A deeper dive into 2B: Vintage Promark oak sticks, 1970s-90s

The 2B sticks that Promark made from oak in the 1970s and 80s are near and dear to my heart. They’re balanced so well and feel so good in the hands!

Here’s a not-so-scientific chronology.

Top to bottom, first photo:

— Mid to late 1970s

— mid 1980s

— late 1980s to early 90s

There’s not a ton of difference between the first two pairs. The tip size and shape are nearly the same, and the neck just below the pedestaled tip is 7mm in diameter. The butt end is shaped differently between the gold band pair and the mid-80s pair.

By the time we get to the third pair, the sticks are a full 2mm longer and the neck just below the pedestal measures 3mm, with a tip that is larger as well.

The diameter of the straight part of the stick (before the taper) is 14mm on all three pairs.

I don’t know why the tips and the neck got larger in the late 80s. Either it was a deliberate change in that model’s design, or perhaps it was a way to simplify stick production by bringing multiple models (2B, Rock) to the same neck size. Possibly it could have been a response to the number of players who suggested a stouter diameter to reduce breakage? I have no way of knowing.

(I do know that by the early 2000s, the shape of the 2B sticks changed again. The pedestal disappeared, the taper became almost klunky and thicker and the tip got longer and more ovalized. I’m not a fan.)

I like to search for these older Promark sticks online and at yard and rummage sales, because in my opinion they're just so much nicer than the bland, straight sticks that Promark has been churning out since they were bought by D'Addario (which also owns Evans). 

I also have older Promark oak sticks in 1S, 2S and 3S, and while they're heavier, they are so nicely balanced that chopping with them is a delight.

Sadly, as with all vintage drums and accessories, the farther away we get from the date of production, the harder it is to find vintage items in playable condition that haven't been bought up by bigger and wealthier collectors. Time marches on.

DIY Drummer: Make it yourself. PLEASE.

These two pads just went up for sale online. The same seller is offering them on eBay for an opening bid of $65 each, and a Buy-It-Now price of $85. Shipping is extra.

A. RealFeel knockoff, made with gum rubber and solid ash base.

It's a nice enough pad, likely homemade (by the seller or someone else).
The ash base will give it a different sound than the MDF base found on the original HQ pads and their Evans successors.

The gum rubber is glued a little sloppily to the base. You can see excess glue at the edges. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't pay this much for a pad that looks slapped together, especially when I can do a neater job of it myself.

You can easily make the same pad at home for a fraction of the seller's asking price.

Gum rubber is available from Zoro, Grainger and other online industrial suppliers. A 12" x 12" square of gum rubber, 1/4" thick will set you back $18-20. The base can be cut from scrap lumber, or made with a repurposed wood cutting board, either of which might be found for anywhere from Free to around five bucks at a thrift store. A small bottle of glue or epoxy can be found at Harbor Freight for less than ten bucks. Your total shouldn't be more than around thirty bucks, depending on where you course your components.

B. Duplex knockoff, made with gum rubber and solid ash slabs.

This will end up costing even less, owing to a smaller piece of gum rubber and the fact that you can easily source scrap lumber pieces to make your own pad. Wood screws hold it all together. If you size it right, the gum rubber can be glued on top of the screw heads to hide them for a cleaner appearance.

I scored a Duplex pad exactly like this at a thrift store for five bucks. But if you want to make one, it shouldn't cost more than about $15-20, tops. Again, the seller wants a Buy-It-Now price of $85 plus shipping.

Practice pads don't have to get out of hand. Make your own, saving money and enjoying chopping on something you made yourself.

Happy drumming.

My ongoing love affair with Vintage 2B sticks

I’ve loved 2B sticks for a long time.

Like most drummers, I started out with them. They provided more of a heft than 5A, the other standard size for young drummers, but were still silencer enough to serve as a good concert stick. In the 1940s and 50s, they also served as an alternative marching stick for the youngest drummers in school and community bands.

2B models from this era up through the early 1980s offered a medium to long taper and kept more weight at the butt end, which I still prefer. I’ve found that newer 2B sticks have tended towards a much shorter, less gradual taper and more weight towards the front end of the stick, which completely changes the balance and feel.

So over time, I’ve gathered older 2B sticks. I’ve used them in community bands and for pad chopping.

