ZJTL KAT Percussion KT-TBB Silent Strike Bass Drum Beater, Black,Silver

MY NEW FAVORITE!!!
AWESOME BEATER!While searching for a solution to lower the volume of my drum kit, I came across these silent strike beaters..While I experimented through trial and error to lower my drum kit volume but not sacrifice tone or playability I discovered a combination of things that may help anyone trying to lower the volume of any acoustical drum kit. So before I explain why I approve of these Kat silent beaters allow me to explain my set up.ALL RACK TOMS:I use Evans Hydraulic heads for my resonant heads ( both resonant & batter when playing at full volume)I USE BOTH (REMO silent stroke Mesh heads & REMO MUFF’LS) at the SAME TIME! for my batter heads… WHY you ask ?I found that the Remo silent stroke heads alone were too quiet (like striking a pillow of air with no tonal response) So try to use silent stroke heads in conjunction with MUFF’LS..What you will find is a lower volume shell but you retain tone and your shells will sound like drums again, just at a lover volume. you can experiment with the resonant tension and batter tension to achieve the desired pitch. This solved my needs and so I try and share this as much as possible when I can.BASS DRUMS (2) 22″I use EVANS hydraulic batter heads in conjunction with REMO MUFF’LS for the batter headsI use Remo silent stroke heads for the resonant side just to close off the front of the shell.. ( has no functionality just looks )I use an EVANS bass drum pillow taped (double sided tape) to the inside of the resonant head spanning the entire head and then taped to the inner side of the MUFF’LS plastic ring.NOW for the KAT SILENT STRIKE!These are mini tennis balls in black and are made of a dense solid rubber or foam ( no air inside )They are firm ( not as firm as felt beaters ) but also soft if you squeeze them hard enough ( not too soft and deform during strike )I use these on (2) Gibraltar direct drive pedals… They are long enough to reach the center of 22″ bass drums.With the set up I explained above I found that these beaters lower the volume but still give a nice thud.. produces a more soft or warm sounding strike. When doing double (HEEL TOE) strikes the beaters respond very well. No need for drum patches as these are soft to the touch and should not effect the heads wear n tear.I really like these beaters and I can’t seem to find any CONS to this product.. I will continue to beat the heck out of them and update this post if I find any issues, until then.. I am satisfied and like I said… these are my new favorite beaters..TRY THEM OUT!!

Definitely quieter but bouncy
I live in an apartment and play electric drums. While I do have a drum riser to prevent vibrations to the floor and annoying the downstairs neighbor, the stock beater hitting the pad is still pretty loud. So I tried this out to help with the noise and I can honestly say it probably has taken it down to half volume than it was before. So if noise is your concern, this absolutely helps.My gripes are:1. It’s softer than a traditional beater. So it requires more power to get a good kick. That being said, the convenience of having an electric kit means I can turn up the sensitivity which helps with that.2. It’s basically a tennis ball and tennis balls bounce. If you typically bury the beater, this may not be for you because it’s going to dribble on the pad when you kick it in unless you use a lot of force.Overall I think it’s an excellent tool if being quiet is a must.

Nearly silent
I am a double-bass-heavy metal drummer, and so keeping my kick drum quiet is really important to avoid disturbing the downstairs neighbors, and these work great. Combined with my KD-85 mesh kick drum, they’re quieter and more realistic than the KT-10 kick triggers I was using before–I could never sustain any speed on those because of the lack of rebound, while these avoid that problem while making less noise. My my mesh-headed toms and snare are actually louder than my kick drum at this point. Time will tell if the material is hard on the mesh head as felt tends to be–I tried using a protective patch, but found that this increased the noise level too much. My only complaints are that (1) they may not work well with all sound modules–due to the softer impact, I had to increase the trigger sensitivity on my kick pad, which some sound modules may not allow you to do, so check on that first. If you don’t care about a really punchy bass drum, that may not be an issue; and (2) they can bounce rapidly if you bury the beater and cause double-triggering. I was able to mitigate that by mounting my kick trigger really securely, tweaking the mask parameter in my sound module, and avoiding burying the beater which is a good habit anyway.