The everyday male accessory, the wallet, has been used in drumming for decades. Many famous drummers have used their wallets in live and/or studio applications to control the over-ring from their drum and the undesirable overtones that accompany that ring. The drummer's wallet is usually placed on the edge of the drum near the rim, sometimes open and hanging over the rim, sometimes closed and resting against the rim.

The mass of the wallet stops the head from vibrating as intensely after being struck. This action occurs due to the amount of surface area in contact with the drumhead among other physical factors. This action could be illustrated by hitting a drum and listening first to the overtones that it produces. Then, by placing your wallet on the drum or the palm of your hand on the drum, hit the drum again and it will become immediately noticeable that the tones produced after the drum is struck are more staccato and the overtones are no longer present.

The wallet still allows for the initial attack to be true and unaffected, due to the split second that the wallet spends in mid-air away from the head because of the percussive wave of the initial drum stick stroke. However, faster than the eye can see, the wallet falls back to the head, thusly cancelling out any unwanted reverberations by dampening the head with its mass.

For this reason, and for the simple convenience factor of already having their wallets on them, drummers have been utilizing the qualities of wallets for years to help them achieve the desired effects they are looking for in accordance with their drum's sounds. Because of this history, there is a novelty about a product that would take the place of the drummer's wallet. Enter "The Drum Wallet." This ingenious design allows all of the functionality of a drummer's wallet embedded in absolute convenience and durability.

There are many products on the market today that are competing for the same niche sales, however the majority of them have appeared in the last 5 Years and none of them can claim what "The Drum Wallet" can. "The Drum Wallet" can be applied to the majority of snare drums, major manufacturers and custom drums from six lug to ten lug designs. It allows the drummer to be able to apply and remove his/her muffling device ("The Drum Wallet") in less than 2 seconds! "The Drum Wallet" uses no adhesives and therefore illicits a superior sound compared to the other products in the current marketplace.

Why would you want to remove your muffling device you may ask. There are many reasons why a drummer may wish to change the tone of their drum for a particular style of music, or song. Go-Go for example, is a style where the strong overtones of old broke-in heads and ringing snares are ever-present and desirable. You may want to play a Latin song that includes a timbale solo, and you have no Timbalero, forcing you to cover both parts. To do that effectively you might want to remove your muffler and turn off your snare to get that timbale effect. You may actually want to explore the tonal subtleties and musical qualities that make the snare drum such an incredibly complex and unique instrument. "The Drum Wallet" allows you to make these changes in between songs or even in the middle of a song in less than two seconds! The best part of it is, you never have to take your stick out of your hand! That's right! No more putting your stick in your mouth, or playing with two in one hand while you try and remove your muffling device to change your snare tone to spice up your drum solo.

If that isn't enough for you to grab for your wallet yet, then check this out. If you are familiar with the products currently on the market then you know there are a few different types. These main product groupings as classified by myself in my research on "The Drum Wallet" are: after market rings, built in rings, adhesive based products, add-on mechanical, and built in mechanical muffling devices. Each has some serious shortcomings when compared to "The Drum Wallet" drum muffling device, and that will be demonstrated in the following anecdotes.

After market rings were the mainstay in the market for years as really the only commercially available viable aftermarket option for drummers on a massive scale. These products are great, and they have served their purpose very well for many years. I own these products myself, and my frustrations with them were one of the main reasons I had to develop "The Drum Wallet."

Rings are very difficult to get off of your drum in a rush without damaging them or creasing them. You must pinch the ring with your fingers, or poke at it with your stick, if you wish to remove the ring during a song to get your desired sound. However, once the ring is removed you now find yourself with the dilemma of where to put the ring. You could lay it on the ground or hang it on a stand, either takes time and the rings can be difficult to work with. Removed rings are somewhat cumbersome to try to stash somewhere on your drum set or the floor, to be at the ready for reuse on the drum. Therefore, aftermarket rings are virtually useless when it comes to smooth, quick transitions of the muffling device. They also force a difficult reinstallation on the drum head, due to their awkward shape, pliability and size.

Built in rings are a great idea and are usually manufactured into the drum head itself. Many companies have successfully introduced drum heads that dramatically improve the sound over those heads manufactured in the past, by adding another layer or ring of mylar onto the back side of the head itself. Other companies have introduced venting and other ring type products to contain over ring. There were also products made that were placed on top of the shell and under the head as internal mufflers. These are not unlike what I made in High School to make Ludwig Vistilite concert toms and bass drums sound better. These products are great as well, but offer no options to change the amount of muffling without removing heads, making it necessary to retune the drums. This certainly could not be done in the middle of a solo.

We now come to the area with the most marketplace activity in the last few years, and that is those products which utilize adhesives to attain their full potential as muffling devices. There are many ingenious products in this area of the product niche. Many are removable, re-usable and offer great concepts for marketing and commercializing their products.

Once again, I feel as though I must point out the product area's over-all downfall, so as to educate the drumming population and those who are reading, or listening to this. These products all use adhesives. Period. That means that the attack of the stick is somewhat compromised. It may be minute, but sound is a game of microns, and micro seconds. The other main difficulties with using these products are easy removal, reapplication, and storage while not in use. I enjoy these great products as well, but the amount of time it takes to remove, let alone reapply, is too long for an easy, non tense, mid-song transition.

Add-on and built in mechanical devices are a fantastic way to get adjustability in your drum's muffled sound as many of them allow for fine tuning of some sort. This however, actually ends up being the mechanical devices weak spot when it comes to quick changes. Quick changes are virtually impossible with most products in this niche area. Some of the top drummers in the world endorse certain products in this area especially. These products often times must be purchased when a drum is new or added after the fact, and they can also be quite expensive and are often cumbersome and some must be removed when the drums are packed and transported.

"The Drum Wallet" is placed on the drum, by threading the adjustable hook and loop fasteners through the tension rods between the drum rim and the lugs of the drum, so that the pocket of "The Drum Wallet" is up against the shell and lugs of the drum. In this position it is acting as a bumper to the mass of "The Drum Wallet" against the drum's finish during the removal process during or after a playing session.

When the drummer wishes to apply "The Drum Wallet", they simply run their stick into the pocket that lay in between the drum and "The Drum Wallet" and use their stick to flip "The Drum Wallet" up onto the drum head, and into playing position. When the drummer wishes to remove "The Drum Wallet", they simply place their stick back in the pocket of "The Drum Wallet" which is now on top of "The Drum Wallet" as it sits on top of the drum head and flips it off back to its original "removed" position.