DIY update: practice pad station

A few years ago I scored some plywood, and got my brother-in-love to cut it into two rounds for me. I took them home, painted them and used them as platforms for practice pads.

One of them was used on a drum carrier, so I could add drumming to my walking therapy while I tried to recover from Long Covid. I used that for about a year in earnest, then less often as my symptoms receded. I stopped using it last fall when I could walk in a straight line again.  I sold the carrier and recycled the wood earlier this summer.

The other was mounted on a sturdy concert stand so I could put practice pads on it without having to funble with the basket adjustment for pads of different sizes. Changing pads became fast and easy.
I still use this today, but have upgraded it into a serious practice station in my studio.

At the time, I modified the second round in a quick, clumsy way. I was never fully satisfied with the result. About a year ago I upgraded the whole thing with better padding materials and a much improved installation of the angle bar. I added a stick quiver and have been using it daily ever since. But I forgot to share photos here. A discussion about pads on stands yesterday prompted me to amend the situation.

This old Hamilton concert stand is heavy, but strong enough to support a heavy practice pad, even on a tilt. I replaced the cracked basket rubber pieces with new aftermarket ones, and replaced the bottom rubber feet (one was missing anyway) with plastic champagne stoppers so they would grab the carpet better. I took a chain and used it to hang a drum key off the angle bar for my tunable pads, and taped the contact points so it won't rattle while I play.

The whole thing probably cost me about forty bucks in parts and labor, including the vintage Hamilton stand and the stick quiver

Product Review: Yamaha Crosstown lightweight concert snare stand

I have been using a couple of different concert-height snare stands so I can play on a pad in a standing position. (A standard model, used when sitting behind a drum kit, doesn’t extend high enough.)

Both stands are adequate, but heavy when I need to transport them for, say, chopping in a nearby park on a nice day or offering a clinic at another site.

So I researched my options, and came up with this.

The Yamaha Crosstown series of stands is made primarily of aluminum tubing, with steel connecting pieces for greater stability and durability where it’s needed most.

From Yamaha: 

The Yamaha Crosstown Concert Snare Stand SS-3H is an ultra-lightweight aluminum snare drum stand for standing performance. A dramatic reduction in weight enhances handling and portability, significantly reducing the burden on the player. This revolutionary snare drum stand is not only lightweight and compact, but it is also easy to set up, durable, and does not interfere with the natural acoustic tone of the drum used. By using aluminum alloy for most of the stand’s structure, its weight has been reduced by about 50% compared to steel snare stands (in-house survey). The SS-3H is also very compact when folded, providing a considerable improvement in portability. Although the SS-3H is primarily constructed of lightweight aluminum pipe and aluminum castings, steel is used in a few small-but-critical areas that enhance overall strength. The legs are made of aluminum U-channel (channel legs) with a cross-section designed to maximize strength and durability as well as stability. This also makes the stand comfortable to hold for positioning and adjustment. Specially-designed rubber feet prevent slippage while the stand is in use.

More Information

Manufacturer	Yamaha
Model #	SS3H
Color/Finish	Aluminum
Hardware Type	Snare Stands
Hardware Series	Yamaha Crosstown

I blinked a moment at the price — MSRP $180, average retail price around $140 plus shipping — and then looked around online for any sort of discount I could find. A drum shop back east was closing out their stock and offering fee shipping, so I ended up paying just under $130.

I set it up with a couple of different pads and tried it out.

As I suspected, a lightweight pad (like, for example, the Evans Barney Beats pad) posed no issues and in fact chopping on it while in the stand was pretty nice. This is probably the configuration I’ll use most often when take the pad and stand to other places for extended chopping.

The true test came when I put my Drumslinger Marcher pad in the stand.

The heavier pad sits well in the basket when tensioned down. However, it’s a lot heavier than a simple rubber-on-MDF pad and the stand wobbled a tiny bit when I played assertively. Whether this is a matter of needing to spread the legs out a little more, or the fact that the basket was extended to nearly 34” from the floor (with perhaps a couple inches still inside the bottom half), is unclear and I’ll need to hang out with it a little longer. 

The stand is solidly built. However, it’s also mostly aluminum and offers weight reduction that may come at the expense of good weight distribution. This aluminum stand weighs 3.75 pounds; Yamaha’s standard concert snare stand (model S665) extends to the same height, is made of steel and weighs over 7 pounds. Depending on how heavy then object in the basket is, you may experience some unpleasant top-heaviness. Use discretion and be conservative in your choices.

I can see this working well with a standard concert snare drum, or even an old, much lighter field drum.

I would not put a modern marching snare drum on this stand; if you need to mount such a drum on a stand for stationary use, I’d go with a marching-specific stand made to work with your drum’s carry system and built to handle the extra weight. 

Full extension goes to no more than 35” tall, which is fine for a drummer of average height (I’m 5’ 7” and have no issues here.) A very tall drummer, over 6’ or more, will have a harder time making this stand work with a practice pad, but they could probably squeak by with a standard concert snare drum. I think that for the tallest drummers, an extension of some kind might be a good idea, though only with a stand whose legs extend outward far beyond the diameter of the pad or drum in use. Such an extension does not exist in the current Yamaha catalog, and would probably need to be made or retrofitted from an older piece of equipment.

