Stick Selection

DRUMSTICKS

The Importance of Proper Selection

Your drumsticks are like a middleman between your thoughts and what people hear. Too small of drumsticks in diameter and you run the risk of breaking them too fast. Too big of drumsticks and your actions might be too slow and sluggish. Wood type and moisture content are the key elements to a drumstick's response and durability. Too much moisture produces a stick that feels "rubbery" and that will warp quickly. Too little moisture will produce a stick that is very brittle and will break easily.

COMMON WOODS USED

Maple, Hickory and Oak.

Best Wood For Drumsticks

Hickory; it has the highest shatter point than the other woods. Which means it is more durable. It will last longer.

Oak

Oak is very heavy for it's size. It has a heavy feel to it. Oak absorbs a lot less shock than hickory. This means it passes the shock right into your hands. Oak sticks should be played on softer surfaces like floor toms, thin cymbals and snare drums not tuned too high.

Maple

Maple has a lighter feel to it. Which means that you can have a large diameter drumstick in your hands and not have that heavy sluggish feeling. Maple sticks are perfect for orchestral and symphonic playing. Maple also has a low shatter point. So when you play rimshots, you run the risk of breaking your drumsticks. Again these sticks should be played on soft surfaces. Maple sticks are primarily used for light, fast playing in low volume situations.

Hickory

They range from durable wood with a high shatter point. They chip away as they are being played versus shattering at a certain point. The most important benefit is that the hickory stick absorbs over twice the amount of shock as the other woods used. Hickory sticks can take a lot of abuse before breaking. Dark, or "brown hickory", is found closer to the tree's center and is slightly denser and heavier than "white" hickory.

Difference Between Wood and Nylon Tips

Round, acorn and arrow are the three most common tips out there. There are about 20 different variation on each of these tips. The acorn tip will offer you great versatility where as the round tip offers the least versatility. The round tip offers a less warm sound than the acorn tip. The round tip has a more uniform sound. Because of it being round, the angle at which you strike does not matter. An acorn tip gives you 3 positions of shape of the tip for different sounds. The arrow tip offers you the warmest sound when played properly on the flat or large surface of the tip. It takes advanced training to play acorn tips correctly.

Length and Weight

Almost all sticks are longer than 15.1" and shorter than 16.3". Making longer sticks is of no use because you don't hold the stick at the very end but at a point where the weight of the part of the stick before that point, is more or less equal to weight of the part behind that point. This point is called the Fulcrum Point. Almost no stick weighs less than 1.4 ounces and almost no stick weighs more than 2.5 ounces. This is very much related to the length, thickness and type of wood.

Latin Percussion once made a series of drumsticks called Dynafibe, that were made of hickory that had a greater density (by artificial compression techniques) than regular hickory, and hence the stick was heavier.

The influence of the weight on the sound

The weight of a stick is of course dependent on its size and the density of the wood. Given that, acoustical laws dictate that the heavier the stick, the fuller the sound you get. By full that mean that the whole sound spectrum from low to high frequency comes out. This is something that can best be heard by hearing someone else play your drum, while you are some 20 feet away. No mic'ing, just the drum, the sticks and the player. Of course the drum itself is of major importance, but given a good drum, the sound when played fortissimo with light sticks, is terrible, no matter how hard you hit! Playing softly with heavier sticks also gives a much richer and defined sound.

The most important factor is your sound-engineer!!

The sound of a heavy stick on a cymbal has also much more lower frequencies than a lighter stick. This is something that is not always wanted, but can be controlled to a certain degree by the shape and position of the tip.

Good factories try to match their sticks into equal pairs. Equal of weight that is. But
because factors like temperature and humidity have great influence on wood, it's always a
good idea to try to match the pairs yourself before buying. Sticks are also suspect to
warping and this can be checked by rolling them on a glass (or other flat) surface.

Almost all tips fall into one of those three base-shapes. The shape of the tip is of major importance on the sound of the stick, when played on cymbals.

THE MARKINGS A, B, S

A stands for orchestral or symphonic styles of music
B stands for band
S stands for street, or the marching styles of music