Drum Pad Redux: Offworld Percussion

Several years ago, in the early days of the pandemic, I came into a couple of used pads from Offworld Percussion. The first pad, an Invader, wasn’t my thing. Designed by and for drummers accustomed to marching with high-tension Kevlar snares, the hard black rubber was very responsive, but felt jarring to my hands, accustomed as they were to Mylar heads with lower tension. The pad was well-made, with Offworld’s patented “Darkmatter” poured into a hard plastic shell that acts as a very stout rim when the rubber sets. But it was also very heavy for a rubber practice pad, and I tripped over it more than I actually used it.

The second pad, an Invader with a blonde gum rubber surface, was more to my liking, but it was also heavy, and redundant with several other pads I had at the time.

Eventually, I sold them both, and moved on.

Fast forward to now. I had an opportunity to consider Offworld pads again, thanks to a guy in central Oregon wanting to sell a Tapspace pad, and also thanks to a gum rubber version of the BYOS pad that went on sale. Over a period of about a month, I was able to buy the used a Tapspace pad and the BYOS pad, plus a couple of pucks to insert into the BYOS pad.

Here’s the Tapspace pad. I bought it used at a significant discount, and it cleaned up nicely. The rubber feels similar to that of the V3 rubber pad I’d had five years ago, but because this is a singlesided pad it weighs far less and is easier to manage. Plus, it comes with a small oval of hard Darkmatter so you can have different playing surfaces on one side. The feel is responsive without being mushy, and I like it a lot.

The underside of the pad has a fiberboard base and an outer ring made from recycled rubber. The rubber is playable, though not large enough to be practical. (More recent versions of the V3 with Darkmatter come with a bottom fully cover with this recycled rubber, instead of the entire pad being Darkmatter top and bottom. It’s a lighter pad than the earlier version, and while I appreciate that I still don’t think the Darkmatter pad is for me.)

Last year, I’d fitted a heavy platform to a marching snare carrier so that I could carry a practice pad on the march, as part of my physical therapy for dealing with Long Covid.  The setup worked well enough, but the metal platform alone weighed over eight pounds. Adding a pad to that made whole thing very, very heavy. I decided I’d need to research a lighter weight solution. 

At first, I tried a Offworld Visitor pad, with a lighter weight attachment available from Offworld that attaches to the J hooks on a snare carrier. The pad was small (with an 8” gum rubber playing surface) and very lightweight, but not exactly what I was looking for. 

So I turned my attention to the larger BYOSphere pad, which was designed in partnership with the BYOS crew who play and teach on high-tension Kevlar drums. It was first made with Darkmatter, and optional laminates could be purchased. More recently, the BYOSphere pad was offered with a gum rubber surface (for which laminates would not apply). 

The BYOSphere pad, like the Visitor pad, comes with a hollowed out section underneath. This recess accepts various magnetic “pucks” and other accessories that allow for different sound effects and for use on a stand or with a knee strap. (These pucks also fit the pads in the Aurora series.)  when I installed the BYOSphee pad on the carrier attachment, I was pleased that it fit exactly the way I’d hoped, and at the proper distance from my carrier.

Obviously, you can’t use the sound effects pucks at the same time you place the pad on the marching attachment or on a stand; but on a tabletop or another pad these sound effects are a lot of fun. I chose the two different sound effects (snare and shaker), and the dampening puck, to cover everything I might need.

The pucks that a pad can rest on come with threads for either an 8mm thread, or a 1/4” thread. I got one of each, the former for the marching carrier attachment and the latter for an old cymbal stand.

They work like a charm, though you do need to be careful not to get carried away with your rimshots.

The “snare” pad consists of tambourine jingles embedded into it, with an adjustable center washer to allow for more or less vibration when struck. (There’s also a shaker puck filled with metal ball bearings, that sounds very different from the “snare” puck.)

I’m pleased with how all my purchases and experiments have turned out. I’ve kept the Visitor pad, and for now it sits on my cymbal stand puck. (I don’t know if I’ll keep it but for now it’s small and handy.)

I use the BYOSphere pad on the marching carrier, and also on a flat surface. 

