Thoughts on no-rebound practice pads?

M

Musicsucks

Member
Hey all;
I’m thinking about getting one of those moongel practice pads. I’ve always been opposed on principle to practicing on pillows. Aside from losing a certain musicality and focus on making the stick volumes even- it seems to me that pad is all about learning how to use the rebound as efficiently as possible. I get the idea of making things harder to develop speed and endurance, but it also seems like creating the rebound yourself is qualitatively different that using the bounce of the drumstick and I’d worry that playing on a soft surface would encourage a different technique and maybe even a tighter grip.

BUT, I like the idea of a quieter pad, and my old man wrists could use a break from my hard-ass sabian quiet tone. I have no interest in being able to play louder than I do now, but it would be rad to be able to play a ‘lil bit faster. Maybe if I could learn to do a passable drop-catch on the softpad it would finally translate onto the kit the way I want it to.

Does anyone have any experiences with them? Strong opinions?
 
I like the old black rubber Gladstone pad. the round rubber
that can fit into a drum 14" head - or better put - on a simple stand thru the mid point
 
Last edited:
LOVE the moongel pad. I have a couple around the house. Including this one (see pic) set right between my stand-up desk and eliptical.

mgPad.jpg

Definitely a great investment. For your technique AND household harmony.

Re concerns of developing a tighter grip. I can't see that happening. If anything, the moongel pad loosened my already loose grip and dialed in my fingers.
 
I'm a fan. Never tried the moon gel one but I love the Meinl marshmallow pad. Not totally lacking rebound but less rebound than a snare. I find that practicing on anything with more rebound than a snare makes me lazy when back at the snare.
 
I see the point of those but would never purchase for my own use.

Most sense to me is to get one closest to how I keep my own snares tensioned. On that front, the best I found closest to my regular snare head tension is a 14" Aquarian Super Pad Low-Volume.
 
I've got a moongel pad, but much prefer brushes on a snare drum or on a quiet tone pad. Good for wrists and getting off the drum.
 
I use a 14" moongel for most of my practice. It suits me for low volume stick brush practice. It also turns a snare and stand into a fetching occasional table with soft touch, durable, wide-clean top (seriously)

I can put a record/metronome on at a neighbour/family friendly volume and work on rudiments and time feel. As a bonus, its good for near silent gravity roll practice

It has changed my sound when playing out. For some reason I get a crisper tone out of drums and cymbals especially at low volumes.

Not good for closed rolls
 
Closed rolls are definitely easier to learn on a firmer surface.

For me the feel on the moongel pad was like playing a closed roll on a large floor tom. Once my hands adjusted to the feel of the moongel, the rolls were no problem.

Maybe the exposure to timpani in my younger classical days helped.
 
I feel like these are still the "safest" quiet pad out there.


RealFeel Apprentice Drum Pad | Percussion | D'Addario

The EVANS RealFeel Apprentice practice pads are the most popular option available. These single-sided pads are compact and lightweight for maximum portability.
www.daddario.com

Safest meaning that they are not so soft that you will develop hard tissue damage after playing on them for a while. In my 30+ years of teaching, I have had so many people come to me after using a pillow/moon-gel type pad and ask about "pain when I play drums now". It is almost always becasue of using those types of pads with incorrect technique, or the popular "heavier sticks to build strength" thing.
 
Xstr8edgtnrdrmrX said:
In my 30+ years of teaching, I have had so many people come to me after using a pillow/moon-gel type pad and ask about "pain when I play drums now". It is almost always becasue of using those types of pads with incorrect technique, or the popular "heavier sticks to build strength" thing.
Click to expand...
It took me forever to realize that the point of using big sticks was to get maximum rebound and play with a light, floating touch. Before then, I couldn't understand why anyone would use them. The whole "building strength" think never made sense. I mean, they're drum sticks. It's not like it takes big muscles to pick up drum sticks.

I still can't understand why anyone would practice on pillows or gel pads. What's a good approach for using those?
 
I built my own pad from foam and plush material. I use it once in a while mostly for developing full swing of my wrists, not for finger technique. The pad does have some bounce so should I accidentally start to use my fingers it is forgiving. However, I have not used a gel pad, but it would make me a little nervous as I believe it has the potential to harm if not very careful when practicing. That's just my $0.02 ...
 
