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Boom Theory Spacemuffins Classic and Snare Stand Kit Sale Price: $2,999.99 Rating: Overall: 10.00	Boom Theory Spacemuffins Bop Deluxe and Snare Stand Kit Sale Price: $2,999.99 Rating: Overall: 9.67

Spacemuffins Electronic Drum Sets are born

I'd been doing studio projects for years (dumb little jingles, stuff like that) and for the most part, the electric sets I had worked O.K. It wasn't until I took on a project for Boeing that I got pissed off enough to complete the R&D for the baffling system that we use in Spacemuffins™.

I was forced to record an industrial soundtrack using a Roland Octapad and interfacing several of their flying triangle pads through it. It was a total nightmare! There was no way to accurately sequence the performance data that I was trying to record. The dynamics of my playing were lost and I ended up having to step writing most of the percussion and bass parts.

That was the last straw! I decided to finish the project that I had been working on for three years once and for all.
Acoustically Formatted Triggering

By mid 1989, I had several working prototypes and had been testing with every sound module made and every interface that was on the market. Yamaha, Roland, Dynacord, Kat, Aphex you name it, I tested through it!
I was constantly running into American Music in Seattle's Fremont district and grabbing new pieces from the shelf to demo loan and work with. Ben Anderson and Russ Underhill ran the shop in those days and risked life, limb and employment to help me during the lean years. I’ll be forever grateful to them and to the management of American Music for turning an occasional blind eye to company policy (the beauty of a hometown music store.) By the way, if any manufacturer tells you that their electric pads will trigger perfectly through any sound module, tell 'em they're full a shit and that I said so.

Anyway, I wanted Spacemuffins™ to look and feel like real drums. This meant they had to mimic the action of a real drum and have a bottomless follow through. So, enough depth was essential to allow for the natural compression and rebound that one would experience on an acoustic drum. In the case of a shallower design the drums would have to have two heads and the insert would have to move inside as if it were air, except be a solid entity that didn't transmit vibrations. They would also have to trigger accurately and exhibit outstanding dynamics in a high dB environment. The biggest problem was Sympathetic Vibration.

Now, drumheads are like a sail in the wind as they relate to Sympathetic Vibrations. The bigger the sail, the more wind it catches. The greater the surface area of the drumheads the more vibrations they're susceptible too. I’d increased surface head area by 100% over any pad that utilized a single sided "real" drumhead and my bass drums, to this day, are unprecedented. No one had ever made electric drums in this format or configuration that worked.

At this point I had invested so much time and money into the prototypes that there was no turning back. I was in debt up to my ass and had max’d out my credit cards with unsecured cash loans to finance my R&D. To this day my credit sucks in spite of the fact I paid off everyone. Typical musician, huh?

So here I was in this 300 sq. ft. room in north Seattle trying to come up with the combination of elements that will withstand high dBs, allow me to do a press roll and still maintain a kick ass dynamic range. Good luck, Al!

I was learning by trial and error and some of the lessons nearly did me in. I kid you not!
The R&D for Spacemuffins™ almost killed me!

It happened the day I decided to put a recessed circle into a piece of ultra cell foam. Polyethylene foam is used in many shapes and densities for everything from mattresses to Spacemuffins™. It can be worked with in many ways but one thing you don't want it to do is burn. Why? Because the by-product of burning polyethylene foam is cyanide gas. So of course what did I do? I tried to burn a perfect 10" recess to find the effects of mounting various resonant boards at different depths.

I concocted a sort of branding iron using an electric charcoal starter that I picked up at a garage sale. After allowing it to get red hot, I pounded it into a right angle so I could press it directly into the foam lying horizontally on the floor. The minute this red-hot iron hit the foam a massive plume of smoke smacked me in the face. I had been holding my breath while steadying my aim for the center of the foam and as soon as it touched I let out a breath and was in the process of inhaling when the smoke hit me.

Next thing I remember, I was on the floor and I knew something was terribly wrong. My head felt like it was going to explode and I was gasping for breath. I crawled to the window, stuck out my head and proceeded to puke on a Fiat Spyder parked below. I stood up and fell down four times trying to reach the door. It was like the worst mescal hangover you can imagine!

After making it outside to fresh air and regaining my senses, I went back in to the building where my space was located and down the hall to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and noted that my face was a crimson red with big purple circles under my eyes. I looked like someone had punched the shit outta me! A few hours passed and my face returned to its normal shade but I still had a pounding migraine that rendered me speechless. It hurt to talk! (I should add at this point that several close friends and associates have expressed a desire for this condition to return.)

I won't go into details of how this episode affected my digestive system but needless to say, I spent many carefree hours in public bathrooms all across the Greater Seattle area for the next three days.

I eventually called the distributors of the foam and told them what had happened. They concurred with my observations and offered a few of there own, the most important one being "only an idiot burns polyethylene in an enclosed room"! So if you ever wonder why your pillow tags say "do not remove under the penalty of law" now you know.
Live and learn!
It was episodes like that (among many others) that led me to the eventual discovery of the baffling system that I named the Digital Trap Set Baffling System™ (or Digi-Trap™) for short.

The Digi-Trap™ system is the culmination of three years R&D. Three years of cutting shells of every possible depth and diameter. Then stuffing them with every type and density of foam, resonant boards, sonic reflectors and piezo sensors I could find. Waiting for them to dry and test. And then rip apart again to find out why it didn't work as well as the ones I made the day before.

It's a baffling system of simplicity and sophistication with an almost “intelligent” ability to recognize the difference between airborne and impact vibrations. It's upgradeable, interchangeable and patented. It's the shit!

The Spacemuffins Vibe.

OK gang, I'm tired of typing this crap so, at this point I’ll direct you to the other areas that focus on product pictures, spec’s and applications. But, before I bail let me answer the single, most asked customer question of the past 8 years.

“When will you build “the Muffins” with mesh heads?”

Here’s the answer…

The very companies who told me in 1990 that my stuff would never work (let alone be awarded 4 utility patents) now offer their own version of Spacemuffins™.

These are the same people who said "if this is such a good idea, don’t you think we’d have done it by now" or "there’s just no market for an acoustically formatted electronic drum set". So, I’ve always sorta toggled between being flattered and enraged.

After all, when ‘industry leaders” validate your vision and direction by copying your ideas, I guess it's a good thing? “Imitation," they say, "is the most sincere form of flattery!" Comforting as that may be, I'd just as soon they didn't screw with my vibe.

Spacemuffins™ are now and always will be, an entity onto themselves. They were never designed to be completely silent or stuffed in the basement as a practice kit (even though they’re the best practice set ever made)

They live for LIVE!

I designed Spacemuffins™ for drummers to access digital technology without sacrificing the look, feel, sensitivity or dynamics of their acoustic set and to make the transition from acoustics’ to electric’s as seamless as possible.

For those reasons, Spacemuffins™ will never incorporate a mesh head.

You see, I didn’t have to consult with drummers when I build my stuff. I already knew what drum was supposed to feel like. Besides, what I forgot about acoustically formatted triggering, they don't even know yet!

So, there you have it! I'm outta here