I like the look and the ease of use. It remains to be seen how well the stand will travel and how durable it can be when used with a heavier, tunable pad. Bicycle frames made of aluminum tubing tend not to last as long as steel under the stresses of heavy, daily commuting. I wonder how well this hardware, intended as it is for light weight and portability, will fare in the long run.

Do I think it’s worth $130? I think that for my purposes, maybe. Probably. Your mileage may vary.

Happy drumming.

Good stuff department: Bay Ratz Marching Battery

This is my friend Brian. 

He runs a drumline program for kids in his town. 

As long as they show up and practice, being in the drumline is free.

Brian is cool.

The end.

Brian and I found each other on Facebook a few years back, when he grabbed a video of mine (an early rendition of my song “Count To Four”) and shared it with his drum students. He explained that he didn’t know who this was, but that the combination of singing and Rudimental chopping was proof that rudimental drumming could be an art form. I was flattered, and reached out. We became friends and ever since I’ve followed his adventures as an independent drumline instructor.

Brian founded Bay Ratz in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi about nine years ago, and the group became a fixture in the town. An introductory group called the Mice gives younger players their start in drumming. And as long as the kids practice and show up regularly, they can be in the Bay Ratz for free, with all instruments and instruction provided by Brian and his tiny nonprofit. It fit my vision of a totally grassroots program that heartened back to my time in drum corps, and I became a supporter of Brian and his vision.

Periodically, I gather up a stack of used drum pads found for free or cheap, and ship them to Brian so that new incoming members have something to practice on. I’ve been doing this for about four years now, and he’s taken to calling me the Drum Pad Fairy Godmother of the Bay Ratz. One year, he and his wife sent me a Mardi Gras gift box filled with beads and a Bay Ratz t-shirt.

There was a hiatus during the pandemic but now the group is back at it, rehearsing and performing around town. And I am gathering more pads and sticks for their kids, many of whom cannot afford to buy their own.

A group like this would have a tough time getting off the ground in Portland; it’s too liberal and independent a city and most inner city drummers here would rather just bang on a drum kit than take time to learn rudiments and march in parades. And I’m getting too creaky to create something like that here anyway. So I’m happy to support Brian and the Bay Ratz from afar.

If you have an old drum practice you don’t use anymore, please consider donating it to a youth music group where you live. Pads and sticks cost money, and a lot of these smaller groups literally run on a shoestring. Any help they can get helps a kid who wants to learn to make music, and that’s a very good thing.

Or, if you prefer, send it to Brian for his growing drumline. Reach out to him at the Bay Ratz FB Page.

Cheapskate’s Corner: drum dampener

Keo Percussion has offered this lovely drum dampener for a few years.

It’s basically a hunk of wood and rubber with some magnets attached on the backside, so the pad will adhere to the inside wall of the drum rim.

It’s a smart design, and I went looking for one.

The only one I found was being sold used on Reverb, for twenty bucks.

Then I tried finding one new and saw that they start at $35 retail. If you can find one.

Apparently, Keo Percussion recently shut down and their products are now quite hard to find.

After pondering my options, I decided to try and make something similar for myself.

Using scraps of leather, drum mute foam, cork and some magnets, I created a similar product.

Since I don’t have commercial cutting tools at home, the best I could do was to use sharp scissors and cut my chosen shape over and over for each layer. 

The results weren’t gorgeous but they lined up well enough for m e to glue the layers together and call it good. (I may paint a little glue around the edges to seal the cork and keep it from crumbling.)

What turned out to be slightly off-canter also added a nice accidental feature: I affixed the magnets so that the dampener could be set two different ways to adjust the degree of dampening, something the Keo version didn’t look like it offered. It’s a nice bonus, and it works really well.

Always Mister Brown

I first met Mel Brown as an eighth-grader when he came and taught a drumming clinic for all the drum students in our school district. He talked about rudiments and technique, gave some demonstrations, and then invited brave students to come up and try playing his kit.

Several boys went up, gulped, and tried their hand at playing various rock beats. Lots of fills, lots of notes, a couple dropped sticks and blushes, lots of big sounds.

I was the last student who came up. The only girl, of course (it was 1978), and the only one who asked if he could lend me a pair of brushes. I wasn’t very confident on the drum kit yet but I knew how to accompany my parents with brushes when they sang.

Mr. Brown smiled broadly as I laid down a simple brush beat and kept it going, with only an occasional fill.

When I finished, he shook my hand in both of his and said, “that was some lovely brush work. Please keep playing. Please.”

I walked on air for the rest of the afternoon.

I’ve seen him in jazz clubs in Portland and it was wonderful to see him the other night at Revival Drum Shop. And to this day, I can’t bring myself to call him Mel. He remains in my heart, lovingly and with deep respect, Mr. Brown.

 

 

NARD solo -- DeMolay, by Joseph Soistman

Some of the solos in the NARD book are hard. Some are moderate in difficulty. And some are fairly easy, like this little gem from Joseph Soistman. DeMolay requires you to be comfortable with flam taps, flamadiddles and 5-stroke rolls. The challenge is figuring out which sticking provides the smoothest transition between figures, and that is left up to the drummer. FUN!

Benevolent Bill

From the old Nard Solos book, so beloved by rudimental drummers that it’s still in print ninety years on.

On my Rudimental Control pad, which I enjoy more every time I chop on it, with Cooperman #10 sticks. A great combination.