“Air strike motherfucker!”

And with that enthusiastic cry, I was alerted to how thin the walls of my apartment
were. Long the domain of squeaky mattresses and slamming headboards, gaming has
taken its place among the various sounds you have to put up with. Gaming: oh how
you’ve grown.

As many of you have probably already realized, the drums in Rock Band can get pretty
loud when you’re wailing away at them. Luckily there’s a solution in the form of foam
pads.

In an effort to bring you dtoiders reviews for gaming accessories you find on eBay and
your local China Town, I decided to pick one up from eBay. Since I’ve picked these up,
there have been tons of other sellers offering everything from rubber to foam. They
even have Official Rock Band Drum Pad Silencers.

You start off by cleaning the pad with a wet paper towel to get all the dust or lint that
might have accumulated on the pads.



Once those were cleaned you just peal back the self-adhesive backing of the pad and
carefully apply the foam making sure it’s in the middle of the pad. The set I bought
came with four colored ones and 4 smaller black pads.



The sound is significantly reduced with these pads but not so much that you can’t hear
your own rhythm over the music and other instruments. Just how much lower is the
sound? Check out this sound file (WMA - 64KB). You’ll have to excuse the whirling noise
in the background (and my near laugh at the end). My roommate was using the Wii Fit.

http://www.bemusementpark.com/phamtq/destructoid/drums.wma

With an additional layer of covering, the next thing you may ask is how much harder do
you have to hit the pad to register it with the game. Since I don’t play the drums much
I felt I had to hit a tad bit harder but after a few songs, I didn’t even notice it. Maybe I
was hitting them softer before because of the noise level. My roommate, who plays the
drums a lot more than I do noted that some of the hit weren’t registering especially the
green one but that could be due to body mechanics and seating level.

So should you spend the $16 some odd dollars? If you’re in an apartment or condo, I’d
definitely recommend them, as pissing off your neighbors probably isn’t the wisest
decision you could make. Also if you’re not the best players, your drumming won’t
throw off your teammates. The only thing that’s really keeping me from recommending
this is the fact that you have to hit harder although some of you out there probably
won’t have that problem.

So there you have it; my second hardware review! Next up, the 360 off-off-name brand
rechargeable battery pack. Man do I have something’s to say about that!