New life for a broken mallet

1. Tom Gauger #7 Bass Drum mallet with wooden head broken off.
2. Eye drop single-dose dispensers: wasteful, hard to use, generally stupid.
3. Duct tape and zip ties.

Voila! A really nice rattle with a cool sound that's perfect for recording.

Recycle everything: drum mute

New slippers for Chanukah meant repurposing the old ones, lined with fake shearling, covered with boiled wool and trimmed in suede.

The materials will be handy for recovering old mallets, and for this little snare mute I whipped up tonight. It has suede on one side and boiled wool on the other, and saved me twenty bucks I could have spent on a factory-made model.

The world is filled with stuff that can be repurposed to make other stuff. Just look around.

And have a happy 2023.

DIY Drummer: returning snare sound to an old HQ pad.

I scored a rare 8” HQ RealFeel pad which once held a snare-sound  cartridge. Without the cartridge, I got it for a song.

Then I decided I wanted to add back a snare cartridge, but since the factory cartridge was long gone and unavailable, I went with a replacement cartridge from Offworld Percussion.

Using only a couple hand tools I had on hand — and why worry about cosmetics, because who’s gonna see the bottom? — I cut out a little of the particleboard underneath to accommodate the slightly larger and round shape of the Offworld snare puck.

The magnet in the bottom,  designed as it was for the size and shape of the original cartridge, would not accommodate the placement of the metal studs in the puck, so I added some rare-earth magnets on each of the four sides, based on the location and distance of the studs.

When the glue dried, I dropped in the puck. It held when I turned it over. (And since I had a hunch that this was going to work, I bought the shaker puck and the cymbal stand adapter as well.)

Results: a decent, workable hack

Lesson? Use your resources.

The result? A nice, useful pad. 

(Best used on flat, horizontal surface with NO tilt.)

Happy chopping.

Interview with Bradley Lomax, Beetle Percussion

Bradley Lomax got his start in drumming as a child. Participating in school music programs and drum corps, majoring in music in college and growing a massive set of drumming chops, like many who read this blog. Along the way, he became aware of the impact that our lives have on the environment, and how the environment has responded to our impact; and at that point he became a champion of sustainability in all things. Because of that commitment he makes each Beetle Percussion product himself, using as many recycled or repurposed components as he possibly can, and his practice pads are some of the most beautiful in the world.

This makes him something of a rarity in the drum industry, and someone I’ve been dying to chat with for almost a year.

Here’s our interview.

BH: How did you go from playing to making drum equipment?

BL: I got really serious about drumming in high school, and after high school I marched a few seasons of drum corps (first with the Sky Ruders and then with Pioneer). My sophomore year in high school, I got a job working for Bill Cardwell at C&C Drum Shop, where I taught private lessons and in my spare time I watched and learned about the craft of drum making.

I got so into making stuff — learning at C&C and also taking jobs in construction — that eventually I left college and went into teaching lessons and doing construction pretty much full-time.

BH: What was your inspiration for starting Beetle Percussion?

BL: When I was growing up, my parents would take me on vacations in Colorado, and I loved it. Everything was so green and beautiful and I loved going back again and again. After I left school, my parents went back to our favorite vacation place and returned to tell me that beetles were destroying the trees there, eating them to death.

Global warming was forcing the Beetles to turn to these trees for a primary food source in increasingly huge numbers, and whole forests were being destroyed. The whole area was transitioning into some kind of arid desert because the trees were dying. I was horrified.

Since I work with wood, I decided to create something that would use the wood from these trees  and I hit upon the idea of practice pads. I called the US Forest Service to ask about getting some of that wood, because they had to clear it out of there before it became fuel for a forest fire; and they referred me to a bunch of mills who were taking the reclaimed timber and turning it into furniture and stuff.

I established a relationship with one of those mills, who brings me some of the reclaimed lumber; they deliver it on pallets right at my workshop.

At first, I tried making pads out of natural rounds, with the bark and everything, because I thought they’d look cool. But working with wood that way is really, really difficult and trying to force it into shape just wasn’t working. So ultimately, I had to set up a serious wood shop with all sorts of planing saws and things, learning how to treat the rough wood like potential furniture. After that, my vision for the pads became easier to clarify. Basically, I make practice pads like furniture, and that’s why they look so finished and smooth. There really isn’t any other way to make them turn out so good.

We source recycled car tire rubber from a company that supplies  it to flooring manufacturers. Because it used to be car tires, we sometimes have to pull out bits of metal — old nails, sidewall material, and stuff — so that we can work with just the rubber and mold it into a playing surface.

