RockBand Mods.net

I think just about everyone can agree that one of the most annoying parts of Rock Band is the noise that the drums make.  There has been a multitude of mods created for the sole purpose of silencing the drums, some of which are featured on this site, and Harmonix has decided to remedy the situation by releasing official drum silencers.

The Official Rock Band Drum Pad Silencers can be purchased at many retail stores such as:

• EBgames
• GameStop
• Best Buy
  

Package Contents:

The Official Rock Band Drum Silencers package contains four color coded silencing pads with the Rock Band logo prominently placed in the middle.  The pads appear to be made of rubber with a slight texture imprinted into the front with the back being self-adhesive.

Each Pad is approximently 1/8″(3.175 mm) thick and 7 5/8″(193.675 mm) in diameter.

No instructions were included in the package, although the installation is pretty self-explanatory.  However, for your enjoyment, the install process is detailed below.

Step 1 - Remove Backing Paper

Obviously, you will want to remove the backing paper. At least they were kind enough to include a tear off tab on the back of each pad for easy removal of the backing paper.

 

NOTE: You might want to keep the backing paper if you ever plan on taking off the pads.  By reapplying the backing paper to the pads, you can keep the adhesive sticky, clean and reusable.

Step 2 - Apply Drum Silencer Pads

You will want to line up the pads before applying pressure. You should notice that the pads are not designed to sit inside the black rings, instead they should fit nicely inside the notch around the black ring of each drum pad.

Once you have the pad aligned they way you want them, you will want to apply even pressure all around the pad in a circular motion starting in the center and working your way out to the outside ring.

Repeat the process until all pads are covered.

Review:

The Official Rock Band Drum Pad Silencers are extremely easy to apply, look pretty decent, and can be found at your favorite retail outlet. The sound dampening qualities seem to be on par with the Drum Mutes Mod, which is quite good. However on my EL set, much like the Vic Firth mutes, the responsiveness went down the tube when these were applied. I was missing notes left and right on songs I can FC blind folded and was able to only manage to scrape together a four star run at best. The one thing that these pads have over the mute mod is that since they are half the thickness of Vic Firth mutes, you don’t have to bang quite as hard for the notes to register, so I didn’t feel as tired as I did playing with the mutes on.

As it stands, the Official Rock Band Drum Pad Silencers do a great job of what they are advertised to do, dampen the noise of the drums without sacrificing much in terms of stick rebound. However, you wouldn’t want to put these on if your going for a FC run or competitive play as you won’t stand a chance with all of the dropped notes.

Once I get my hands on another QM set, I will do more testing and update this review.

EDIT [06/06/08]: I received a QM set the other day and tested the silencers on it as well.  It appears that these silencers were designed to be used on a QM set.  I was able to FC songs with the pads on that I normally could only do on my EL set with no pads on at all.  They also seemed to help the sensitivity problem that QM’s are known to have and made rolls a breeze.  If you have a QM drum set and are looking to make them quieter and help with rolls, then the Official Rock Band Drum Silencers are what you want.

Overall:

The Official Rock Band Drum Pad Silencers are a quality product that lives up to its claims, which is sound dampening with little stick rebound reduction. However, they can also dampen your scores, especially with an EL set.

(4/5)

A video comparing the sound dampening qualities of the Official Rock Band Drum Pad Silencers with the Vic Firth Drum Mute Mod and the Foam & Felt Mod is below: