(correction) The baseline was 95 dB four feet away from the kickdrum with a plastic beater. The foam beaters removed 13db. I’m being told because of the logarithmic way decibels work, that reduction is perceived cutting the volume in half. During the testing I noticed that you can spike some of those quiet beaters to plastic sound levels if you play REALLY hard, and bury the beater. So the volume can go even higher depending on how you play.
You put some serious effort and analysis into this, and it's greatly appreciated and respected. This vid was truly helpful and informative, and has affirmed that the tennis ball-beater will lessen the impact sound for me and make it less annoying and disturbing to others. Big thanks, and keep up the GREAT work.
Always good to have an option to help reduce noise! I don't need to change anything myself right now, but it's good to learn about new things, especially that DrumTec patch. Thanks for the great video!
I use a felt beater (with a kick drum patch) on a mesh head. I used to use a plastic beater on a mesh head and I can tell a major difference. Much quieter!
I see it's been about a year since you posted this; how has the mesh head held up? I'm new to drumming and read not to use felt with a mesh head. I have an electric kit and trying to get the kick quieter. Thanks.
One idea I am just now having... what about building your own silent BD head... like taking an ordinary one ply head, glue dampening material such as closed cell foam on the inside and mount a patch on the beating area. this should be quite low volume and it should feel more relaistic than a meshhead... I think I might try this out...
thanks you for the hard work on this Justin, looking to quiet an acoustic set and at least now I know that it won't be like a night and day difference ( spend 15 bucks and change your life ) so I can set my expectations accordingly.
I bought the DW Machine Chain Drive Double Pedals and love how quiet the 110 Control™ Weight/Impact Adjustable Beaters are. These are the standard beaters that come with the pedals.
Im thinking of getting the Roland td 25 kvx but with the zildjian gen 16 cymbals. I work at a Sam Ash and the other day I had to set up the gen 16 cymbals and they are super impressive
Was looking forward to see the soft Roland Kick Drum Beater. It is less about room noise, but about impact noise. I found that soft beaters do have an effect when minimising impact noise, which is hard to measure. The room noise is a factor too, sadly the R-Drums Beater is not available anymore, it would have won the battle. The room noise depends a lot on the surface combination of beater and pad. However, thanks for trying the beaters and for reporting, but I still have some critics regarding the setup. I would have ensured the pedal is properly attached to the kick pad. Else, the hitting angle is different, which has an influence on the volume too. ( and on the wear). Why have you not used your DB meter? Isn’t that more accurate than a mic and a DAW? It is actually hard to test them and compare them with each other. Same with the Noise Eaters.
If you watch the video all the way through, you can see the ranking photo where I mention I used my Decibel Meter for the test results. The video footage of the 40 kick/beater combinations, I merely showed the DAW audio meter as illustration. But that was not how I measured for the final result.
While a quiet kick drum can really affect the volume, I think the best way to reduce kick drum volume is to not bury the kick drum beater. Making it bounce back really makes a huge difference in volume and coupled with some noise eaters and a quiet bass drum beater will really cut down on the volume.
Great video Justin! Very informative! I'm thinking of buying a new e-drum but nothing beats the low sound of my Roland HD-3 kick bass pedal, unfortunately!