The nicest pairs live in this old Promark stick bag, from the late 1970s.

This isn’t the entire collection, which also includes some older Promark oak sticks from the late 1970s and early 80s that I use and enjoy often.

L-R: Jeff Rich vintage style, 2023; Fibes, 1970’s; Slingerland Haskell Harr, 1960s; Slingerland 2B standard, 1960s; Ludwig, 1970s; Ralston (possible Japanese stencil brand), 1960s; WFL, 1940s; Mercury US (stencil brand?), 1950s.

All but the Jeff Rich are made from hickory. I believe the Rich sticks were turned from bubinga or similar, heavier wood.

The tips here tend towards more of an elongated acorn shape, which would have been good for Rudimental and concert work, and would have forced the player to be consistent with stick angles when playing rolls.

It’s good to remember that in the 1950s and earlier, most Rudimental drumming happened on drums with wooden hoops, meaning that a rim shot wouldn’t have broken the stick as easily. Sticks from this era lasted longer as a result. If they were later used on metal hoops, their age and previous use may have meant they’d break more easily, making sticks from before the early 50s harder to find intact now.

Because sticks from this era were not matched for weight or pitch at the factory, drummers had to sort through a case of the same size and company to find pairs that would match. One of my fondest memories is of visiting Captain Whizeagles music store in downtown Portland when I was a middle schooler in the mid 1970s, and Fred and Toody Cole (the owners, and also founders of the seminal band Dead Moon) were happy to let me gently tap and roll sticks on their glass counter to sort out and rubber-band pairs, for myself and for the shop. If I sorted the whole lot, they’d give me a free pair, and then they’d mark up the rest because the matching had been done for the customer. Smart! 

I continue my search for older sets of 2B sticks. If you have any to rehome, reach out and let’s talk.

Happy drumming.

DIY drummer: refurbishing a vintage QuietTone pad

I had an opportunity to purchase an old QuietTone practice pad from the 1960s, back when Henry Adler still owned the company and was selling them out of New Jersey. Various drummers had tried to warn me off pads of this era, because of the worry that the internal base was made with asbestos. I researched this thoroughly, even talking with a former coworker of my mother’s from Georgia-Pacific. Now in his eighties and an amateur drummer himself, he showed me his two old Adler QuietTone pads, one of which he was refurbishing for his grandson. “There’s absolutely no asbestos in there,” he told me. “The internal base was made with compressed paper/cardboard fiber. By the 1960s, asbestos was a popular building material, but it splintered easily. No one would want a practice pad that gave off hundreds of tiny splinters with every stroke.”

My fears calmed, I made on offer on the vintage QuietTone pad and it was accepted. It arrived this week, and I set about refurbishing it into playable condition.

The pad was well-used, worn and showing its age. I took it apart and examined each component.

The original fiberboard base was intact, though badly warped from years of compression as the tension was increased over time. I decided to try and save it. Using some wood hardener, I brushed both sides of the base, allowing the liquid to soak in. I waited ten minutes for the surface to become tacky to the touch, sandwiched it between two pieces of chloroplast (the plastic material used for campaign signs), weighted it down and let it dry. I knew that the sign might stick to the treated base, but not too badly.

Then I tackled the metal bands with a Kool-Stop rust eraser, left over from my bike shop days and great for removing obvious rust. I followed that up with a small piece of Nevr-Dull and the metal bands looked much better after that. I was glad that the original white rubber “feet” were still intact; a tiny spot of super glue under each would ensure they didn’t fall off.

When the wood hardener had dried several hours later, I removed the weights, carefully lifted the base, and saw that it was much flatter than it had been. There were grooves worn into the base by the metal bands, so I made a mental note to reinstall the base at an angle to avoid damaging the grooved parts further. The last thing I did was to fill in a few small gouges in the fiber board with some wood putty, which I let dry and then sanded flush.

Finally, I traced and cut a couple of cardboard circles, a couple circles from very thin yoga mat material, and a circle from an old Mylar drum head. The original head was beyond hope, so I replaced it with a newer used head I had on hand. (NOTE: the QuietTone pad is designed for concert and jazz drum practice, and works best with smaller sticks and a Remo Ambassador head. Anything heavier or thicker will deaden the response and tone, providing a less satisfying experience.)

