You can find all the details about previous experiments in earlier posts here on this blog.

Tonight, I decided to try one more experiment.

I’m from the Mylar era of marching drums, so I wasn’t entirely thrilled with how hard and tight the hard side of the pad felt, even after I swapped in the 1/4” rubber insert under the white Emperor head.

I loved the softer side with the foam insert and red Emperor head and wanted to leave it as it was.

I swapped out the 1/4” rubber insert and swapped in the harder 3/16”. Then, on top of that I added my own insert cut from an old ensolite camping pad, and on top of that I added a Mylar insert from a Sabian QuietTone practice pad. Then I put back the coated Emperor head and rim, and tightened everything up.

Now, the original design of the inserts has rounded edges so that the head will maintain its shape when tensioning. The ensolite pad is soft enough to not compromise that idea, but firm enough to offer more punch than Beetle’s foam insert. I did this so I could get higher tension, but tempered with a touch more softness than hard recycled rubber. And to make sure there would be a noticeable difference between the two sides, I used the 3/16” rubber insert under the ensolite. 

(The 1/4” insert makes a decent stand-alone pad that travels well.)

I think you’ll see that my idea worked out well.

And this is where I’ll leave things for now.

Ensolite is a dense, lightweight foam that’s been used for decades as a sleeping pad for campers and backpackers.

I’ve used this material before, making a small pair of timpani practice pads. It worked well for that, so I figured I’d try it here and my hunch was correct.

If you want to try something similar, simply trim the insert to the exact head size (in this case, 14”). If the thickness is too much even when tightened, you can always swap in slightly longer tuning bolts. I didn’t need to here.

It’s still a stupidly heavy practice pad. But now it's more useful to me.