Today, we would like to present to all of you drum maniacs out there a Polish company manufacturing drum accessories.
Szymon Swoboda – the owner of the Vintage Records studio – stands behind the idea of creating very interesting drum mufflers under the GoVintage brand. As Szymon himself says, he came up with this idea because he was constantly dealing with mufflers in the studio that either smudged drum heads, would constantly get lost or did not fulfill their task consistently. He has also put some effort into making his product entirely from recycled materials.
Today we tackle a muffler called GoVintage Por-T-Fel. In the Polish language (GoVintage is based in Poland), the word “portfel” means “wallet”. As the name suggests (and, of course, the appearance), the muffler looks like a small wallet, and wallets are very often used by drummers to dampen their snare drums. We have also seen some desperate people who, for lack of wallets, used their mobile phones to muffle their instruments. Szymon Swoboda‘s initiative has come up with a solution and created a fully replicable, visually consistent and, above all, great functioning muffler in the shape of a wallet. Here, we have an accessory that is designed to effectively “kill” the unwanted sounds of the snare drum.
The muffler does exactly that, and it doesn’t take any prisoners in doin gits job. It is very easy to assemble thanks to the strap with a clip, which should be placed between a lug and the snare drum hoop (we have done our test only on metal hoops). The Por-T-Fel is perfectly balanced and its optimal weight means that even when playing with rimshots, it does not fall off the instrument. You can also learn quite quickly (similar to switching the snare throw-off on and off) to remove and replace the muffler while playing the snare drum. Finally, the price of this product… Some of you might say: “That’s expensive!“. However, you have to take into account that the muffler you buy will serve you for years!
Hats off to Mr. Swoboda!
Here is the score for the GoVintage Por-T-Fel drum muffler:
Appearance: 10
Sound: 10
Innovation: 10
Price: 9
Quality: 10
TOTAL SCORE: 50
Disadvantages – None
Advantage – A very big plus for innovation, the implementation of a hack applied by drummers for years, and the use of recycled materials in manufacturing
The total score is: 5 top
Below, you will find a video test, where you can see and hear the GoVintage Por-T-Fel drum muffler in action!