Then, I reassembled the pad upside-down: 

— drumhead laid into the hoop

— Mylar layer

— two yoga mat circles

— the base, set at an angle in relation to the tension rod holes

— two layers of cardboard 

— the metal bands

It came together beautifully. Eventually, I’ll replace the hardware so all the tension bolts and nuts match, but for now the old, mismatched hardware works well enough. The result is a really nice practice pad that will enjoy many more years of use.

If you want to learn more about using and caring for QuietTone practice pads, Rick Dior has made a very informative video covering all of that, plus some history about the development of the pad. It’s worth your time.

More DIY pad love: From the Philippines

This showed up on the Facebook Drum Pad group today.

Ivan, a young man in the Philippines who marches in drum line (drum corps is huge in the Philippines!) saw the Rudimental Control pads online, wanted one but could not afford it. So he made his own version:

"I just wanted to show my drumpad that I’ve made, rudimental control pads inspired me to make this one, i have used a phenolic board and a yoga matt underneath the drumhead and i have also put snare wires beneath the head, and here’s a soundcheck of me playing the snare break from elite percussion from the Philippines."

Getting any US-made marching percussion into the Philippines is extremely difficult and expensive because of the exchange rate and the high cost of overseas shipping. 

Phenolic board is a lanimated material using wood fiber and resins, similar to MDF but constructed more like plywod, that can be cut, sanded and painted. It's heavy and dense, and can be difficult to hand-saw, especially into a round shape. Ivan did a nice job on this, and even got a nod of approval from Nissan at Rudimental Control.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

UPDATE from Ivan: “I have repainted the base wood and cleaned the rims and the tension rods.”

If he had to clean up the hardware, then he got it used from another drum.

If you look closely, you can see that the round was hand-sawn. That’s super hard to do.

Very nicely done all around.

Kudos to this young man for working out his own solution. Happy chopping!

My favorite vintage sticks

Not boutique, but collectible.

I have always had a thing for vintage marching sticks from the 1920s through 1960s. (I went to high school in the 1970s, so calling the 1970s vintage is, well, a work in progress.)

Here’s the 3S sticks that I adore.

Top to bottom:

Slingerland maple, late 1970s

Slingerland, 1950s

Leedy 1950s (after Slingerland bought Leedy from Conn)

Ludwig, nylon tips, late 1970s

Ludwig wood tips, 1970s

Ludwig Burns Moore model, 1950s (after buying their name back from Conn)

Leedy & Ludwig, 1950s (when Conn merged the two companies, 2 prs)

WFL Burns Moore Model (Ludwig family owned company, started after Conn sued for the rights to use the family name)

Leedy, 1930s

These sticks came from a time when sticks were not pitch or weight-matched. Difference between sticks could be as much as 10 to 15 grams! If you were lucky, you could empty the entire slot of one model, roll on the counter for straightness and tap in the glass for pitch. Some shops wouldn’t let you do that and you were stuck with what they handed you. (By the time I was in high school, most shops would let you test and match sticks.)

These sticks tend to have more weight in the back half of the sticks, and a longer taper than found in modern marching sticks. Before the mid-1950s, most marching drums still used wooden hoops, which meant sticks lasted longer through rim shots and rim clicks. They also used calf heads, which were subject to the vagaries of temperature and humidity and forced drummers to “pull” their strokes up of the head, a very different technique than is called for on Kevlar heads.

Playing with these older stick designs feels so much better in my hands than the modern, forward-heavy sticks used today. While I continue to pare down some of my newer sticks, I'll hang onto these and enjoy them. You can often find these older sticks on eBay and other online sale platforms, but also check thrift shops and rummage sales.
Happy chopping.

The Carmen Pad has arrived. It’s beautiful.

The Carmen Pad arrived this week. After oohing and ahhing over it with my Sweetie, I chopped on it for a good half hour and thoroughly enjoyed the response.

However, I decided that the pad was a little light in weight and would benefit from some help.

So I carefully coated the wood base and bamboo rim with wood hardener and set it in the sun to dry. After that, I added a ring of neoprene mute material on bottom to give it a nonskid surface and a few more ounces of weight. The last thing I may do is to seal the gap between the rim and base with a thin line of wood filler, let dry and sand smooth. I’ve shared all of my plans with Anthony and told him that as he makes more pads, he’ll figure out how he wants them to appear and feel even more finished. He was encouraged and thanked me for my suggestions.

