Among the metric truckloads of sticks Vater will produce this year, it will also offer a variety of neato accessories to spice up your drum set. The Jingle Rings, Vintage Bomber Beater, and Slick Nut won’t wow your bandmates, but we drummers will find them quite valuable.

Jingle Rings.  Designed in collaboration with Jose Medeles, the Jingle Ring looks like a muffling ring with jingles attached around the circumference. In essence, it is just that. Place the Jingle Ring on a drum, give it a whack, and listen to your now-muffled drum give off a tambourine-like sound.

The Rings also work effectively on toms. My favorite application was to place the 16″ ring on my floor tom and play the snare and floor tom on the downbeat. Unfortunately, I really could not get the 14″ ring to work well on the snare. The rings are dependent on drumhead vibration to produce that jingle, and the ring didn’t react on a fairly-tight snare head. The only sound I could produce was that of a muffled snare with a slight jingly overtone. The five-jingle 13″ ring lacked a bit of pep when used with the other rings, which (except for the five-jingle 12″) contain eight jingles.

You must also be careful in handling the larger Jingle Rings because the weight of the jingles will stress the plastic ring. I recommend handling these with both hands, especially the 16″ ring. They should also be laid out flat when stored.

Throwing them on all my toms made for some extra-lively fills, but these rings are most effective when used sparingly. You don’t want to get all jingled out, do you?

Slick Nut.  There isn’t much you can say about cymbal-topping accessories. You screw it on, and you unscrew it off. It’s a simple process that we take for granted. That’s where the Slick Nut comes in and throws a wrench into the plans. The fairly easy concept of “righty-tighty, left-loosey” has now been replaced with “on” and “off.” All you have to do is merely press a button, you don’t have to twist the Slick Nut onto your stand. You just place the cymbal, hold down the fastening button, pop it on your stand, and voila. Cymbal changes can now be made on the fly and you don’t have to worry about your wing nut loosening and popping off. The spring-loaded mechanism will hold your cymbal down nice and tight.

The Slick Nut throws the world of cymbal-toppers for another loop with its theft-deterrent system. On the opposite side of the fastening button, there is a hex screw that can be tightened to lock the Slick Nut in place. With the cymbal lock in place, you don’t have to worry about someone swiping your cymbals whenever you’re away from your set for an extended period of time.

I’m sure many will stick to traditional wing nuts, but those who frequently have to break down and set up their gear should look into getting a set of these.

Vintage Bomber Beater.  The Vintage Bomber Beater was designed in collaboration with Otis Brown III to replicate the soft, but boomy bass drum tones of the jazz era. Its cork center is wrapped with a soft, puffy synthetic covering that hearkens back to the look, feel, and sound of beaters made from real lamb’s wool.

I’ll fess up. I’m not the most delicate of drummers, but having a female lead singer will force you to become one. Throw in some songs where this metal head has to bust out the brushes and we may have a situation here. I currently have a kick pedal with a hard plastic beater on it that will wake the dead, but that sound doesn’t fit well with brush work. I popped this baby on my pedal and immediately fell in love with it. The beater is very well balanced and produces a smooth, soft, and boomy sound. The cork center is quite sturdy and produces a very controlled boom even when you really lay into the drum. Pair this beater with bundled dowel rods, and you’ve got yourself a nice sounding outfit for lower-volume gigs. There’s no reason why any drummer playing in a variety of musical situations should not have one of these handy.