What's the BEST Drumming Practice System? 

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for those wondering what the grand totals are, i worked them out (averaging the values for "rebound\feel"). Superpad = 20.3 | Remo Silent Stroke = 18.7 | RTOM = 22.7. I think the score of 1 for Remo's "ease of use" is justified. If you're a gigging drummer and don't have the luxury\space for 2 acoustic kits, swapping and tuning heads all the time will get real tired real quick. Thanks for the video!

Honestly for price the firdt ones should be 1 and 2 rather than 3 and 4

I for one have outfitted my kit with the Remo Silent Stroke heads. I have two snare drums. The practice snare drum has the Silent Stroke head on it where the performance snare has the regular head. As for the Toms I put the Silent Strokes on the bottom and the regular heads on the top. When I’m just practicing I simply flip the Toms break out the practice snare change my real cymbals to the Low Volume cymbals. For the bass drum I use a soft beater for practice and a harder beater for performance.

Hey Stephen, I am so grateful to have found your channel. Being an apartment dweller (in NYC) who is actively researching sound-dampening products, your videos are so clear + informative. Thanks for sharing your insights! I will watch the rest of your videos and add comments about how well any of my personal modifications work -- over the next few months especially if I buy an acoustic kit. I have a Yamaha DTXtreme III now. ~ Adam (NYC)

Adding my congratulations and thanks for a very good piece. I just set up my kit with RTOMs and Zildjian Low Volumes and I'm loving it. It's an investment, but well worth it for the amount of time you just created that is now open to playing without disturbing others or yourself. I find there's something soothing to being able to work out riffs and tunes without the high volume. I think it can make you practice longer and better. Thanks again

The quality of the drums themselves isn't a big factor here. You can convert inexpensive drums into dedicated practice drums with the Remo heads for manageable cost. If you don't have any old beater or budget drums hanging around, they're easy to find online. First up for me is the snare that came with a Safari kit which isn't good enough to use for shows or rehearsals but will be fine for practice with a mesh head on it.

I've found that if you place 2-3 blankets in the base drum leaning against a Silent Stroke head, it gives you very realistic rebound and also has a very pleasing thud. I have a separate drum set specifically for practice and it has eliminated the pains of swapping out heads in-between shows and practice. I would recommend them to anyone not looking to break the bank.. Great Videos Dude!

silent stroke are the best in my case, cheap, durable and more realistic on the snare because i have a rim! And as for the spring bounce at the 6:00 all you need is some white micropore medical tape and stick a circle in the center for longevity i stick it on the under side of the mesh head. It kills the infinite bounce but makes the drum a lil louder and the more tape you add the louder it will be. cheap/nice tool for tunning these heads which can be found anywhere.

I saw a video where somone wanted to get more tone out of their drums with the silent stroke so they took a strip of painters tape and put it on the head to get more tone and it was pretty good, I've never tried it but if you want more tone out of your drums try it. (Let me know how it sounds in person, please!!!)

Thanks you so much for comparing all three! A couple of months ago I tried to find a video like this one, but couldn't so I was happily surprised to see this among my subscriptions today! I see potential for a follow up video, where you get your hands on the RTOM and Silent Stroke kick heads and compare them to the Aquarian... I would be very excited to see that Great video!

I get the 1 on the ease of use for silentstrokes but you can’t give a 4 and a 3 on cost for SPs and RTOM when the those options are over 2.5x the price of the remo st’s.

Great video! You should do one on low volume cymbals.

