Apartment drummers often worry about the noise from their kick drum more than anything else. The thumping of the bass drum beater hitting the pad can be problematic. However, some will find that the hi-hats pose just as much of a problem depending on how you play.

After picking up a Roland TD-17KVX2, which uses a standard hi-hat stand rather than an electronic hi-hat pedal, I found that the thumping from stomping on the hi-hat stand was worse than the thumping of the bass drum beater on the bass drum pad. It’s especially noticeable when I’m trying to play something that requires constant foot tapping with the hi-hats.

I am using a KAT Silent Strike beater on the bass pedal, and the whole kit is sitting on an anti-vibration pad, which has really helped with the noise on bass drum side of the kit. I feel like I can play the kick drum at normal levels of aggressiveness without any excessive noise or vibration going into the floor.

However it kind of surprised me that the hi-hat makes as much noise as it does. I guess I’ve been more used to using the electronic hi-hat pedals which usually aren’t as noisy. It makes sense when looking at it closer, though. A normal hi-hat stand doesn’t really have any dampening features built in, and the Roland VH-10 hi-hat pad doesn’t really do much to dampen noise either. So when stomping or tapping my foot on the hi-hat pedal it can vibrate into the floor quite a bit each time the pedal bottoms out. When I’m tapping constant notes with the hi-hat, it basically sounds like I’m just stomping my foot on the floor.

So that’s got me thinking that maybe the electronic hi-hat pedals can be a better option for some apartment situations, as opposed to using a kit that requires a real hi-hat stand. Something to keep in mind if you’re an apartment drummer.

In the meantime I’ve busted out my Roland NE-10 noise eaters, which I haven’t used in a while since getting a good platform setup for my kit. I’m finding that the noise eater adds another level of vibration absorption that might help with the noise from stomping on the hi-hat. It’s still not perfect, but it’s better.

I’ll have to look into some options for the hi-hat stand, I feel like there might be a way to add some dampening to the points where things are bottoming out and causing the stomping noise.