Thanks for all your videos. I'm thinking about buying a Roland td-17kvx2. Here's my question, I currently have a Tama acoustic kit that has a felt beater. Is it ok to turn the beater and use the plastic side? I know that felt shouldn't be used on a mesh but I can't find any info on what the kick drum is made of. Thank you
Justin, I have a suggestion for all our EDRUM guys and girls, something I use that I have never seen anybody else use, it is a Cajon beater it is blue in color made by Vic Firth and it works like a champ and very quiet, try you will like it
Hi man, I'm new to drums and thus to e-drums as well. I've been watching your videos for a while now and I've gotta say they have helped me a lot. Specially the one for making your e-drum quieter. I had a rubber bass drum and I sold it and buyed a mesh one in order to reduce the noise. I haven't received it yet but in the meantime I'm also interested in buying a tennis ball beater since they're also quieter than my current plastic beater. So, I have a question for you and I would really appreciate it if you can help me with this. I know (because of your videos) that felt beaters are mortal for mesh heads, so my question is: is it the same with tennis ball beaters? Will a tennis ball beater damage my mesh bass drum when used without a patch? If so, I also know (once again for your videos) that most patches will have problems adhering to mesh heads, so do you know about a patch that will stick firmly to my mesh head? And last, since my major goal here is to make my drums quieter, does it make sense to put a patch on a mesh head? Won't it increase the noise? I'm very sorry for the long post and also because I said I had one question and it ended up being several but I havent found this info online and I really need to reduce the noise from my e-drums. Thank you very much in advance. And thank you for all your excellent videos. They're really helpful. Regards.
I'm late i know, but just wanted to know if you would recommend the drum-tec sound absorbing beater with a drum-tec pro patch for a Roland Vad 507 kick drum? Or if not, what would u go with? And great video, thanks!
So the take away is, there's really no way to beat one object against another without making a lot of noise. Whenever my daughter complains about the noise of my electronic drum kit, I remind her to be thankful that I didn't go with acoustic!
Justin I'm a big fan of your works. Im planning to buy a Roland TD17kvx and I have Tama iron cobra power glide with felt beaters. Should I buy plastic beaters or patch for KD10? Thanks a lot
Well... reducing the noise by half is pretty good for that money. Also, it's also very helpful that the noise of the "silent beaters" is a lot "softer" in its frequency. On top of that, it would be interesting to see how these affect "impact noise" going directly into the floor, but that's pretty much impossible to measure, I think.
@@Zacknorris-d5p reduction by 10db means reduction of noise by a factor of 10, as the db scale is exponential not linear. Meaning: -10db = 10 times quieter -20db = 10*10= 100 times quieter Etc...
@@cc-bj9kv Dude I understand about DB, I’m electronic engineer, I’m talking about real life perception. I tried the silent beater and they don’t reduce noise by half in real world. This is acoustics, very complex to analyze to just what Justin did.
Great video Justin. I do also have the Drum Tec silence beaters and the protection dot but they are unfortunately not heavy duty. Especially the protection dot 😎👍👊
Just a quick question, I bought the drum tec Sound-Absorbing-Beater but I feel theyre not weighty enough, would a shaft counter weight be ideal in this situation?
Do you have a video or an opinion on how to best prolong the life of a Roland mesh kick drum head? I tried the Falam Slam pad but it peels up on the edges and eventually the plastic beater wears through the outer layer where the adhesive gets exposed and the beater starts sticking. Reviews on the Drum Tec pad say it wears through quickly.
Not so much a volume question but knowing you have the Roland bass drum conversion head, do you feel the drum patch is necessary to prolong the life or change the beater only?
I get that these aren't much of a help overall BUT... I'm currently using whatever stock beaters come on the Tama Speed Cobra 310 double pedal. Would one of these at least be a help over what I have now? Would it be worth getting?
Appreciate your efforts, however it would have been quite helpful if you had included the eDrums sound for each test too to evaluate the sensor triggering performance of each one.
I get what you’re asking, but this video was just about the noise level. You can get good triggering results from any kick drum beater. You just have to mess with the settings.
On my TD17 kvx the plastic Roland beater (KDB120) has some fast bouncing. (Resulting in a fast double trigger sometimes) Is the KDB200 less bouncy? Or is there another good alternative?
Ive seen other youtubers review stuff off cheap aliexpress products.. Can you do some video also on this? there are some interesting beaters there even silicon pads and full aluminium ones it would be interesting to see comparison to the more popular beaters
Hey man, I got a question: I got a new e-drum kit, and it was already expensive enough, so I can't just by new modules, cables pads and stuff. So, as I wanted to add a splash, I thought about getting a acoustic splash and add it to the kit. Does that work, or will it not be audible/ to loud?