Offworld has the Aurora series pads and pucks, as well as the various versions of the larger V3 pad, available at their web site. The Tapspace version of the V3 pad is available directly from Tapspace, which also sells drum instructional materials.

Happy drumming.

Vintage Corner: Sam Ulano’s King Size Pad

Sam Ulano was a jazz drummer and drum teacher based in New York. He wrote and published many instruction books that are still in use today, and one of his quirkiest claims to fame is the one gig he played for the band PiL (Public Image, Ltd, with John Lydon before he founded the Sex Pistols).

Sam taught numerous drummers over a fifty year period and designed his own practice pads and practice sticks. His sticks were made from sections of metal conduit, and were designed for use on heavy rubber practice pads. You can find a couple of his pad designs in YouTube videos, like this one.

(Photo stills, enlarged, from the video)

Note the construction and size of the pad, with gum rubber set into a panel atop a blue wooden box.

I’d assume the handle is for ease of carrying, and that the box is hollow for resonance (though perhaps a drawer could be opened on one side to store a lesson book). I’ll need to research further to find better photos and information about this particular pad.

In other videos, Sam is shown playing on a big, flat pad. Here’s a photo still of that style of pad, taken from another video (with low production values, but you can still see the pads he and his student are using).

I acquired one of the flat styled pads this week in an online sale. This pad had previously been offered by another seller, at a price I couldn’t afford at the time. Six months later, it showed up for sale again, this time from a seller of random vintage items. I watched the listing for another six months and finally made him an offer that we could both live with. 

The pad is well used and probably dates from the 1960s or 70s. 

The top side is a panel of thick, pure gum rubber, of the kind available between the 1940s and 1960s, inset into a wood frame. It has a great feel even now, but the rubber has disintegrated with use and time. If I play on it, tiny crumbs of dried rubber flake off. I’m researching a way to preserve the rubber and make it safer to play without damage.

The bottom side of the pad has a much harder black panel of rubber that resembles the stuff found on the earliest versions of the HQ Real Feel pads. It has rebound, but is much harder in feel and tone.

The whole thing is supported by a thick wooden frame that measures around 13” x 11”, with playing surfaces measuring 12” x 10” — making for a very big practice pad.

I’m very glad to add this to my collection of vintage pads. I’m hoping to stabilize the gum rubber so I can use the pad regularly. Stay tuned.

CB700 snare drum: an underrated gem

Although I’ve pared down my drum holdings considerably, I still hold a place in my heart for CB700 drums from the late 1970s and early 1980s, the period of time when I was in high school. CB700 drums were a common fixture in many school band rooms back then, because they were solidly built and affordable by school districts. For awhile, CB700 drums and parts were made in the same factory as Pearl drums, but their manufacture jumped around a bit over several decades. The latest generation of CB drums were made in Taiwan, and then in China.

The CB700 drums came with beautiful lugs that came to be called “wristwatch” lugs for their shape. The center of the lug was finished with a shiny panel that came in silver, blue or red, with silver being the most commonly available. 

I acquired this CB700 snare drum a couple of years ago, put it in the closet and promised I’d get to work on cleaning it up. I finally pulled it out last month. I took it apart, tightened all the bolts, cleaned up the shell and the lugs and replaced the heads and snares. As I went around the lugs, I noticed that some of them were missing the polished aluminum dots. 

I reached out to a friend who’s a CB drum enthusiast and collector, and asked him where I might find some replacement dots.

He cheerfully replied that he’d be happy to send me some. He apparently knows how to cut them from aluminum sheeting, and polish them in the process so the polished side shines. He had a bunch and slipped some into an envelope. They arrived a few days ago, carefully wrapped in blue painters tape and sealed in a cardboard sleeve. He advised me to clearcoat the shiny side to protect them before installing them.

The weather here had been quite cold, so I thanked my friend and advised him I’d have to wait until it warmed up enough for the paint to dry.

Yesterday, the temperature warmed up to the high 50s, so I laid out the dots on the tape, sprayed a light clearcoat and let it dry overnight.

This morning, I applied the new dots to the bare lugs using a tiny drop of super glue for each one. They’re dry now, and the drum is complete. And beautiful.

Not bad for a drum that cost me twenty bucks.