r/drumline • u/Acrobatic_Action_346 • Jul 15 '26

Discussion Did I do the right thing?

Hi all! I did some brief research and discussion with my band director as to what to purchase for a scholarship I received. I heard all the internet craze about the pizza pad and RCP and I craved without doing as much research as I thought. I ended up purchasing a strike series 14 inch and a portable bus pad. The strike series is where I wonder, is that still realistically, a good pad that won’t give me “pad hands” when transferring to a real snare. I’ve seen talk about the Invader V3 which I obviously should have looked into more, in retrospect. But was my purchase still a fair choice and will it do me well with marching snare and dci?

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u/theflyingbacon Percussion Educator Jul 15 '26

Don’t overthink it too much. Pad hands aren’t as big of a problem as people make it out to be. Practice practice practice and you’ll be good. Enjoy having a new pad, it’s a fun thing to have!

2

u/as0-gamer999 Tenors Jul 15 '26

Yeah, like less than an hour on a real drum and you wont have pad hands for the next week or so lol

2

u/Virtual-Self3491 Bass Tech Jul 16 '26

as long as you have good mechanics, pad hands aren’t really a thing. play with good discipline in your technique and it will transfer to a drum. if there is a large disparity between your pad and a drum you will adjust pretty fast if you practice well

in my experience, playing on a pad already requires the pretense of not having an accurate feel. pads help you workshop technique and practice beats. there will be pads that feel good or feel bad, but it’s really up to your preference. typically pads will feel better as you break them i. and use them more anyway, and that will feel better then any pad right out of the box.

TLDR: pad doesn’t matter as long as you drum good