No offense but I don't understand the logic here. A regular acoustic cymbal added to an electronic kit? It wouldn't come through the audio output with the rest of the kit.
I am just wondering, did you (or anyone else) try TAMA BSQ10S and what is your experience with that one? From what I have seen so far it shows a lot of promise of actually being quiet in earnest.
I would like to know what beater will absorb the shock. I have a Roland kd-8 and it hurts to play for very long because it's like kicking a tree or worse. I'm looking into getting a different kick pad because of it. If I can get a beater to absorb the shock it would save me money, the pad itself works great, it's just too hard.
I have the same bass pad but I' don't feel it particularly hard as you describe... Well, I use mine with a KT Silent beater (Justin showed one in the video) is a tenis ball kind but is made like of sort of soft rubber and I would say that makes the feel less hard, absorbes part of the hit and a is bit quieter too
This was interesting. I'd never really considered the noise coming off of my kick drum beater. I've been using the stock beaters that come with Axis pedals since I got them back in... 2012? My Jobeky cymbals are so noisy that it really isn't a factor for me. Great video though! This is great info for the guys and gals who jam where every bit of noise is an issue. I also learned to stay as far away as possible from the foam tipped beaters. HAHA! By the way... Nice shirt!
@@65Drums for no reason I ordered the foam roland one that's in your video.i will Do a comparison when I get it . I have a kd9 .and a dw 3000 kick pedal
@@65Drums I just posted a video Comparison of the r drums soft beater vs roland soft beater. If you want to check it out. It's the only video I ever posted. Live the r drums soft beater is Quieter. The roland had a slap sound to it.
Might be true. perceived volume is not that clear, -6db is half the sound pressure I think,. Just got that rule of thumb in my head about 10 db being about half the perceived volume.
(correction)
The baseline was 95 dB four feet away from the kickdrum with a plastic beater. The foam beaters removed 13db. I’m being told because of the logarithmic way decibels work, that reduction is perceived cutting the volume in half. During the testing I noticed that you can spike some of those quiet beaters to plastic sound levels if you play REALLY hard, and bury the beater. So the volume can go even higher depending on how you play.
Every time I have a problem/query with my kit. You have a video for it. You're the man Justin, keep doing what you do
You put some serious effort and analysis into this, and it's greatly appreciated and respected. This vid was truly helpful and informative, and has affirmed that the tennis ball-beater will lessen the impact sound for me and make it less annoying and disturbing to others. Big thanks, and keep up the GREAT work.
Always good to have an option to help reduce noise! I don't need to change anything myself right now, but it's good to learn about new things, especially that DrumTec patch. Thanks for the great video!
Thanks for going through all of these beaters in detail and comparing the drum-tec patch, super helpful!
You sir, are a genuine scientist
thank your for all your awesome content about quiet drumming really helped me alot deciding on my new drum kit for my apartment cheers!
I use a felt beater (with a kick drum patch) on a mesh head. I used to use a plastic beater on a mesh head and I can tell a major difference. Much quieter!
I see it's been about a year since you posted this; how has the mesh head held up? I'm new to drumming and read not to use felt with a mesh head. I have an electric kit and trying to get the kick quieter. Thanks.
Steve McFadden well technically he’s not using felt on mesh since the head has a patch.
What kick drum are you using?
You're very thorough. Maybe you missed your calling as a lab scientist. Thanks for the video!
Nice! I'm sure this was a lot of work
It took freaking forever
Well it's appreciated.
Wow - this one was a lot of work. Thanks so much!!
Thanks Justin, I appreciate all your effort.
Thanks!
One idea I am just now having... what about building your own silent BD head... like taking an ordinary one ply head, glue dampening material such as closed cell foam on the inside and mount a patch on the beating area. this should be quite low volume and it should feel more relaistic than a meshhead... I think I might try this out...
