If you were an actual clubster, you'd probably have no interest in something with no buzz, but you're not a clubster, you're a drummer, and perhaps, after reading this article, you'll want to become -- a cocktail drummer.

The cocktail drum was developed in the late 1940s for drummers who were tired of being obscured behind 18" crash rides and couldn't afford to get their name emblazoned upon their kick drums. By combining the snare and kick in a single piece, drummers suddenly became more portable and -- due to the fact that they had to stand to play the thing -- more visible. The only problem was that the central cocktail drum was a noisy instrument. No separation between the kick and snare meant nearly constant snare noise due to uninterrupted sympathetic resonance.

The Zero Buzz Clubster may not be the first cocktail drum to implement an isolation system for the virtual elimination of sympathetic snare noise,but at an MAP of $699, it's got to be the most affordable.

Metropolitan Drums owner Matthew Belyea says it's also the most effective isolation system on the market, stating "We truly are amazed. . . you can hit the kick as hard as you can, and the snare is silent." He wouldn't go into the specifics of their proprietary design.

The Zero Buzz Clubster is simple, one shell kit, on which you mount whatever cymbals or percussive accessories you can fit. It is one of many models you can find on Metropolitan Drums's endearingly terrible website; they also offer multi-shell kits with names like "Chubster" and "Hipster." Worth checking out: the multitude of truly radical finished available for their custom drums.