BH: What’s your target market? I assume it’s more connected to the marching arts, because your pads are fairly hard. I don’t currently own a Beetle pad but I’ve tried a few and that’s my takeaway.

BL: Yes, the overwhelming majority of people who buy our pads are marching band and corps members who want a pad that feels more like a marching drum head. I’d say almost 90 per cent of our customers fall into this category.

What’s great is that college instructor are excited by the “green” aspect of our pads, and they hype that to the kids and get them thinking about it, and suddenly it’s cool to play a “green” pad.

As to why the pads feel harder, a lot of that is the wood that’s used. Ash is a very dense, hard wood and that makes it great for building a marching pad around; pine, on the other hand, is a softer wood and will give you a response that’s a little closer to a concert or all-around pad.

BH: What about different thicknesses of rubber? Would that affect the response?

BL: It would, but only to a point. Thicker than a quarter-inch and it gets kind of dead-feeling. That’s why we stick with 3/16” and quarter-inch thicknesses on our pads — they just give the best response and feel.
And honestly, we have to respond to what our customers tell us they want. Since they’re mostly marching drummers, we have to give them a pad that responds the way a Kevlar-headed drum would.

BH: Fair enough.
In addition to your commitment to using reclaimed timber and recycled rubber, how else do you promote sustainability at Beetle?

BL: For every item sold, a tree seedling is planted to replace the tree that was destroyed by the beetles. We partner with forest management agencies in Colorado to accomplish this. Removing harmful material and planting new trees helps to stabilize the watershed, restores wildlife habitat and promotes regrowth.

BH: Now, for the hard questions: You make your pads as sustainability as possible. But the carbon footprint involved in that process, from gathering raw materials to shipping out finished pads, cannot be denied. How do you weigh this reality against your efforts? And how wide-angle can you go in your vision before it drives you crazy?

BL: (laughs) Yeah, it’s true. I plant trees, I use reclaimed and recycled materials, and I know it only goes so far. The truth is that none of us can control everything. We can only control what each of us can control, right where we are. It’s a double-edged sword and I do what I can. When my HOA lets me put solar panels on my roof, when everything can be delivered without relying on fossil fuels, that will be wonderful. In the meantime, just getting the kids to be more aware of the need for a more sustainable way of life is a win. We plant seeds and they carry them forward.

I can only do the best that I can do. And hope that enough people will notice and start to pay attention to the places in their own lives that can be made and done more sustainably.

BH: Well, you get no argument from me. I LOVE that there’s a company promoting sustainability and I look forward to more people taking notice and paying attention.

 

Pad Du Jour: repairing/restoring an old Aquarian Tru-Bounce

This pad is one of the more underrated -- and overpriced -- on the market. It's not bad, and has some possibilities for extended creativity.
Aquarian's 12" Tru-Bounce practice pad sells new for between $40 and $45, and comes with a pair of 5A nylon sticks and an exercise sheet. The sticks are, in my humble opinion, just this side of worthless; give them to your favorite toddler and walk away.
The pad is unassuming, a simple sheet of black rubber glued to a plank of wood that's been painted bright red. It looks like something that could be made at home.

If you find one used and cheap, snap it up and have some fun with it.

I scored this at my local thrift shop for five bucks. There was no non-skid material on bottom, and the top had been scored with some kind of knife. But it was still playable, so I bought it and took it home.

First, I restored a non-skid surface underneath by cutting a circle out of a large piece of very thin mousepad material (often found with cup-stacking games or by itself; get it used for pennies on the dollar and you'll ghave enough for several pad repair projects).

Then I glued that down to the underside of the pad (I used super-glue gel and did this outdoors to avoid breathing in off-gases), and stacked a bunch of other pads on top while it dried overnight.

The next day I had a very functional pad that's probably worth about... 8 or 9 bucks.

It plays fine. There's enough bounce for it to feel satisfying, but not so much that the sticks rebound wildly off the surface. A nice pad for a beginner.

If you want to get creative, find a laminate to attach to the top and you mught be surprised by how good it feels. A friend suggested I look for the clear plastic disc from the Movement Drum Co. pad, and he says it turns this ordinary pad into something amazing.

I actually did this with a piece of thin plastic notebook material on another pad and it was interesting, but not useful for my purposes. I gave that pad away to a kid who needed one for marching but couldn't afford anything fancy. He made do and is now marching in his college drumline. I'd like to think it was more a result of practicing than of the practice surface.

The truth is that many of today's modern drum pads are copies of each other on some level. After all, how many different ways can you mix up a rubber-nylon-neoprene compound and have it be something "new" and worthwhile? After awhile there's so much overlap between products that it can make your head spin while it's filling the world with More Stuff.