Thanks for test! I thought there would be more of a difference, but I guess it isn't too surprising. I got my Evans patches $6 for 2!
thanks you for the hard work on this Justin, looking to quiet an acoustic set and at least now I know that it won't be like a night and day difference ( spend 15 bucks and change your life ) so I can set my expectations accordingly.
I bought the DW Machine Chain Drive Double Pedals and love how quiet the 110 Control™ Weight/Impact Adjustable Beaters are. These are the standard beaters that come with the pedals.
Thanks! Great testing!
-10 dB is equivalent to cutting loudness in half. So -13dB is more reduction in loudness than that.
More than half, 6db reduction is cutting it in half. -13b is a over a quarter reduction in loudness.
Thanks for this use full test!!
Awesome and helpful video! Cheers! :)
Im using Roland KD-9 Kick pad, Gibraltar tennis-ball beater (SC-GBBB) and patch Evans (EQPB2)... Rebound and noise is perfect.
Doing God's work. What an extensive experiment. Thank you!
Im thinking of getting the Roland td 25 kvx but with the zildjian gen 16 cymbals. I work at a Sam Ash and the other day I had to set up the gen 16 cymbals and they are super impressive
Was looking forward to see the soft Roland Kick Drum Beater. It is less about room noise, but about impact noise. I found that soft beaters do have an effect when minimising impact noise, which is hard to measure. The room noise is a factor too, sadly the R-Drums Beater is not available anymore, it would have won the battle. The room noise depends a lot on the surface combination of beater and pad.
However, thanks for trying the beaters and for reporting, but I still have some critics regarding the setup. I would have ensured the pedal is properly attached to the kick pad. Else, the hitting angle is different, which has an influence on the volume too. ( and on the wear). Why have you not used your DB meter? Isn’t that more accurate than a mic and a DAW? It is actually hard to test them and compare them with each other. Same with the Noise Eaters.
If you watch the video all the way through, you can see the ranking photo where I mention I used my Decibel Meter for the test results. The video footage of the 40 kick/beater combinations, I merely showed the DAW audio meter as illustration. But that was not how I measured for the final result.
Great video ! It helped a lot ! Tks !
Thanks for stopping by :)
While a quiet kick drum can really affect the volume, I think the best way to reduce kick drum volume is to not bury the kick drum beater. Making it bounce back really makes a huge difference in volume and coupled with some noise eaters and a quiet bass drum beater will really cut down on the volume.
Great review Justin. I also have the drum tec silent beaters for almost 4 years. Only one is worn out.
Great video on the drum beaters, however can you please make one on the actual comparison for softest sounding e drum kick pad itself?
Great video Justin! Very informative! I'm thinking of buying a new e-drum but nothing beats the low sound of my Roland HD-3 kick bass pedal, unfortunately!
That's true, that kit is incredibly quiet
Thanks for all your videos. I'm thinking about buying a Roland td-17kvx2. Here's my question, I currently have a Tama acoustic kit that has a felt beater. Is it ok to turn the beater and use the plastic side? I know that felt shouldn't be used on a mesh but I can't find any info on what the kick drum is made of. Thank you
Justin, I have a suggestion for all our EDRUM guys and girls, something I use that I have never seen anybody else use, it is a Cajon beater it is blue in color made by Vic Firth and it works like a champ and very quiet, try you will like it
Hi man!Do you use it on rubber or mesh kick pad?
Good video ,would also be interesting to see how these compare to a reg felt beater on a patched mesh head in the future.