Musicsucks said:
Hey all;
I’m thinking about getting one of those moongel practice pads. I’ve always been opposed on principle to practicing on pillows. Aside from losing a certain musicality and focus on making the stick volumes even- it seems to me that pad is all about learning how to use the rebound as efficiently as possible. I get the idea of making things harder to develop speed and endurance, but it also seems like creating the rebound yourself is qualitatively different that using the bounce of the drumstick and I’d worry that playing on a soft surface would encourage a different technique and maybe even a tighter grip.

BUT, I like the idea of a quieter pad, and my old man wrists could use a break from my hard-ass sabian quiet tone. I have no interest in being able to play louder than I do now, but it would be rad to be able to play a ‘lil bit faster. Maybe if I could learn to do a passable drop-catch on the softpad it would finally translate onto the kit the way I want it to.

Does anyone have any experiences with them? Strong opinions?
Click to expand...
I don’t know what you mean by “creating the rebound yourself.” Not sure there is such a thing. IMO, you have it right when you say that the “pad is all about learning how to use the rebound as efficiently as possible.” Although there is a certain amount of muscle conditioning needed to execute good stick technique, the technique itself is much more important, more sustainable, and, once achieved, needs much less ongoing maintenance than muscle conditioning.

PS: Another issue is the risk repetitive motion/overuse injury such as lateral and/or medial epicondylitis (tennis elbow/golfers elbow), from repeatedly muscling out rudiments and stickings on a low/no rebound surface.
 
Last edited:
TMe said:
It took me forever to realize that the point of using big sticks was to get maximum rebound and play with a light, floating touch. Before then, I couldn't understand why anyone would use them. The whole "building strength" think never made sense. I mean, they're drum sticks. It's not like it takes big muscles to pick up drum sticks.

I still can't understand why anyone would practice on pillows or gel pads. What's a good approach for using those?
Click to expand...

well, from my own experience back in the 70's, people thought "if you played on a surface with no rebound, you would develop the stregnth to have more rebound when you played on a reboundy surface......" :oops:o_O🤔 My first drum teacher had me do it, and it was....well....stupid? I felt like it was saying "to be better at golf, you should play chess, so that you can read the greens better, and anticipate where the ball is going to go, because you have to anticipate moves in chess"

for me, the addition of tempo, on a regular feeling surface, is what builds the strength and dexterity needed to play with better rebound. Slowly speeding up warm ups adds that ability

just like practicing on a golf course is what makes your golf game better....
 
Xstr8edgtnrdrmrX said:
well, from my own experience back in the 70's, people thought "if you played on a surface with no rebound, you would develop the stregnth to have more rebound when you played on a reboundy surface......" :oops:o_O🤔 My first drum teacher had me do it, and it was....well....stupid? I felt like it was saying "to be better at golf, you should play chess, so that you can read the greens better, and anticipate where the ball is going to go, because you have to anticipate moves in chess"

for me, the addition of tempo, on a regular feeling surface, is what builds the strength and dexterity needed to play with better rebound. Slowly speeding up warm ups adds that ability

just like practicing on a golf course is what makes your golf game better....
Click to expand...
I disagree with this. Training with rebound is important but also practicing without rebound will give you the ability to play fast louder with more control and move around the kit with greater ease. Keep in mind that different drums have different levels of rebound. If you're handed a low tuned snare are you just going to accept you can't play fast since it's not as easy as with a high tuned snare?
 
Xstr8edgtnrdrmrX said:
I feel like these are still the "safest" quiet pad out there.


RealFeel Apprentice Drum Pad | Percussion | D'Addario

The EVANS RealFeel Apprentice practice pads are the most popular option available. These single-sided pads are compact and lightweight for maximum portability.
www.daddario.com

Safest meaning that they are not so soft that you will develop hard tissue damage after playing on them for a while. In my 30+ years of teaching, I have had so many people come to me after using a pillow/moon-gel type pad and ask about "pain when I play drums now". It is almost always becasue of using those types of pads with incorrect technique, or the popular "heavier sticks to build strength" thing.
Click to expand...
RealFeel was good for me starting out but I've only had negative results as my technique has improved. There's just so much more rebound than anything on the kit and it really forces you to hold the stick loosely (or face pain), moreso than you could playing anything on the kit. It's just not worth the trouble to me. I'd rather practice in the rebound range of drum set snare--floor tom rather than something responding with insane rebound like a marching snare (as I never play one). However, I'd say if you start out holding the stick too tight like most people it's probably the best thing to break the habit.
 