In my opinion the most quiet “Best Drumming Practice System” is indisputably Aerodrums! I’m working with this seriously for more than 6 years and I’m even doing gigs with it. Compared to over 20 years of practicing on electronic drums and another couple of years on silent drum kits before (like the Yamaha SL1) I would say, that I’ve never felt progressing like in the last 6 years with Aerodrums. And a lot of your videos helped me for mastering it. At first this one “How NOT to Hold Your Drum Sticks”. It’s exactly like this you should play Aerodrums, but instead of letting bounce your sticks on the drum heads, you need to let them bounce on the palm of your hands. Like this you still have enough rebound for doing double strokes, flams and paradiddles. All in all, this is a perfect muscle and muscle-memory trainer, it has incredible dynamics, zero latency and is completely silent! The prize for Aerodrums is around 180 € plus 50 € for the camera stand (which is absolutely necessary for serious playing!). In Aerodrums you can find a metronome, a playlist function for playing with your music, you can record yourself, you can setup your kits in space like you want, just with using your sticks. You can add or remove elements, you can even add your own samples (Aerodrums can import multilayer wave files) and it is full midi compatible! No kidding, this is the best invention for drummers I’ve seen in the last 35 Years. I invite you to have a look on my dedicated RU-vid channel for having an idea what you can do with it.

Aquarian Super pads are fantastic. They allow tone and have some pretty good rebound. Another benefit is that when you lift them off, your acoustic kit is ready to go.

Thanks, that was handy. I've gotta say I liked the sound of the Silent Stroke best. Thought you were a little harsh with the 1 for ease of use, especially if it's a dedicated practice kit. Anyway, you helped me make a decision, so thanks.

The assumption about the SilentStroke kick - I have both heads mentioned and the SilentStroke doesn't feel like the Pearl Mesh Head at all. Then when you put a Falam Slap pad where the beater makes contact it adds more attack and I think it's very close to the regular drum head I use - an emad- which I also use with a Falam Slap. Maybe that is the key here and your mileage may vary but that's my experience with it.

Rtom for snare and toms, aquarian for bass drum. That's the best option imo.

Thank you for this video! This is super-helpful. I am definitely looking into the Aquarian bass pad-I have the Silent Stroke on my Questlove kit and I want a more solid and less springy, "boing-y" feel so I can work on double strokes and more advanced bass work. I will look at the Black Hole series as well. Much appreciated!

My 'quiet practice' method was to buy a house, make a studio out of a back room, then not worry about the volume!!!

I actually did a scoring and the Winner Is The Rtom if you want scores than 1st Place Rtom With 32 Points 2nd Place Super Pad With 29 Points And 3rd Or Last Place Is The Silentstroke with 25 Points

@sccdrum93 love your channel, congrats on your success. Really appreciate that you are not an egomaniac fake show off spazz like 99% of the buffoons on social media. But I digress... I can’t believe I’m just now discovering these, and this video is 5 years old! That’s crazy to me. Here’s a question I have and would love anyone’s feedback- the Roland TD 07KVX is now around $1100. If I were to buy these black hole mesh heads and electronic cymbals and a decent drum module, I would easily be at that price if not higher. So now I’m kind of torn between the two ideas. seems to me because that Roland gives you so much value for 1100 bucks. That’s the way to go but yes I realize it’s still not playing on your traditional acoustic kit which gives you a few benefits the electronic kits don’t. Now I have a tough decision to make.

Hey thanks a lot for putting this video together; it was really well organized, and probably the single most useful thing I saw in helping me to decide which system would work best for me. I got the RTOMs snare/toms with a Superpad kick and so far I've been super satisfied with the results.

Holistically speaking, Silentstroke sounds very good, very natural though quiet, probably because you're not adding anything to the drum and it's still speaking naturally. With the low volume Zildjian cymbals, they almost sound like a very good kit on a drum machine or something like that. Other practice systems just sound like you slapped something on regular acoustic drums, they don't have to have that cohesiveness from drum to drum, even though individual drums might be decent. I don't think they necessarily make the best practice pads because of all the reasons you named, but they're the only quiet drum solution that sounds good enough that you could do a gig on it.