Anthony is making more pads and each batch is nicer than the last. 

If you want one, reach out to him at the Facebook Drum Pad History Group.

Vintage corner: Yamaha snare pad (by Xymox), mid 2000s

So this has maybe a couple more years to go before it's "officially" vintage, but it is over twenty years old and at this point all the kids would call it vintage so I'm going there.
(Just wait until all the kids get vintage!)

Scored this on Facebook marketplace. Lady was trying to sell it but no one was biting. When the price dropped to five bucks I asked if she's ship at my expense, and she said yes. It arrived this morning and it's a little rough, but absolutely delightful.

This little guy was made in the early to mid 2000s by Xymox for Yamaha. The rubber from this time period is especially nice and if the pad hasn't been abused it's often still in fine, playable shape. (I don't bother with modern corps pads with cracked rubber, as I like my modern-era pads to be playable.)

Base measures 8 x 8" and the snare beads are packed just loosely enough to make a nice, satisfying sound that's not too loud. I could take this on the bus and bother no one.

The rubber is in excellent shape, no cracking or hardening anywhere, and the response is lovely under a pair of lighter weight marching sticks or even 2B sticks.

A keeper for sure.

Facebook Marketplace sometimes yields up practice pad treasures. You have to search often (I look almost every day), and skip around the country to find new listings. (Simply change the location and expand to maximum range.) If you live far from the seller, it's worth it to ask if they're open to shipping at buyer expense. Often, they say no, but if you watch an item and keep coming back to see if it's still available, then at some point, some sellers may be open to shipping. 

I got this pad from a woman who'd tried without success to find a local buyer for three months. We agreed on a total cost and the transaction went smoothly. Mind your manners and be patient.

If the seller isn't into shipping, either get a friend who lives nearby to buy it for you, or let it go.
And don't fret. There are plenty of used practice pads out there. 

Vintage Corner: 2008 Blue Devils commemorative pad by Promark (Xymox)

Between 2008 and 2011, the Concord Blue Devils drum and bugle corps was on a roll, winning DCI worlds in multiple years and attracting the best musicians from across the country to come audition and marching with them. (Side note: Poaching talent, especially from smaller corps, was nothing new; in the late 1970s the Blue Devils poached regularly from the Spartans in Vancouver, WA -- the drum corps I marched in for a season -- so often and so brazenly that people started calling our little Class A corps a feeder corps for the Blue Devils.)

During this period of time, Promark and System Blue teamed up to provide the Blue Devils with the latest in drums, sticks and accessories. Promark offered marching members of the Blue Devils -- and at least one indoor percussion group I'm aware of -- commemorative drum pads with a custom laminate showing off the group's drummers. To my knowledge, the pads were primarily made for the marching members, and not sold widely to the general public. Promark didn't make these pads -- Xymox did, and simply licensed the snare bead design and the laminate process to Promark.

The pads, made between 2008 and 2011, are rare now. So when I came across one at a thrift store, I snapped it up.

This pad was played hard and often, and there are small dents in the MDF base and a couple of small gouges in the laminate. The pad itself is still quite whole enough to be played, and while laminates aren't generally my thing, it's a nice piece of practice pad history to add to my stable.

I like the feel of the laminated rubber under a pair of marching-weight sticks. Rolls are especially nice and responsive. 
However, the snare beads are packed in pretty tightly so there's not a lot of room for them to move around. This pads dates from a time before hybrid and "suede" heads, when high-tension drums were still cranked insanely high and the drums lacked any depth. So the tight response in the sound of the pad may be expected. 
(In the mid-2000's, shortly before laminated pads became a thing, Xymox was still making and selling pads without a laminate, only thick black rubber. Most of those pads had a snare bead assembly that wasn't packed quite so tightly, and these pads offer a sound that's what we could call a little more "wet." The earliest laminated padsshowed up only a couple of years later, and came with a tighter, "drier" sound.

I'm pleased to have found this pad and it's really interesting to chop on. But if I'm being totally honest, laminates still aren't really my thing.
So after living with this pad for a little while, I've rehomed it with a friend who marched a lot closer to this era abd who loves chopping on laminates. 

