Big fuzzy bass drum beater?

Hi All,

I normally put a sock on the head of my bass drum beater to get a rounder, warmer tone out of it. For some reason to me it sounds kind of like a loud ugly unpleasant thwock without it.

My friend mentioned to me that he's seen something, possibly called a Featherbeater, that is like a big fuzzy beater head thats soft and serves the same purpose. Google has provided no help and ive tried a lot of search terms looking for it.

Any advice from your collective wisdom? Thanks!

Vater offer their own version called Vintage Bomber.

I LOVE YOU.

But seriously, thanks a lot, that's pretty much perfect. I HATE having to deal with the sock falling off when im really railing on the thing. Buying one ASAP.

Much appreciated!

I used to play with a beater like but I made it myself. I got some really fluffy sheepskin with thick fur and I velcroed it to a standard beater. It made a realy nice soft warm sound and drew a lot of resonance out of it.

What got me thinking about this whole thing was my friend who came by to give me a lesson last night. He is a super nasty drummer, was the first time coming to see my kit, and he commented how heavy the beater is (dw5000 standard beater) with the sock on it. Ive been playing like that for months. I can assume your situation with a regular beater and velcro'd on sheepswool would be heavy as well.

He mentioned this featherbeater thing and now looking at the vater item, its cork with some synthetic sheepswool, i can only imagine it being REALLY LIGHT, and hence, i can assume much faster to play with? im wondering if there'll be a period of getting readjusted...

The Vater beater is pretty worthwhile; I don't notice it being dramatically different than the stock DW beater in terms of response. The balance is certainly different, but the perception of weight is not really noticeable in my experience.

However, the complaint I have with the Vintage Bomber -- ESPECIALLY if you play a coated bass drum head -- is that the synthetic wool is not especially durable and you will start having bare patches of cork in a moderately short time.

I'm more of a fan of the Bigfoot lamb's wool beater, which has a solid feel and has proven to be relatively durable thus far (though, at a price).

I've got the Vater beater too, lots of fun to have. I like to use it on my 26" bass for jazz gigs to get that traditional sound identical to the old big band drummers.

Mars.Tesla said:

I can assume your situation with a regular beater and velcro'd on sheepswool would be heavy as well.
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Not really. I just put a glob on sheepskin on one side, not all the way around. Since it was velcroed to the beater I could quickly take it on or off. It was on a jazz felt beater, so it was light. I wonder how a beater of total sheepskin would compare with weight, though.

What about the real old fashioned, vintage ones.....durability? weight??