Adoro Silent Beater
march 12, 2021
After a couple of months practicing with Adoro Silent Sticks, I wanted to try the company's Silent Beater.
(Adoro Custom Drums is a drum manufacturer based in Hamburg, Germany, and is known for its beautiful, unusual, drum kit designs with sound profiles to suit any style of play from Gospel to Rock.)
Pricing and Delivery
I ordered the Silent Beater online on February 16, 2021, and received it on March 9, 2021. Once again, I think that is rather an amazing delivery time considering the pandemic and that the product was shipped from Germany.
I paid $42.32 Cdn for the beater including shipping, taxes, and exchange.
What Came in the Package
Here is what I received:
- A Silent Beater (with one impact pad)
- A detailed Adoro Custom Drums brochure
- An Adoro Custom Drums flyer
- An Adoro Custom Drums sticker
Again, the packing materials (i.e. the box and taping) were very sturdy considering the contents.
This is a company that listens. I received a new sticker approximately 2" square (pictured below) that peals from the back and am looking forward to placing it on my hard-shelled snare drum case. (If you recall from my Adoro Silent Sticks review, the previous sticker I received pealed in half from the front which made it difficult to line up the two halfs.)
Adoro's packaging and promotional materials are very professional and quite attactive.
Initial Impressions
The beater seems well designed and manufactured. The head housing is made of rubber. The upper section of the beater shaft (I think) is made out of some sort of solid plastic, and the lower section of the shaft that inserts into the bass pedal is made of metal.
The beater comes with an impact pad to further dampen the bass drum; it attaches to the beater with velcro.
The Loudness Test
My baseline bass drum beater was a traditional no-name felt beater.
I used the free version of the Decibel X app on my Apple iPhone 7. (Unfortunately the free version of this app is no longer available at the iTunes Store.)
While I sat on my drummer's throne with my iPhone in my hand, I played two measures of quarter beats on the bass drum each with the traditional beater and with the Silent Beater and recorded with Decibel X. Here are the results:
Adoro Silent Beater
The center reading (shown in orange) on the db meter is the last recorded decibel count which is basically the resonance from the final kick and is partly dependent on the time it took me to stop the recording.
While attempting to use the same amount of force on the bass beats, the Adoro Silent Beater was significantly less loud than the traditonal felt beater.
(If you attempt to replicate this test, I should mention that I have a felt strip and bass drum patch on my bass drum batter head. It is also a challenge to eliminate the "human factor" in this test—it is hard to systematically apply the same amount of force on each kick.)
Conclusion
I really like Adoro's Silent Beater. Coupled with its Silent Sticks, I am able to play my drum kit more often and am less likely to disturb the other members of my household.
Only time will tell if the Adoro Silent Beater will hold up with regular daily practice. If it does stand the test of time, I think it might be nice if Adoro offers replacement impact pads so that the whole beater doesn't have to be replaced.
In summary, the Silent Sticks and Silent Beater combination offers great value for the money when you consider the cost of sticks, beaters, and dampening systems. I also like the portability of these products in that I can take the sticks and beater with me and use them on any kit with very little fuss. These products can be used on the drum kit for quieter practices, in small venues, in churches, etc.