Custom pad, small batch, made in America

I sort of can't believe I did this but look what's coming my way. 

Still drying. 12" diameter, solid wood base and rim. I've asked Anthony to hold off on wrapping until next Friday so it will be thoroughly dry and some of the off-gas has dissipated before he wraps it up. 

I'm going to call it my Carmen Pad.

Small batch, made one at a time in America. Glad to support a creative new pad maker.

I expect I'll coat the rim in some wood hardener to strengthen it, and add some linseed oil to the base to protect the wood and bring out the different hues a little more.

If you want to see more of his designs, look him up on the Drum Practice Pad History Group on Facebook under Anthony Aguilar. 

 

UPDATE, 7-12-26 -- Anthony sent me these. Pad is dry now but I've asked him to wait until next weekend to wrap for shipping, just to make sure it's as dry as it can be.
I promise a full review when it's ready to chop.

UPDATE, 7-13-26: Anthony just sent me this video. The pad is dry but he's just waiting for the off-gas to clear out a little more before he ships it. He gave me a little demo of how it sounds with open space underneath and with closed space. I suspect I'll be using it on a stand or on my pad table. But this gives me a great idea of just how nice the thing is going to play.

 

Yes, this is going to be one fun pad. Can't wait! Of course, I'll do a full review and demo and post it here.

When is a piece of vinyl not a piece of vinyl?

Awhile back, I offered a post about specialty brush pads. My discussion was limited, partly because I didn’t own many myself and partly because there was a lot of redundancy of design and construction among the pads available.

After I shared a link to the post on the socials, Anthony Stanislavski reached out to let me know about his brush pad, being made by Prologix. It was essentially a piece of thick vinyl with a coating and graphics showing the path each hand should take while playing brush beats, with a thin nonskid surface affixed to the bottom. At the time, it sold for over $50, which I thought was a little ridiculous at the time. I carried on and forgot about it.

Now, Stanislavski has gone independent of Prologix and is selling the same design at his own web site. It’s the very same item sans the Prologix branding, and it sells for $70.

I can’t know what prompts artists to step out from behind their endorsing brand and go it alone — or elsewhere — though this isn’t the first time someone has done so. It won’t be the last, either. Retail is a fickle mistress and market forces currently require companies to scale up in order to remain profitable. If the item doesn’t keep up with the scale, it gets dropped. If a company can’t scale up, it folds (as was the case with One Beat Better, which made one of the smartest brush pad designs ever and sadly couldn’t compete with the mega-companies) or is bought out by a larger company (as Prologix did with the original makers of the Chopping Block practice pad — they leveraged their size and scale to merge with the smaller business and then came up with a redesigned version that frankly isn’t as nice).

Here’s the original “Choppin’ Block” pad.

If you click on the link it will still take you to Synced Up’s web page, but you’ll find that the original design is gone, replaced with the new version being sold in “partnership” with Prologix, which is making the pad.

In fact, within weeks of the change, nearly all references to the original pad were gone from the Internet, no doubt erased by Prologix’s request in order to concentrate attention and clicks on the new version.

The speed of the change resonated with me in a negative way, though I can’t exactly articulate why.

But I digress.

The challenge with this vinyl sheet brush pad is the retail price. It could easily be replicated at home by anyone with access to an old industrial binder cover (made of flexible vinyl and large enough to cut a 13” circle out of), some neoprene and some superglue. Add your own graphics with a ruler and permanent paint pen, clearcoat as needed, let dry and voila! You’ve got the same thing for less than ten bucks.

However, the other reality is that there are fewer and fewer Americans who know how to work with their hands in even the most elemental ways. 

Before computers became ubiquitous, generations of ordinary people knew how to do simple repairs around the house, like taping and repainting a room, hanging Sheetrock, repairing a broken table leg with glue and a wooden dowel, and even making their own practice pads. I have a number of user-made pads in my collection, some dating from as late is the 1960s and the oldest dating from the 1930s. The earliest known commercially sold pad dates from the early 1910s and can be found in the 1912 Ludwig & Ludwig catalog. It consists of a circle of solid maple covered with a calfskin head and stuffed with wool until firm. It’s meant to provide the same feel as a drum (which in those days also used calf heads and lower tension than we know today) with far less volume.