I use that right now, it is very quiet
Same here i was just curious is the special quiet beaters made any difference
Hi man, I'm new to drums and thus to e-drums as well. I've been watching your videos for a while now and I've gotta say they have helped me a lot. Specially the one for making your e-drum quieter. I had a rubber bass drum and I sold it and buyed a mesh one in order to reduce the noise. I haven't received it yet but in the meantime I'm also interested in buying a tennis ball beater since they're also quieter than my current plastic beater. So, I have a question for you and I would really appreciate it if you can help me with this. I know (because of your videos) that felt beaters are mortal for mesh heads, so my question is: is it the same with tennis ball beaters? Will a tennis ball beater damage my mesh bass drum when used without a patch? If so, I also know (once again for your videos) that most patches will have problems adhering to mesh heads, so do you know about a patch that will stick firmly to my mesh head? And last, since my major goal here is to make my drums quieter, does it make sense to put a patch on a mesh head? Won't it increase the noise? I'm very sorry for the long post and also because I said I had one question and it ended up being several but I havent found this info online and I really need to reduce the noise from my e-drums. Thank you very much in advance. And thank you for all your excellent videos. They're really helpful. Regards.
I have the exactly same doubts! Have you got any kind of answer, dude?
I'm late i know, but just wanted to know if you would recommend the drum-tec sound absorbing beater with a drum-tec pro patch for a Roland Vad 507 kick drum? Or if not, what would u go with? And great video, thanks!
So the take away is, there's really no way to beat one object against another without making a lot of noise.
Whenever my daughter complains about the noise of my electronic drum kit, I remind her to be thankful that I didn't go with acoustic!
Justin I'm a big fan of your works. Im planning to buy a Roland TD17kvx and I have Tama iron cobra power glide with felt beaters. Should I buy plastic beaters or patch for KD10?
Thanks a lot
Well... reducing the noise by half is pretty good for that money. Also, it's also very helpful that the noise of the "silent beaters" is a lot "softer" in its frequency.
On top of that, it would be interesting to see how these affect "impact noise" going directly into the floor, but that's pretty much impossible to measure, I think.
It doesn´t reduce it by half, you are lucky if it gets reduced by more than a 15 to 20%
@@Zacknorris-d5p reduction by 10db means reduction of noise by a factor of 10, as the db scale is exponential not linear. Meaning: -10db = 10 times quieter
-20db = 10*10= 100 times quieter
Etc...
@@cc-bj9kv Dude I understand about DB, I’m electronic engineer, I’m talking about real life perception. I tried the silent beater and they don’t reduce noise by half in real world. This is acoustics, very complex to analyze to just what Justin did.
Great video Justin. I do also have the Drum Tec silence beaters and the protection dot but they are unfortunately not heavy duty. Especially the protection dot 😎👍👊
Just a quick question, I bought the drum tec Sound-Absorbing-Beater but I feel theyre not weighty enough, would a shaft counter weight be ideal in this situation?
Do you have a video or an opinion on how to best prolong the life of a Roland mesh kick drum head? I tried the Falam Slam pad but it peels up on the edges and eventually the plastic beater wears through the outer layer where the adhesive gets exposed and the beater starts sticking. Reviews on the Drum Tec pad say it wears through quickly.
Not so much a volume question but knowing you have the Roland bass drum conversion head, do you feel the drum patch is necessary to prolong the life or change the beater only?
I get that these aren't much of a help overall BUT...
I'm currently using whatever stock beaters come on the Tama Speed Cobra 310 double pedal.
Would one of these at least be a help over what I have now? Would it be worth getting?
Appreciate your efforts, however it would have been quite helpful if you had included the eDrums sound for each test too to evaluate the sensor triggering performance of each one.
I get what you’re asking, but this video was just about the noise level. You can get good triggering results from any kick drum beater. You just have to mess with the settings.
On my TD17 kvx the plastic Roland beater (KDB120) has some fast bouncing. (Resulting in a fast double trigger sometimes) Is the KDB200 less bouncy? Or is there another good alternative?
Watch the video till the end, I do a bouncy comparison of all the kickdrum beaters
@@65Drums Ah I see. Thx! :)
Ive seen other youtubers review stuff off cheap aliexpress products.. Can you do some video also on this? there are some interesting beaters there even silicon pads and full aluminium ones it would be interesting to see comparison to the more popular beaters
dB is not the only important value. Also frequency is because some noise is more annoying or travels farther through walls and floors.