For cost and space savings (I only have room for 1 set and do occasionally gig) I use a Silentstroke on an extra snare and rubber pads on the rest of the drums (mine were Vic Firth). The oldschool rubber pads were about the price of 1 Aquarian head or RTom and I can live with them not being as precise. Combined with the low volume Zildjian cymbals this has served me well and made it simple to get ready for gigs. Pretty quiet in my house, but it would not as well in an apartment.

THANK YOU!! Fantastic video. Helped me make up my mind on what to order for my setup! (Black Hole)

First time to watch your channel. I'm not even 5 minutes in and this is like a great science experiment. Awesome!

I started off with REMO silent stroke heads and zildjian L80 cymbals. Good practice set up. Then about 6 months ago I switched to RTOM'S on the toms and a Superpad on my bassdrum. At first I dug the RTOM'S even though some of them did not want to fit properly. Then after about a month one of the RTOM's metal ring's came out and try as I might I have not been able to get it to tune up anymore. One of the RTOM'S won't tighten up in one spot around the rim but is still usable. So I've had to go back to the SILENT STROKES on the toms. I love the SUPERPAD on the bass and wish I would have went with the SUPERPAD'S on the toms also.

Not gonna lie, I bought the Silent Stokes simply because of the price and I love the sound I get from the snare and the floor tom with the heads tuned tighter. The rack toms are almost too quiet and not as responsive (less attack) as the other drums. I busted the bass drum head so I've been using a regular bass drum head from Evans with a Vic Firth mute pad attached to it. I dig the sound combined with the snare and it really seems to work well. I have Quiet Tone cymbals and Hi-Hats from Sabian. The crash was fun to play and it died early (cracked around the bell) LOL. The ride isn't bad but definitely doesn't have as many voices as a regular ride cymbal but it works. The hi-hats are actually the most musical out of all the low-volume stuff I have played. I use them as a second hi-hat sound on my full volume kit as well as the practice kit. The sizzle is incredible and the high tones are a nice accent when mic'ed.

Stephen this is an excellent study......on features vs price ......as much as a drum product review and comparison

I got silence stroke heads, and I LOVE them

thanks for this guide! I have a "Phil Collins" tribute kit (not the same exact hardware to a T to Phil's nor his son Nic's live kits, but exact setup). I haven't played the drums in a long time, but I decided to set them back up this month, and this guide really helps as I live in a townhouse. I ended up going for the Super Pads on my toms and bass, and the Black Hole on my snare :D

🤣🤣🤣🤣...My dear Stephen....there is nothing "none Glamorous" about drumming my friend...Drumming is simply glamorous, in any witch way it comes...i just bought the Pearl Export...20" 10" 12" 14" 14"....and the RTOM Black Hole Mash Pads seem to work nice...you helped me make up my mind...thanks for that...great videos BTW...greetings from a novice drummer from Iceland....

I just outfitted my kit with Silentstroke heads, and after watching this video I am happy that I did. I definitely prefer the tone of the silentstrokes verses the other ones shown here. Especially with muffle rings on my toms, the toms with the silentstroke heads still feel and sound almost like they should with the real drum heads on. I got a wayyyyyy better tone from my bass drum silentstroke by just putting 2 layers of duct tape where the beaters hit the head (like a falam slam), and a 5 inch strip to the right, so give it some more tone. It now has a good attack but the strip to the right helps preserve some of the resonance of the head. I also have it tuned about medium tension and honestly it feels great. Maybe not as thumpy as normal, but it still sounds cool, especially for double bass work. Overall I think Remo wins here, the biggest factor being the price. I don't mind taking my heads off every time if it saves me 200 dollars.

I don’t know if this is a consideration for anyone else, but the Super Pads offer the best chance for practicing brush work because they have a lightly textured surface.

Thanks for your tips . Im planning to build a Drum basement study and recording room . When recording I plan to use the normal drum and cymbals. And for daily practice the Low volume ones ... Thanks for the help .

This video was precisely what I needed!