Philaiy9 said:
I disagree with this. Training with rebound is important but also practicing without rebound will give you the ability to play fast louder with more control and move around the kit with greater ease. Keep in mind that different drums have different levels of rebound. If you're handed a low tuned snare are you just going to accept you can't play fast since it's not as easy as with a high tuned snare?
Click to expand...

this has happened with none of the students I have worked with over the last 30 years....

all I have experienced with people who do this is undoing a lot of stiffness and tension when they play, and/or dealing with tendonitis/carpal tunel.

Granted, most of them were told just to do it, and not told how to interact with the surface by whichever entity got them doing it, so it was probably more of a flaw in the education than the implements, but still. If you did that, and were able to glean purely positive results, with no pain, than that is great!!

and I am not refuting that we need to learn how to alter our interaction given the different drum tensions. <--- This leads me to another thing to think about: how often do we need to play fast, intricate stuff on looser tuned/rebounding drums? I think this was part pf a discussion in another thread years back. The idea that we need to play fast, intricate passages on a loosley tuned drum was the question...how often does that happen? Personally, I play metal and punk mostly....pretty fast tempos. But I have never needed my "marching chops" on my floor tom. It is not a timbre that calls for fast playing. And same with my snares...if I know I am going to do fast stuff, I don't use my loosely tuned snare because I (personally) don't feel like that kind of playing sounds good on a looser drum

so in the end, I absolutely agree that we should be prepared to play on any surface, but I just caution about the way we get there...
 
Xstr8edgtnrdrmrX said:
this has happened with none of the students I have worked with over the last 30 years....

all I have experienced with people who do this is undoing a lot of stiffness and tension when they play, and/or dealing with tendonitis/carpal tunel.

Granted, most of them were told just to do it, and not told how to interact with the surface by whichever entity got them doing it, so it was probably more of a flaw in the education than the implements, but still. If you did that, and were able to glean purely positive results, with no pain, than that is great!!

and I am not refuting that we need to learn how to alter our interaction given the different drum tensions. <--- This leads me to another thing to think about: how often do we need to play fast, intricate stuff on looser tuned/rebounding drums? I think this was part pf a discussion in another thread years back. The idea that we need to play fast, intricate passages on a loosley tuned drum was the question...how often does that happen? Personally, I play metal and punk mostly....pretty fast tempos. But I have never needed my "marching chops" on my floor tom. It is not a timbre that calls for fast playing. And same with my snares...if I know I am going to do fast stuff, I don't use my loosely tuned snare because I (personally) don't feel like that kind of playing sounds good on a looser drum

so in the end, I absolutely agree that we should be prepared to play on any surface, but I just caution about the way we get there...
Click to expand...
Fair enough, it seems there are different ways to skin the metaphorical cat. I like to (try to) play melodic single stroke rolls around the toms ala Tony Williams and the no rebound practice helps with that. But you're right, it's not essential to have that ability.
 
Philaiy9 said:
...practicing without rebound will give you the ability to play fast louder with more control and move around the kit with greater ease.
Click to expand...
Do you think that's because playing on soft surfaces makes it easier to isolate a Moeller type whip motion? Moeller really helped my playing when I was bashing. I learned it by practicing with exaggerated motion, and I can see how soft surfaces might help to isolate that from finger technique, or just help to isolate wrist technique from finger technique.
 
TMe said:
Do you think that's because playing on soft surfaces makes it easier to isolate a Moeller type whip motion? Moeller really helped my playing when I was bashing. I learned it by practicing with exaggerated motion, and I can see how soft surfaces might help to isolate that from finger technique, or just help to isolate wrist technique from finger technique.
Click to expand...
Not Moeller, as from my understanding that utilizes rebound. But it for sure helps with wrist technique and teaching your hands to give the stick a little lift when it's needed. I got that from Alan Dawson--he taught this using brushes but it's the same principle.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top