So these days I am more interested in finding and researching the historic pads that illustrate the development of the practice pad, than I am in comparing newer "modern" pads. The newer pads act like they're purpose-driven (particularly for the Marching Arts), when in reality most are simply copies of each other built around a marketing approach that's tied to getting more kids to buy practice pads.

..::ducks to avoid being pelted with rotten tomatoes::..

If you can choose between shopping and drumming, drum. You'll accomplish more and save money and time.
Happy chopping.

Homemade pad: an homage to intersectionality

I still enjoy experimenting with various materials to see if they'd translate to a practice pad.

This one is kind of special.

Inspired by a pad shown at Drumforum.com I decided to make my own version, a little fancier and more connected to my years as a professional bike shop mechanic.

Using scrap wood, bits and pieces from my time in the industry (including a cool pin I got years ago at Interbike and a piece cut out of an old patch kit tin whose bottom had been crushed), I went to work. The actual playing surface, as in the Drumforum post, is a 4" wide Rema Tip Top patch, large enough for a tractor tube; I scored a box of these as NOS from a tractor repair shop that was closing down.

Experimenting with layers, position and whether or not to make a tilted pad, I finally decided upon a micro-mini sort of "bus pad" like the ones Beetle Percussion sells for marching arts members (those DO work quite well on a tour bus, by the way!). I decorated it accordingly, wrapped it in a layer of old innertube for padding, and then covered that with white stick tape. I finally sealed that with a couple coats of clear nail polish to keep the tape in place and protect it a little.

Here's the finished pad:

Above: Cutout from an old patch kit tin

At left: the actual paper label wrapped around a spent tube of patch adhesive. I love the graphics, a foreshadowing of what we now see on packs of cigarettes in some places

(Note the origin of the patch kit.)

Below: A cute little pin I got from a dealer rep while attending Interbike, the bicycle industry trade show they used to hold every year in Las Vegas. Thankfully, that event seems done for good now.

I finished off the bottom with a repurposed cymbal mute, glued fabric side down, as a non-skid surface. It works better here than it ever did on the cymbal.

After everything dried, I started playing on it, lightly at first and then, when I realized it could take more of a beating, a lot louder.

The response is tight and short -- somewhat what that of Offworld Percussion's Invader pad, but without the odd resonance because this surface is so much smaller. It would be fine for a modern marching drummer looking for a small pad to chop on anywhere. It easily fits in a messenger bag so it's very portable.

Here's a sample of the pad in action.

Because this pad is about intersectionality between my bicycle life and my drum life, I may also take a little inspiration from a fellow on the Marching Percussion 101 FB group, who showed off a very slickly-decorated Remo drum pad that he'd applied a Santa Clara Vanguard logo to (he'd marched with them back in the day); he had even created a presentation box with padded lining inside. It was something of a joke because most marching arts don't bother with a tunable Remo pad; but it was also very beautiful because of the care he'd taken to make this pad special.

So I may end up doing the same, making a presentation box for this pad out of a shop-sized Rema service tin. If I can find some leftover styrofoam to carve down, and then cover with felt (or some new shop rags, boiled down for maximum shrinkage and padding), I could make the lining decent-looking and functional. We'll see. Meanwhile, It's been a super-fun little project and I like how it turned out.

(If you decide to make one yourself, you'll want the 3" or 4" sized patches like above, which can only be found at motorcycle or automotive repair shops and online. I used one patch with the feathered edge trimmed off, glued down and allowed to set, and then a complete patch glued on top of it. The feathered edges do take some delicate maneuvering with tweezers so you don't mess them up while gluing in place, but the finished look was worth the hassle for me. As always Your Mileage May Vary.)

Happy drumming!

DIY practice pads (for kids and others on a budget)

Let's face it. Decent practice pads are not cheap. Even the RockJam pad, can run $20 or more with shipping. On top of that, a lot of stuff still ends up in the landfill when it doesn't have to, including scrap wood.

So after a great conversation about DIY practice pads for those on a tight budget, here's a simple way to make your own practice pad from repurposed wood planks (cut to size if necessary) and gum rubber.

Gum rubber, available in 12" x 24” sheets from Grainger Industrial on eBay. I use heavy-duty industrial scissors to trim to size. Make the rubber at least 1/2" to 1" smaller than the wood platform all the way around. Make sure both surface are clean and dry. (Depending on the wood surface, you may wish to sand it lightly for better adhesion.) If you want to make several drum pads, you might want to divide the 12x24" sheet into equal sections of 6" or 8" square so you can get more pads out of the gum rubber; it's not necessary to have a 12" practice pad if you're just working on rudiments or chopping out a part, and making a 6" square pad on an 8" or 9" square wood platform is a cost-effective way of getting more perfectly good pads from one sheet of rubber.

