The DW Bass Drum Pillow

vxla

Silver Member
Anyone feel like the DW bass drum pillow doesn't really do much of anything? I'm not sure how much pressure it's supposed to be putting against the heads of the drum, but the coverage on a 23-inch drum is very minimal.
 
The ones I've seen, and the one that came with my PDP kit are pretty huge and pretty much stuff the drum.

Even if it doesn't touch the heads, having something in the drum helps reduce the boingy pipe resonance. That sewer pipe fluttery echo thing. Currently I use an Evans pillow in the bottom of my Gretsch Renown, not touching either head. It takes up much less space than the DW pillow but is enough to tame the pipe resonance. If I want, I can put it up against either head but that usually isn't necessary. Maybe for recording when I get around to swapping out the SuperKick batter for an EQ3. With the Aquarian, I just tune it JAW for recording which comes out fairly dry, and tune it up to a pitch for unmic'd live gigs.
 
very simple, have someone play your bass drum, stand out font and compare the sound with it in and with it out.

I have two DW kits and I can tell you it does make a difference, I infact moved it over to my Superstar kit, it's nothing magic, just a pillow
 
I had one of those and thought it was a bit too much, but it does work well for the intention. What I do, whenever I want to dampen the drum on the inside (which is rare), I have an old heavy wool army blanket that I cut in half, and when I folded that up, it's pretty weight-y. With it just touching the batter head and reso, it muffles just fine and doesn't move. I didn't like the idea of having to put down velcro to use either the DW or the Evans pad.
 
If it's the same pillow that came in a DW set I no longer own, it has a tag on the side that says the bass drum depth it's meant to fit. At least, that's how mine was? It said 18" and on the 18" deep bass drum, it touched both heads along the bottom and it definitely made a difference.

I have a different set and have experimented with the Evans pillow touching and not touching the front head and there's a pretty big difference than with the drum wide open.
 
Mine came velcroed to the bottom of the bass drum, so it doesn't move. It's about 16" wide and as long as the bass shell. It's between 1/2" and 1" thick.
 
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