Don’t be fooled by the volume of these...yes they all are extremely lower than natural volume. But all louder than I thought. But when ur in other parts of the house or apt...huge difference!!! I’m play them all the time during the day and night...I play my Roland kit when it’s really late!

I was looking at a practice setup and this video helped ENORMOUSLY! Thank you very much!!! :) :) :)

It sounds like you can still get some sound from the snare wires with each system. Were you able to find a way to make the snare wire sound good using the RTOM? Also, what do you recommend to put on the floor to prevent the pedals from reverberating into other rooms?

Pretty spot on with the silentstroke kick...it has an airy "thuuuum" sound rather than a punchy bass sound. I might try to go for another alternative.

Amazing detail thank you its a great help . My remo emperor coated are too loud😂

Great, SUPER informative video! Thanks for doing all the research and showing us all of this so we can get a real live sound and feel to it and direct comparison. Thanks again man!

Great vid, gonna try the super pad. Thanks keep up the vids and pdf’s !!!

I've been using a Roland kit with a mesh snare and rubber pads for several months. It's fun but when I wen't back to my acoustic kit, oh man... my stick control and dynamics were all gone! I am into jazz drumming and this is absolutely terrible. My advice is stay away from the Roland/Remo/Pearl style of mesh. They might seem the counterpart of a real drum head but they are not at all, just because of their weird rebound, and real feel is everything if you are serious about your technique, specially on your snare. As a result I am planning to sell my e-drums and use a different approach using the acoustic kit only. The L-80 cymbals are an awesome invention. Trying to figure out what I'll do for the rest of the kit, probably a combination of different solutions.

Well, I have the Silent Strokes on order while waiting for my Pearl Black Halos.... But now I’m thinking about switching my order to the RTOM’s. I play just for fun so I’m ok with swapping heads....and I liked that they were the cheapest. But, with the cost of the kit, what’s another $200... I like the fit ang I like that their tuneable. While I wish this was a more complete comparison, you have covered enough to make me re-think it. Thank you 🥁

Excellent analysis of the pads. Thank you.

What sound is produced on the snare when hitting the muffled snare, which might produce zero sound in the room, but a vibration-induced sound in the apartment below via the snare stand sitting on the floor? Also, much of music practice doesn't require the physical feel of the drum, and some of practice doesn't require the configuration placement of the kit. Much takes place in the head, running through the music in your mind. And some requires sticks in your hand and objects representing the drums in front of you.

I am learning a lot from your videos this one in particular is trying to figure out how to muffle drums Sunwood Drive my neighbor's crazy thanks for your Insight

Nananananananananananananananana... Super-Pad! Edit: I can attest to the Silentstroke heads being unable to properly "practice" on. I haven't been able to transfer the progress I _think_ I've made on them when transferring back over to regular drum heads. The bass drum head especially. Defining it as "springy" is accurate, and I'm not a fan of the snare head, either for the same reason. They are all very bouncy, but keeping the toms tuned lower are not bad.

That chart was perfect, buddy. Thanks for that.

whiel Silent Stroke is a well known mesh heads ref, you might want to consider Drum Tech heads, they come in 3 versions (single, double and triple ply) and this is of importance when considering the "bounciness" of the head.

im hoping that there will be something that is in the middle between quiet and standard drum set and cymbal volume in the near future.

Woah! This video was awesome! Keep up the good work, man. Loving the vids. Now I can finally not bother my band mates during practice 😂😂😂

Great video. You are the first to bring all three together and compare. I would like to see someone get a complete set up of all three styles and do full comparision. My guess is that the rtoms will come out on top. I have been very happy with mine so far.

The RTOM bass drum has gotten bad reviews elsewhere. Not because of the sound, but because of the attachment system where the pedal attaches to the RTOM instead of the drum and tends to move and have a different feel. RTOM for everything but bass and Aquarian for bass may be a good option.