Working in a well-ventilated area (like an open garage), apply a thin line of super glue gel in a spiral, starting in the center and working outward in a spiral (each line about 1/4" apart from the next) to about 1/4" from the edge of the rubber, then carefully place the rubber panel glue-side down on the wood platform and weight down (with heavy books or other practice pads) and let dry overnight.

On the reverse side, you can use pieces of an old thin gaming mat -- glue them with the rubber side showing -- to give the pad a non-skid surface. Glue down and weight down the same way and let dry overnight.

1/4” thick is perfect for chopping rudiments. 1/8" thick may be preferable for those who play Kevlar-headed drums.

Here’s the very first one I made. It travels well and fits in my book bag; when I've toured as a singer-songwriter, this is the pad I've taken with me on the road.

Those with young drum lines may want to buy larger sheets of gum rubber and turn this into a DIY project for your drum line. Repurposed wood gets saved from the landfill and you can use it as a team-bonding activity. Just be sure to do this in a well-ventilated place (like a large garage with the door up, or a park bench).

Junk to Funk: DIY Percussion

In my work as a music educator, I've often had to think on my feet, and improvise when a planned lesson goes off the rails or a schedule change forces a complete left turn into some other activity.
One of the things I came up with early on for my general music students was to do a scavenger hunt, looking for things that sounded interesting and could be turned into percussion instruments: drums, shakers, rattles, and metallophnes. The results were sometimes funny and always interesting.

To this day, I continue to look for interesting things that can be turned into percussion instruments.
Last week, I rode past a construction site and noticed dozens of odd plastic discs lying on the ground among the piles of wood scraps. I pulled my bike over, and gathered up as many as I could find. Shaking them in my cupped hands, I noted that they had potential as a percussion instrument, and took them home.

After rinsing them off (by letting them sit out in a few days of rainfall in a plastic potting pail), I poked a small hole in each one with a nail. Fashioning a handle out of some old bicycle cable housing, I attached the discs to the handle with some zip-ties, which I'd also found for free and saved.

The result looked whisical and sounded soft, and gentle. I imagine using it in a studio setting with a good microphone; and in fact I'll probably use this one on my upcoming album that I plan to record in late summer. I used a homemade shaker and a sistrum on my second album to great effect.)

What household objects are lying around your place that could be turned into percussion instruments?

Cool little drum pad -- buy this and support youth music!

So I've got myself a cool little pad (New, NOT vintage, sorry), made and sold by a drum corps called Jersey Surf. Unlike many drum corps in this all-too modern era, Surf remains a volunteer-driven organization, which means everything they raise goes directly into equipping, feeding and transporting the corps during their summer tour.  (There are drum corps today whose senior staff members pull down huge salaries. Most volunteer-driven corps have much lower staff salaries and it's a labor of love. The latter are getting harder to find at the top levels of the activity.)

I ordered my pad as soon as they were made available this winter. After all, it would make a nice addition to my collection, and the price ($12) was right.

I've been enjoying my little pad since it arrived. It has two sides: one side is made from a mousepad the corps sold last year. They had extras and decided to repurpose them for these pads. (repurposing makes Surf a drum corps after my own crunchy-granola, PNW environmentalist heart.)

The mousepad side is a little harder and tighter, and makes you work a little more to get decent diddles and rolls. And it's SO clean-sounding that there's nowhere for your lazy technique to hide.
You'll hear every note whether you want to or not.

The other side is a hard, dense rubber that's only slightly thicker than the mousepad. It's also a fairly hard surface, but without as much "bite" as the mousepad side. Both surfaces are glued securely to a particle-board platform. The whole pad fits easily into my messenger bag and therefore is a pad I take with me anywhere. Below is an example of how this little pad sounds and plays.

This is not a super-high-performance drum pad. (For that, spend the bigger bucks and get a Xymox or Offworld pad.)
Instead, this is the pad to reach for when you find yourself with five minutes of downtime and you need to play a few rolls to calm your squirrel-brain. Or the pad to keep at the office when a vendor puts you on hold for too long. Or the pad to take to beach with you so that you can chop out while you stare at the waves and go all Zen-like. (One of my favorite pursuits, BTW)

I'm taking mine on tour next month when I go do some singer-songwriter gigs in Seattle. Because it's the perfect size to travel with and for what it is, it's not bad at all.

There are still some available at the corps web store:
http://jerseysurf.org/product/jersey-surf-drum-pad/
Every purchase supports youth music.
Which I know you absolutely WANT to do.
Happy chopping, kids!
And all the best to you and yours in 2019.