 

 

 

 

 

It could easily be made at home today. And if I can get my hands on a broken calf head I might give it a try. But almost no one else these days is interested in making their own stuff -- either because they can't imagine how, or because they don't want to get their hands dirty.

And that’s why there will be ready buyers for these new brush pads, just as there are ready buyers for any of the cheap, mass-produced practice pads on the market. The combination of consumer trends, educational and workplace demands and the entire generational shift of the last thirty years has resulted in a landscape where people are willing to pay far too much money for mass-produced stuff that involves little or no real craft.

 There are, of course, practice pads on the market that are made one at a time by people who understand the value of craft and how that translates to quality and durability. I've mentioned many of those makers elsewhere in my blog so I don't need to re-list them here.
But if you want those craft makers to continue doing what they do, support them by buying their products and encouraging your friends and students to do the same.  That's the only way those craftspeople can stay in business and not be entirely subsumed by mega-corporations that put quantity and profit above quality.

And if you want to make your own brush pad, there are numerous materials out there that are free for the taking which you can experiment with. Those gigantic industrial binders can be found at many businesses that are going fully electronic, and they'll happily give you one or two before tossing the rest. Neoprene wetsuits make great nonskid material and can be found cheap whenever someone needs to replace theirs due to sizing or age. Yoga ats are also a fine nonskid material and can sometimes be found for free at the curb. Hardware stores sell industrial-strength scissors that will allow you to cut through these materials -- buy two or three sets and keep them handy for all your craft projects. (And remember to work outside when using super-glue or any other industrial adhesive so the off-gases have time to dissipate into the atmosphere!)

The mega-companies will keep making their cheap stuff and using every tool they have to steer drummers -- especially kids -- towards their products. The best thing any of us can do is to show up at the park or band practice with something more sustainably made and chop on it.

Happy drumming!

Pad storage for obsessives

So I admit to having a little obsession with practice pads. 🤣

I’ve always loved chopping on practice pads, since I started playing drums in 1973. Apartment life necessitated most of that; but even after moving into a real house I still loved practicing on pads because they were cheaper and more portable than drums.

I decided to get serious about researching and collecting some years ago, and figured it would be easier to store pads than drums. Now that I’m retired, the question of what to do with all the pads has crept into my conversations regularly.

Every time I think about downsizing a pad, the universe drops three more into my lap. Some get donated to schools (always a good idea!), and the rest are sold or kept.

I’m blessed with a studio space that came with some built-in shelves, but I’ve also had to use all of the available space wisely because there are limits. 

Office file racks, fine china display hangers and kitchen lid and pan racks have all made it easier to store my pads safely and neatly. Here are my solutions, sourced mostly at yard sales and thrift shops. Perhaps they will inspire you to come up with your own. 

Happy chopping!

It was loud. It was sweet.

Walking over to my local park yesterday with my drum took a few more spoons out of me than I thought it would. Long Covid is the gift that keeps on giving, I guess.

Still, I managed to go out before the day warmed up too much, and after catching my breath I managed to crank out a few things, including my absolute favorite, “Crazy Army.”

Then I went home and crashed. All good.

Happy Independence Day

Being a Rudimental drummer in Portland, Oregon is lonely. It’s not exactly a hotbed of rudimental drumming, nor of the marching arts, nor, to be brutally honest, of displays of patriotism in general.

But in honor of our nation’s 250th birthday, I’m going to take my marching snare to my local park Saturday evening and chop some Three Camps, Crazy Army and maybe a couple of Wilcoxon or NARD solos. 

I don’t expect anyone to join me, and I’ve decided to be okay with that. As long as I can still chop, I’ll keep on chopping until my arms fall off.

#diddleseveryday

#chopdaily

#rudimentaldrumming

The Emperor Has No Clothes: Botello pad, v. 2

Last fall, Carlos Botello discontinued his partnership with Beetle Percussion and asked them to stop making his signature pad.

Just a month before the PASIC convention, Botello jumped ship to Salyers Percussion. The whole business was covered by me in a previous blog post and all over the Internet by tons of other drummers.

I hadn’t named the artist before, but by now it seems pointless not to.

