Evans SO-14 SoundOff 14 inch Drum Mute Pack,Black

My kids and I started drum lessons about a month ago, so I needed something that would allow us to practice without annoying neighbours and wife.The Evans SoundOff mutes certainly fit the bill.I purchased the bass mute having already purchased the Evans SoundOff snare, tom-tom and hi-hat mutes.The bass mute performs perfectly, reducing the volume to a level that (I'm assured) can't be heard by our neighbours, while retaining most of the feel. There is plenty of adjustment to allow the mute to be positioned correctly, and it only took me a few minutes to set it up. Quite handy if you occasionally want to remove it and play full volume.Evans claim to reduce the volume by 95%, and from my experience I wouldn't doubt it.As an additional measure I've added a duvet to the inside of the bass, this further reduces the volume to a level that is barely audible from the next room. The duvet alone wasn't very effective.The Evan's snare and tom-tom mutes are also very good at reducing volume, but even a novice like myself will notice the difference in the feel.The hi-hat mute is a different story; It certainly reduces the volume, but it sounds and feels like you are hitting a plastic cup.This may be down to the quality of my cymbals. it's only a beginners kit, and the cymbals don't sound that good even with the mute off, but my feeling is that even with better cymbals the effect would still be the same.

Definitely reduces the volume by at least half. It can't do much for taking the boom out of the bass drum, but some more padding helps with that a bit. Overall, it is enabling me to practise on lockdown without driving my house mates crazy.Currently using it with a Roland kick trigger, so I don't get as much kick drum spill in the overheads and snare mic. Works well for this.Tonally speaking, if you tune the bass drum up a bit with this mute on, you can get a really punchy sort of classic sounding kick. Reduces the subs and highs so you get a lot of chest punch vibe. Into it. But not very quiet haha

I use these Evans SoundOff mutes on two fixed hi-hats with a a 14" mute drum pad inside the h-hat as well. Sounds daft until you attach a Piezo pickup with 1/4" jack socket to the underside of the top hi-hat cymbal.... and hey presto you now have an Electronic fixed hi-hat to put into your A2E drum kit. Most drum modules work the open and closed off the pedal so doesn't matter that the cymbals are closed all the time. I also put some of the same mutes onto 14" Crash Cymbals and purchased a couple of the 20" and 22' Ride versions of the mute. Same thing again, attached a Piezo pickup to each cymbal.I now have a full A2E (mesh headed) drum kit with about 9 real cymbals on it that I can play at anytime of the day without disturbing any neighbours. The thunk from striking the cymbals and hi-hat is not that much different to hitting traditional electronic kit rubber cymbals, but the feel is certainly a lot better than the rubber cymbals or the traditional foam type cymbal pads on a real cymbal. You will get a variance in the thunk, depending on the cymbal size, a muted 22" ride will certainly thunk differently to a 14" muted crash.These mutes also leave 2 sections of bow and edge open as well as the bell, so you can still hit the real parts of a cymbal instead of the mute if you wish. That way you get the feel of stick on metal but the the mute across the cymbal and round the edge will still mute considerably as the cymbal cannot vibrate to create the full sound. So louder than striking the rubber section but still at acceptable practice levels.The shame is that they only do these mutes in the 14", 20" and 22", although they will stretch to fitting an inch bigger on each (15", 21" and 23"), as it would be even better to be able to use them on 16", 18" and some small splash cymbals as well.I will be moving on to some higher end professionally built electronic cymbals very soon, if a pending road test shows them to be any better than my improvised cymbals, but using these Evans SoundOff mutes to create my own budget electronic cymbals has been really effective and I cannot rate the mutes highly enough for this slightly untraditional purpose.

Great product and price just unfortunately I had to send it back as it was the wrong size for the drum it was intended for.Had it been the right size (my error) it would have been perfect and such a reasonable price too!Definitely recommend

Quite expensive for what it is, nasty rattle from the rod which holds it in place too and you do lose that bounce back off the head, I play fast(ish) triplets, cant do them with this device in place as you lose that feel.

Not as quiet as mesh heads and suffer from the lack of bounce - just the opposite to mesh - but otherwise the best noise reducing purchase I have made and 'in theory' will help with technique ands developing strength - I can certainly feel the additional effort needed in wrists/fingers

These mutes certainly do a fabulous job of quietening your drums. They also tend to wear rather quickly (I play rock/metal with 5Bs which probably doesn't help) but they're still going strong after a few weeks of daily use and if they start to warp in the middle you can flip them over.Cheap, easy to put on (obviously) and they do the job well. Only real drawback is that the feel is significantly damper. But you could always regard this as an advantage - seeing as you'll build up stamina and strength quicker than if you were playing on the more responsive normal heads.

I really like this because now my kid can practice on his drum without me worrying about driving next door crazy. Sturdy construction, works well - doesn't drown out all noise but definitely makes it more neighbourly.