I'm using Evans mesh heads on my TD17 set. It has the PDX pads, which is basically their way of being able to charge $60+ for a dang 8" head, as it's propriatary, with the rim and head being one piece. I took my handy dandy angle grinder, and cut the head half of it off, leveled it as best I could, and BOOM, a $15 head, instead of Roland's involuntary backdoor widening attempt. But, I used the silent stroke before that, and yeah, they kinda suck. For a low volume mesh head solution, I'd go with the evans, I think they're "sound off"? maybe. I have to also add, to be fair, I've not used any of the mesh heads, on my acoustic kit, just the edrums.

excellent vídeo!!! very detailed! Thanks so much. Very helpful. Any tip for a homemade solution for the hi hats? Getting the kit ready is enough money to spend already..

Thanks for your vids, man! You've really helped me a lot, also with other vids. I think I'll be getting the silentstrokes for my toms and black hole for snare and kick

Holy Biased Batman... I have the silentstroke on a full set and they’re awesome. I have a practice kit so I don’t have to take the heads off. Once I seen that the silentstroke cost almost 3 times less that the others but was was a 5 followed by a 4 and 3 lol. Lastly my main bedroom is a couple rooms over from my studio and my wife can’t tell when I’m practicing.

the rtom kick is horrendous to get fitted the plate that comes with it to attach your pedal is poorly designed even with the straps you attach to the hoop....if you want to retune it...you need to take the whole thing off...if the tuning part was on the outside it would be better...the guys at Rtom did help with my issues tho.so i appreciate their assistance its almost VG.

I like the RTOMs but ended up using my Real Feel pad for my snare. Provides better feedback, but RTOMs work well on Toms.

Thank You have a blessed week.

Thanks for the demo ,that saves me alot of time.

Great video Stephen... Much appreciated!👌

There’s no a review about Evans db one? Anyway, nice job ! 👏🏼

Silent stroke is best. You can actually gig with them, versus the others, using overhead mikes. esp. Shouldve been part of your comparison.

Very thorough Stephen. Appreciate the video brother 👊🏼

What kind of patch is that on the RTOM, i may just buy a cheap 3 ply mesh head and glue a kick drum patch?

Thanks Stephen! Have a good day.

Get black holes they feel good rebound and rim , sound is half or more , easy on and off in seconds , sound quality is not gone.

Whats the best way to trigger/pickup the RTOM set up?

Great video! Any tips on how to get the snare sound good and snappy with the RTom? I can’t seem to sound it nice. Tune the Rtom high and you’ll hear the tone from the mesh, tune too low and the feel is off. Same with the snare drum itself

I love your videos. Great tutorials on stuff most don't talk about. Wish you had more subs

should have watched this before I bought a Roland TD27...I can still return it cause Sweetwaters 30 day return policy but it will be bitch to repack. Plus I love it. But because of this video I still need to practice on a real drum set. So ill be purchasing a DW Performance 3 piece and ill add the superpad. ill have both of best worlds. great video!!!

Tama Soft Sound Ring Set! Nobody has done a review on those yet! You could be the first!

Love the channel -- lots of good stuff. I watched this vid a couple times, and am thinking a good (reasonably inexpensive) practice setup is a RTOM for the snare, silentstrokes for toms, L80 cymbals, and undecided on bass pad. That sound like a good start? Thanks!

Thank you

The good news/ bad news with the silent stroke heads is that they give you a false sense of security. Put them on your set and you will fly around your drums! You're pulling off Ian Paice-worthy rolls from drum to drum! Go back to your regular playing heads and get ready for a bout with reality.

Hi, very useful video! It helped me set up my own silent kit with silenstrokes and evans soundoff's on cymbals. Now I have a very basic problem: the kit is definitely quiet as I wanted it to be, however I can't find a good way to rehearse using backing tracks. I want them in my headphones (not through PA, or overall volume would be increased, which I don't want), but then I'm not getting enough sound from my kit to confortably play along. I know there are ways to get more tone out of my kit (i saw you video on the topic), but I don't want to raise its volume. I was considering mic'ing up my kit and mix it with the backing track so that I can adjust levels in my headset monitoring, but that would make things a bit more complex and I'm not sure that would work either. I could go with a single-mic setup... Would you have any advice to share?

