Rock Band Drum Silencers

"I bought these for our Rock Band 2 Wii drums and I love them. The thick rubber will protect my drum set for the rest of its life, which was a major concern since after only 3 months of drumming some of the drum heads were beginning to wear thin. The sound is not completely silenced but is "dampened". Instead of a clacking sound its a dull thwack or thud. The thick rubber also gives the drums a bit more bounce, making rolls easier.

I did a lot of research before I bought them. It seems there is a love-hate split in people who have tried them. First, apparently there are slight variations in drum head size on Rock Band drums, so these pads fit differently on different drums, working better on some models and not as well on others when applied over the top of the plastic rims and all. I found a series of folks who found a way to put the silencers on with a very high success rate (over 90%) that requires disassembling the drums, which is what I did. This basically entails removing the hard plastic rings around the drum pads so that the silencers lie completely flat on the drum head when applied, the idea being that applying the silencers over the plastic rings leaves a slight gap all the way around causing missed hits. It's okay to remove the plastic since it doesn't act to hold anything in place, it simply protects the edge of the drum head and makes it look nice; the drum silencers extend a bit beyond the drum head edge so will take over protective edge duties.

HOW TO REMOVE THE PLASTIC RINGS:
. Removing the rings takes 15 to 30 minutes, some strong fingers (I'm a girl, I did fine), and a precision (No.0 philips) screwdriver.
. Remove the drum pad assembly from the legs and do each drum head one at a time.

. The plastic rings are screwed in from underneath the drum heads. To get at the screws you have to pop the entire drum pad assembly out of the plastic case of the drum set. Each drum head is held in place by 4 large rubber plugs. If you flip your drum set upside-down you will see the ends of these rubber pegs poking through the bottom (visibly there are 4 on the red and green heads, 2 on the yellow and blue). You can push on these but I found it was easier to simply wedge my fingers in the gap between the plastic drum case and the underside of the drum head and pry upward (I am a girl so I had an easy time with my small fingers). Do this for each rubber peg one at a time, being careful not to pull too far or you'll rip out the wires that go from the underside of the drum head to the drum body (you have 2-3 inches of leeway here). It takes a bit of force but its easy once you get the hang of it. This is the scariest part but isn't that hard.

. In one instance one of the rubber pegs stayed in its hole and instead popped away from the underside of the drum head. This is easy to fix: the peg base is held in place by a piece of plastic held in with two screws (No.1 phillips precision screwdriver). Just remove the plastic bit, thread the peg back through its hole and screw the plastic with the peg back into place. Easy.

. With the drum head popped out, use your No.0 screwdriver to take out the 5 or 6 screws, releasing the plastic ring.

. Pop the drum head back into place. Repeat procedure for the other 3 drum heads.

. To apply the drum silencers I cleaned each drum head with rubbing alcohol and then stuck the pads on. They lie flat with the plastic rings removed."