I checked out the drum mutes, which would indeed quiet things down but just sit on the drums – there’s no adhesive or anything. They’ll inevitably fall off after you hit them 3 times unless you glue them down tight with something.
Not being a huge crafts guy, any recommendations on what kind of glue would provide a pretty solid grip but not be completely permanent? (For reference sake, imagine you’re trying to attach a sponge to something.)
What about just a wrap around elastic, like a drum cozy?
rubber cement is non permanent
The drum mutes are a no-go. They certainly quieted things, but they work too well – they were absorbing so much shock and preventing hits from being registered that I could barely get x2 streaks going or pick up energy phrases. I’ll probably shoot for some middle ground where I put some soft material on the drum heads to quiet them just a little.
Get thee to a Michael’s craft store, stat!
This would be my worry. As another poster mentioned somewhere around here, you really want the bounce, even though I’ve yet to see anything like a roll yet. Without a good surface that provides bounce, it’ll make things quite tiring.
Yeah I went the mouse pad route (went to Guitar Center and noticed that the drum mutes were the same exact material as mouse pads) and noticed that you really have to beat on the them to get them to register sometimes. Particularly with the red drum. I might try to tape it down so that it is closer to the sensor.
Staples had some round mouse pads on sale for $.50.
We just wrapped the drumsticks tips in tissues and tape and that worked quite well for us.
Yeah I went the mouse pad route (went to Guitar Center and noticed that the drum mutes were the same exact material as mouse pads) and noticed that you really have to beat on the them to get them to register sometimes.
So based on this experience and Sluggo’s, I guess neoprene is out. Too much damping.
Go to a craft store and get a two foot square sheet of black felt, the same size sheet of some thin black plastic foam padding that kids use to make cut out crafts with, and some rubber cement.
This is good, I’ll hit up the local Michael’s over the weekend. Can you be more specific on the plastic foam padding?
I’ll probably shoot for some middle ground where I put some soft material on the drum heads to quiet them just a little
I tried with some thinnish fleece material my wife had on hand-- we had to fold it twice (four layers) to get any real audible reduction. I only have my PC here, so it’s hard to tell how this would affect hits regeistering. I have the simple hacked drum driver installed, but the Vista game controller test dialog only shows drum hits for a fraction of a second even with no fleece… I guess that’s what you’d expect with drums but it makes it very hard to see the effect of the fleece fabric… so who knows.
I’ll take it to work and experiment. I think fabric could be tied on from underneath the drums using shoelaces or whatever.
After further play last night I’m really liking the mouse pads. The dampening effect and loss of sensitivity is less of an issue than I originally thought. It’s only taken a slight adjustment to get back to the scores I was getting before (I’m only playing on medium though).
Anyways, I was able to keep playing with some headphones after my wife went to bed, that’s really the only thing that matters. :-)
OK, so I should hit up Staples and look for these circular mouse pads?
Are we talking the really thin ones? I have an office depot nearby and the promise of an instant solution is very appealing. Do you just set them on top or is glue needed?
Yeah they are thin mouse pads. About 1/2 cm I’d say. Any kind of tape I tried to use to secure them to the drum pad didn’t work. That drum pad surface is kind of rubbery and tape didn’t like it. I ended up just using some black electrical tape on top of the mouse pad and on to the edge of the drum pad. You can’t just set them on the drums because they’ll fall off.
You also want to make sure that they sit nice and flat on the drum because any space between the mouse pad and the drum is going to cause a slapping sound which kind of defeats the purpose.
Here’s the mouse pad I used:
http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StaplesProductDisplay?&langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&productId=87870&cmArea=SEARCH
They had some the same size with wacky patterns on them that were only $.50. But they only had 2 left.
Link appears to be broken, even on Staples’ site… is it this one? Appears to be the only round pad they sell, but it’s a house brand which implies they’d have permanent stock…
Staples Round Mouse Pad
Item 502501
Model 15902
Provides excellent accuracy
Non-slip backing
Durable material
Just got back from Staples. These $2.98 Staples round mouse pads look ideal! Great find CharlesC!
Measured the dimensions with my Schaedler ruler-- they are 8 1/2" diameter, 1/8" thick. Very thin fabic layer over neoprene.
Someone was actually playing drums during lunch when I came back, so I slid it over the yellow drum. Definitely works-- I noticed a significant decrease in drum hit noise-- and he was hitting all the same stuff with it in place (albeit only on Medium).
So far so good. I need to trim these to fit, perhaps using the trick described above… and figure out a way to attach them. Did I hear rubber cement?
Can’t take credit for it. I saw it on another forum. I just used a compass and scissors to trim them, a bit sloppy but it got the job done.
Also, you guys shamed me with your clown nose comments about the red plasti-dip. I got some black to try on the Xplorer guitar buttons-- which worked reasonably well-- so I re-dipped everything in a hopefully cooler looking black.
I also realized I dipped the sticks wayyy too much*, so I cut off the old dipped heads (surprisingly easy) and re-dipped just 5 times vs. the 10 times prior.
You bastards.
Update on the Staples round mouse pads.
I ghetto-taped them on, as is, to try during tonight’s play session just to see what happens. I don’t want to undertake a potentially permanent glue mod until I know it’s going to work.
Conclusion? EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE!
The thin round neoprene mousepads are far more effective than anything I’ve done with the stick tips. This one change probably muted the sound by 60% or more. It is a dramatic and unarguable noise reduction. You can actually hear the goddamn music now, and not a mind-numbing, repetitive, sometimes erratic tok tok tok a tok tok. OMG so much better.
Best mod ever. Get yourself to Staples! Warning, though… my closest Staples only had 3; I cleaned them out. They did a stock check for me, and I gotta drive to the Pinole Staples to get more.
I’m gonna cut them down to size now, and glue them on using the recommended (theoretically reversible though I have my doubts) rubber cement I just purchased. I got my compass and xacto knives ready.
I realize this is going in the opposite direction of drum quieting, but if anyone comes up with a way to use an actual drum kit with Rock Band, post it here, eh? I wonder if the sensors in the RB drum kit can be attached to heads of real drums…
The real drums I have in my den (if you can call a Rhythm Traveller kit “real”) is the main thing preventing me from getting the RB bundle (well, there’s also the price).
jb