How can you give something that cost $95 for a whole kit a 5 (excellent) and then something that cost $251 a 4?? come on man!! The rtom and superpad should both be rated a 1 in cost category...$12 difference is not going to sway anyone. Now I will watch rest of video but I dont have any faith in your rating system. geeez

It would be nice to extend the comparison to some two-ply and three-ply mesh heads: Ballistech 2 three-plys and Roland Powerply two-plys maybe?

This is very useful information. Thanks for providing it. For a church worship band with a medium sanctuary, would you still recommend the RTOMs? Sometimes our guest drummers have a hard time playing softly and the drums overwhelm the rest of the instruments. Looking for a solution where the sound guy can control all of the elements and get a nice balance without running the faders way up to be heard over the drums. I do like things loud, but I also want to be respectful of those with sensitive hearing and want tp preserve my own hearing in the long run.

m trying to decide between an upper tier drum-tec electric kit or something like a pearl export, k sweet cymbal pack with mute options on the entire kit and maybe experiment with recording with the mutes on and then use superior drummer, or some program, to do sample replacement for the sounds. Any insight with my dilemma? Ive only done drum recording with my Alesis dm10 mk2 kit that I currently own. My current living situation calls for me to be quiet more often than not, but I plan to eventually have a recording situation that has no noise limitations. I also want to leave the door open to the high probability of playing drums in a live setting, in the future. Im mainly a guitar player so I would prefer to spend this type of money (3grand range) on a pretty permanent option, and doubt having both an acoustic and electric setup to ever be in my future. Thank you in advance, if you can provide any words of wisdom.

Have you ever tried the Rtom mesh heads only...like the remos..they are actually mounted to the shell like a regular head...the rtoms u show here are the black hole rtoms right? hence the more expensive option...Rtom mesh heads are a few dollars cheaper for me at me local music shop...about $140 for 6 pc set including snare. So i think ill try the rtoms...thks for the video...it helped direct my decision! Keep on drumming rllrlrrlrll!

Thank you for this video

Have you tried the new RTom mesh heads yet?

You also have a quite rim with the superpad?

Great video!

Great video! You can try a little bit of moleskin on the rim of the drum to deaden the initial attack of the stick when using the silent stroke drum heads :)

Amazing video! Thanks for this!

This helped a lot, thank you!

I enjoy your channel and appreciate the work you put in.

Cool video and love that you're being honest! Are you scared at all the silent stroke might damage the bearing edge? The nylon scraping it and might cause some minor damage / scuffs?

What’s your take 3 years later? I’m between the rtoms and super pads

Would triggers be able to be used along with any of these still? Wonder how it would do with the sensitivity.

RTOM is probably glad that you didn't have their bass drum head, I've read the problem with RTOM is that the bass pedal is difficult to mount properly since the system goes over the hoop. I bought the silent stroke because of this problem. I did not try the RTOM myself for full disclosure. RTOM was $90 bucks and $40 for the silent stroke. I wasn't going to buy something that I may not be able to use.

Hi. Does the Black Hole Pads interfere with clip-on mics because of the additional height? I already have a mic set including these clamps that go on the rims - although the mic distance is somewhat adjustable on those clamps, do the Black Holes cover too much of the rim for them to clip on? I'm considering getting these for my apartment but would also like to maybe record with them somehow. I saw your video about mic-ing and recording with the Silent Strokes - would the Black Holes be less convenient for that anyway, seeing as you had to turn the snare off to avoid the buzz? Thanks.

I think you should try the aquarian kick pad on the snare silent stroke.

Hey Stephen have you though of doing a review on bass drum practice pads