Botello posts numerous videos of his demonstrations of various drum licks and exercises from his Left Hand Path drum books on YouTube and Facebook. Many of those older videos are still up, which get reposted regularly to steer people to his instruction books, and feature the old version of his signature pad.

New videos are featuring the Salyers version of his signature pad, which is mass-produced in China, and at first they seemed ordinary, though the sound of the new pad was noticeably different from that of the older Beetle version. The new pad sounded harsh and tight, without the depth of tone from the previous Beetle edition. Botello insisted this new version was a “truth” pad, one where you couldn’t hide from your mistakes. It was a rather sad attempt to sell a lesser product. He gamely carried on with it. Meanwhile the price of a Beetle version of the pad, no longer in production, jumped as scarcity grew. Beetle Botello pads now fetch as much as $150 in the used market, and mint versions can go as high as $200.

Lately, however, some new videos have popped up, and they show an interesting development.

The rubber “rim” that encircles half of the Salyers pad has had issues from the beginning. It didn’t stay put in the channel carved into the pad’s base, it disintegrated with heavy rimshots, and buyers complained loudly. After much cry and hue, Salyers and Botello announced that a new, improved version of this signature pad was “in development.” That was months ago, and nothing has appeared so far.

Botello’s newest videos show the Salyers version of the pad being played with the rubber “rim” facing away from the drummer, and the pad is now covered completely with an add-on laminate.

From a marketing standpoint, this is not a good look. It betrays the original premise of the design, and betrays consumers by admitting that the new design is a failure, not living up to what was promised.

Predictably, there has been deafening silence from Salyers (who, as I’ve said before, do not manufacture any of their own products), and no comment from Botello, who keeps posting videos with his new and unimproved signature pad and pushing his instruction books.

I own a Beetle version of the Botello signature pad. While laminates aren’t generally my thing — I’m an old fart who marched with Mylar — I like it as a reminder that laminates don’t have to suck. It’s an innovative pad with a nice feel and depth of tone, and I enjoy chopping on it periodically.

Beetle has largely recovered from this sudden and unfortunate episode, and continues to innovate new pad designs, craft-made in the US with sustainably sourced materials.

It’s not clear how Carlos Botello has rebounded, or if he will survive this chapter in his professional journey. I wish him luck, and hope he lands on his feet. I just don’t think he’ll do it with a company that cranks out cheap Chinese pads, sticks and mallets by the hundreds of thousands and is slow to respond to issues when they arise.

Chop on.

DIY Drummer: repairing and restoring a Beetle Last Pad

The Beetle Last Pad originally came as a doublesided pad with two playing surfaces and long tension bolts holding it all together. It was capable of very high tension and meant for modern marching drummers who wanted a pad with a Kevlar head on one side and a Mylar head on the other. 

Later, Beetle released a singlesided version of the Last Pad, meant for lower tension and a Mylar head. It was sold as a pad meant for old-school rudimental drummers, and if you installed a coated head it was also good for brushes. (I have such pad and to my surprise it has become my favorite brush pad, though I also like to chop rope drum style on it. The foam insert makes it feel very buttery.)

The seller bought a singlesided Last Pad and proceeded to assemble it with a Kevlar head and high tension — *not* what it was designed for. I’d guess he did this to save money, since the doublesided version costs far more. (The singlesided Last Pad currently retails for $180; the doublesided version costs $260. Both are worth the price when you take into account the sustainability and the amount of care and craft involved in their construction.

This singlesided Last Pad became available on eBay a couple months ago, and I watched it with interest.

Originally, the seller wanted $180 plus nearly $90 in shipping.

His description: “Beetle pad I bought not too long ago but don’t want anymore. Has some cracks from running but have changed the head with the cracks there, just don’t tune it too high. It has a Remo White Max Head.”

Sadly, in the process he cranked the tension so high — which is necessary for a Kevlar head — that he cracked the baseplate in the process.

I figured that the damage was rough, but repairable. I made a much lower offer, which was rebuffed. So I watched the listing and waited. So did at least fifteen other people.

I watched and waited for over a month, and the price fell over time. Finally, when the price fell to under a hundred bucks and the shipping became, frankly, more realistic, I felt ready to bite the bullet. I bought the pad and planned on repairing the baseplate with wood glue and clamps, and would see how it turned out. (I also planned to swap in an Emperor head and use lower tension.)