Hey man, I got a question: I got a new e-drum kit, and it was already expensive enough, so I can't just by new modules, cables pads and stuff. So, as I wanted to add a splash, I thought about getting a acoustic splash and add it to the kit. Does that work, or will it not be audible/ to loud?
No offense but I don't understand the logic here. A regular acoustic cymbal added to an electronic kit? It wouldn't come through the audio output with the rest of the kit.
@@CthulhuForCocoaPuffs I know, but I guess it would be loud enough itself
I am just wondering, did you (or anyone else) try TAMA BSQ10S and what is your experience with that one? From what I have seen so far it shows a lot of promise of actually being quiet in earnest.
Would be awesome if you could try the tama soft beater, I cant find any good video of it
I would like to know what beater will absorb the shock. I have a Roland kd-8 and it hurts to play for very long because it's like kicking a tree or worse.
I'm looking into getting a different kick pad because of it. If I can get a beater to absorb the shock it would save me money, the pad itself works great, it's just too hard.
I have the same bass pad but I' don't feel it particularly hard as you describe... Well, I use mine with a KT Silent beater (Justin showed one in the video) is a tenis ball kind but is made like of sort of soft rubber and I would say that makes the feel less hard, absorbes part of the hit and a is bit quieter too
Beats by Jay Shirt 😎 The bass drum patch is first and foremost made for protecting the mesh head, I‘d assume.
haha you noticed ;) and yes I'd agree the patch is great for protecting kick drum heads
Personally I think the tennis ball beater is a good, cheap option. Feels pretty good too.
Hey I just wanted to ask can I use like a headset I use for gaming for drumming?
Yes
This was interesting. I'd never really considered the noise coming off of my kick drum beater. I've been using the stock beaters that come with Axis pedals since I got them back in... 2012? My Jobeky cymbals are so noisy that it really isn't a factor for me. Great video though! This is great info for the guys and gals who jam where every bit of noise is an issue. I also learned to stay as far away as possible from the foam tipped beaters. HAHA! By the way... Nice shirt!
I love axis pedals are amazing. I agree, with metal cymbals, a quiet kick beater isn't worth getting. And thanks, I like that shirt!
The r drum foam beater is great but sadly they don't make it anymore
I would have liked to test them :) but yes they stopped making them :(
@@65Drums for no reason I ordered the foam roland one that's in your video.i will Do a comparison when I get it . I have a kd9 .and a dw 3000 kick pedal
@@65Drums I just posted a video Comparison of the r drums soft beater vs roland soft beater. If you want to check it out. It's the only video I ever posted. Live the r drums soft beater is Quieter. The roland had a slap sound to it.
what is safest for the drum?
Do a video on different patches. I seen reviews saying some slide and leave a mess and some chew thru your (felt) heads
Justin reveiw the new budget roland drums please 😢😢🙌
There's a simple solution to this: put a towel over the kick pad, and adjust the volume & sensitivity. Do this if low volume is the top priority
Remo flam patch with felt side on dw beater on my kd-10. 🤓
NeewollaH * take off the patch, will be much quieter
First :) and nice video.
Thanks!
Lol , they all sounded the same to my girlfriend and that's the only opinion that matters since that's the only reason I would care about noise levels
-12db is actually about half the volume..
Even a bit more. It´s a logarithmic scale
The baseline was 95 dB for a plastic beater. I’m saying the foam beaters removed 12 decibels of that.
I got that. But 85 dB is perceived as half as loud as 95 dB.
Tannenbert Half would be -6db. -10db is actually 10 times quieter.
Might be true. perceived volume is not that clear, -6db is half the sound pressure I think,. Just got that rule of thumb in my head about 10 db being about half the perceived volume.