Product review: Percoustique practice pad - UPDATE 9/24/26

Percoustique was a company that, according to the little research I was able to do online, made drums and drum-adjacent equipment that was largely for the OEM or stencil market, and mostly supplied instrument rental facilities rather than being steered to direct sales.

I just acquired what appears to be a Percoustique practice pad, designed along the lines of the Quiet Tone pad, from an eBay auction where I was the only bidder. The pad arrived this morning and I quickly set about seeing what I’d gotten.

The pad is similar to a Quiet Tone in that it’s a 14” drum head with a real rim and tuning bolts — eight instead of the six on a Quiet Tone — and it sits on a molded plastic base with a very slight degree of built-in tilt.

Playing this pad and comparing it to the Quiet Tone shows that the Percoustique is, well, hollow.

Taking apart the pad revealed that the molded plastic base is hollow and contains a cotton fiber insert. The depth of the insert is shallower than the depth of the space in the molded plastic base, lending to the hollow sound. I don’t know if the fiber insert was originally thicker and became compressed, or if there was additional material inside the base with this fiber insert.

I’d used up the yoga mat material I’d had in previous projects, so I turned to what I had on hand. In this case, two layers of large bubble wrap, cut to size and laid one on another with the fiber layer on top. 

Reassembling and tensioning the pad removed the hollow sound. The large bubble wrap meant the tone would be lower than desired, and the response softer. At some future point I’ll look for a different material to use as an insert and see what happens.

There is another Percoustique pad available right now on Reverb, though at a price I think is rather high. You could watch it and wait for the price to come down. Or just save up and buy a Quiet Tone, which is clearly a better pad.

UPDATE, 9/24/2026: After trying multiple combinations of internal padding and muffling materials, I finally hit upon a combination that I can live with:
-- leave two layers of small-bubble padding on bottom.
-- remove cloth muffler.
-- add multiple layers of corrugated cardboard. 
-- add foam drum mute material.
-- add two more layers of cardboard and top with a layer of tool drawer material (as used in the Rick Dior Quiet Tone videos). 

The end result is still a little lower in tone, but the stick response is much sharper and the rebound much quicker. Although the hard plastic base is fairly stout, I had to go slowly and carefully when re-tensioning the head. I suppose you could swap in a better Remo head, but I went ahead and kept the original Percoustique stock head and it works well enough.

This has inspired me to explore other "flat" pad options, including those by RamPad and other companies that use a plywood base and have similar construction to Quiet Tone, Percoustique and Pearl pads of this type. They're more expensive but I'm on the lookout for used models I can obtain for less. Stay tuned.

Vintage Corner: The original Quiet Tone mute, by Henry Adler

I had the amazing opportunity to purchase two of the first-generation, original Quiet Tone pads, designed and distributed by Henry Adler. They arrived today, and I am fascinated.

I purchased both from the same fellow, a 14-inch Snare Mute and a 13-inch Tom-Tom Mute. The pads were originally designed not as practice pads, but as drum mutes designed to be placed atop drums for quieter practice. These mutes came with coil springs with hooks on each end, that allowed you to attach a mute to the top of a drum and keep it in place during indoor practice. 

The fiber base is the same as that found on the next generation of Quiet Tone pads that came with tension rods and replaceable heads. However, this original version bears a label that says “Pat. pending,” placing these in the late 1960s.

Also, the legs on this earliest model are screwed into a sliding nut on the underside of the two vertical rods. Sliding the nut allows you to place the legs where you want, and tightening the threaded leg into the nut (finger tight) keeps it where you set it.

Sticks are shown in one of the photos with the 13-inch mute to show scale. I’ve places small pieces of folded paper between the horizontal rod and the two vertical rods, to reduce the rattle of metal-on-metal. 

This first generation came pre-tensioned, and could not be adjusted. The pitch is lower than that found on later versions of the pad, and has a lower tension that more closely resembles jazz drums of the 1960s. 

These are photos of the 13-inch Tom-Tom mute. 

As you can see in the video, the head sits lower from the top of the rim than on later versions of the Quiet Tone. This earliest version was probably not designed to be taken apart by the player; the rods connect to the rim with rivets. Subsequent revisions would allow for tuning adjustment and head replacement, a thicker fiber base and eventually the addition of a foam rubber layer to strengthen the construction and allow it to be used as a real practice pad.

These earliest examples of the Quiet Tone have their limits and would probably not withstand the demands of the modern drummer, but they are a significant piece of practice pad history and are extremely rare in complete condition. I am very glad to have them, and honored to be their next caretaker.