The pad arrived about a week later. The seller had simply tossed it in a box without any packing material. The cardboard box was ripped apart and crudely taped up again. The pad had bounced around inside the box and there was far more damage to baseplate than the listing photos had shown.

I gave the seller a mediocre review and told him to do better. Then I turned my attention to the pad.

I took it apart, and discovered that the previous owner had cranked down the tension so much that two of the bolts snapped when I tried to loosen them. Additionally, ten of the twelve washers were malformed from overtensioning. There were only single, large washers, not the second set of smaller washers that my singlesided Last Pad had come with.

I set aside the head, rim and bolts, and got to work on the baseplate.

Detensioning the hardware made the cracks narrower, so I had to slip a flathead screwdriver into the crack and widen it a little. I poured some wood glue into the crack, pressed it in with my finger and poured some more. Finally, I clamped the crack closed.

I repeated this with the crack in the second and third areas of damage, and set the baseplate aside to dry.

Then, I slipped the big washers into my bench vise and straightened them as best I could. That turned out fine and I felt comfortable reusing them at lower tension.

I chatted with Bradley at Beetle, who confirmed that this was probably a very early release of the singlesided Last Pad because it used only large washers. Subsequent versions have included two sets of washers and this works far better in terms of strength and durability.

I went through my parts bin and came up with replacement bolts and a set of smaller washers (old bicycle axle washers, nice and thick!) to add to the assembly.

Then, I waited for the glue to dry. Because I couldn’t be sure how far down into the cracks the glue could seep, I left the baseplate clamped all day. When I removed the clamps in the evening, the repair held solidly. Before stopping for the night, I drilled some vertical holes through the baseplate, two at each repair area, to receive hardwood dowels for greater stability.

The next day I got the fluted hardwood dowels to glue into the six stabilizer holes I’d drilled. The flutes carved into the dowel allow for glue to set in firmly with the wood and create a better bond and seal. When I ran this by Bradley, he suggested that the glue would do the job all by itself and that perhaps the dowels were overkill; but the bicycle mechanic in me really wanted to make sure the repaired baseplate wouldn’t come apart under stress. 

Valchromat (aka ForesCore), the material that is used in the baseplates and inserts of all Beetle pads that aren't built around solid wood, is made from compressed, finely ground wood fiber and a special glue. This is basically like MDF, but Valchromat uses very little formaldehyde and is much safer than ordinary MDF. Also, it's impregnated with color during the compression process so when you chip or scuff it, you don't lose color the way you would with wood that has simply been painted externally. It's also harder than MDF, and therefore a much better material all around. 

That said, if you're going to sand or drill Valchromat, it's still important to do so in a well-ventilated area and wear eye and mouth protection. Safety first!

In this photo, you can see where I’d had to build up the edges of the baseplate that had broken off. For this, I sanded everything, applied scotch tape around the missing part of the edge to form a “wall,” and poured in the glue to set overnight. When I removed the tape in the morning, a tiny bit of wet glue beneath seeped out, causing a slight collapse of the “wall.” Enough of the glue had dried that I didn’t worry about it. I knew that there would be enough of a repaired edge for my purposes, let the remainder of the glue dry and called it good.

The pad came with a 3/16” tire rubber insert, which would normally be too hard for my tastes. Bradley offered to make me a new insert with gum rubber so I could achieve something much closer to the feel of my 15” marching snare drum. While waiting for that, I decided to assemble the pad with the parts I have and see how I like it.

I let the glued dowels dry all day, and shortly before dinner time I assembled the pad with what I had on hand, including the harder insert and an old Emperor head. While I’m glad to experience the 3/16” recycled tire insert under a tuned head, it’s not really my thing and I will replace it with either a thin gum rubber insert or a 1/4” recycled tire insert, either of which will feel a little nicer for my hands. And I have a new Emperor suede head on order at Revival that should be here next week. 

Gosh, what a cool pad. I’m happy to have a second Last Pad for harder Mylar chopping, and thrilled to have repaired this at home.

(I was tempted for about twenty seconds to send the video to the seller, but my schadenfreude doesn’t run quite that deep. Mom raised me better than that.)

If you want a Last Pad, both versions are available on the Beetle Percussion web site, and are worth every penny.

Happy chopping.