Stick Choice and Rebound

[Christopher]

Carlock seems to use rebound as effectively and musically as just about anyone I’ve seen.

Maybe give his sticks a look?

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Regal-Tip-K ... 1445559.gc

I would whole heartedly agree with those that said that there are too many variables going on for anyone to really suggest one type of stick to you.

Your hands, your grip, your style, your drums and cymbals… all contributors.

You’ll know them when you meet them.

[littlegrooves]

The stick needs proportionally more mass toward the front in order to rebound well.

I'm not quite sure if this is correct, if you mean "front" to be the bead. If one wants a stick that readily rebounds, then you want more mass on the other side of the fulcrum, opposite the bead-end of the stick. This is a simple matter of leverage. To illustrate this with a thought experiment, if you were to add a weight to your stick, where do you intuitively feel that it would 1.) help your rebound the most, 2.) hurt your rebound the most?

1.) The bead end. 2.) The butt end.

It may seem counter-intuitive at first, but looking at it through the lens of Newton's 2nd (F=ma) and 3rd (equal/opposite reaction) laws may make more sense. If you're really bored, you can duct-tape some quarters to the back and then the front and execute some free strokes, or as deseipel suggests, just slide your grip up and down the stick. Rebound gets a lot more difficult a lot more quickly moving the fulcrum up toward the front.

You don't have to take my word for it, either. Greb, Weckl, and Mayer all espouse the same thing in their clinics and instructional products.

Alright, time to get nerdy since you opened the can of worms

To be honest, F=ma and the 3rd law don't tell you anything about semi-inelastic collisions (in the form you stated them), which are what sticks hitting drumheads are. For that you need to look at momentum (p = m*v, noting that: F = dp/dt = m*dv/dt = ma). If you wanted to look at the entire system of a stick, fulcrum, drumhead, radial velocity, etc... then you are looking at a first year dynamics problem that I don't have the patience to solve. However, if you simply look at leverage (M = F*d), then you can see how distance from a fulcrum (d) affects the leverage (M). Moving your hand up and down a drumstick and hitting a head with it will tell you when you have distributed your masses such that your leverage is "balanced". The more mass to the back of the stick, the more "help" with a rebound you get, but the more work you do to hit the drumhead, and vice versa. The phenomenon you described of having difficulty getting rebound as you move up the stick has more to do with choking the stick, rather than a leverage issue.

[Tombo 7/4]

Have you seen these?

American Sound® 5B
Ideal for rock‚ band and practice.
L = 16 3/16" | Dia. = .595"

I've never seen this American Sound series. Looks interesting.

SD2 Bolero.

That is stick is sick. It's fat in diameter, but not too heavy (maple). It also has an abrupt taper and a nice round bead. It feels meaty without controlling you.

SD2 Bolero
Round tip.
L = 15 3/4" | Dia. = .635"

Yes the SD2. This was the mandatory stick when I studied classical percussion in college. I spent so much time practicing rudiments and snare etudes with these that I became very comfortable and liking them very much. So I strated using them on drumset but the small round tip was chiping easily and the end of taper was thin and fragile. So I looked for a stick with similar characteristics but for drumkit and found the Harvey Mason to have the same balance and feel but sturdier. SD2 are perfect for orchestral ppp passages but too fragile for me for kit playing.

[Old Pit Guy]

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[Kurtis]

Gonna try out those round tip 5b stix. I'm sure the round tip will chip up. Worth a try. They will sound much better on the ride. Love the Peter E stix. Great on the ride. Effortless to produce buzz strokes. Still waiting for some company to produce a chip free tip that feels exatly like wood and with bounce. sure would be an expensive stick.

[gretsch-o-rama]

I got a couple of pairs of Jojo sticks and they are pretty cool. A short stick for it's diameter and I think it'd be cool for a straight ahead gig. It's not unstable as the dave weckl evo...I mean it doesn't feel like it's gonna shatter.

[Mark P]

great topic. been feeling the same way about the 5B's i have been using the past 16 years. i would like to see a 5B with a rounder tip. would like to see a few versions of the rounder tip just to see what works best. rounder tips would sound and feel better on the ride. sound wise it would be very minimal. feel wise it would be nice to get some love back from the stick. shape does make a pretty big difference on the head of the stick. don't care to much about the width and taper to the head of the stick. when you play so many years developing your hands you can pretty much use any stick. if you want that special stick it's sometimes hard to find. i guess if you want that special stick your gonna have to get really good, get in a group with lots of exposure, be a virtuoso and the stick companies will come a knockin. then you can create your own stick.

go bruins

Well,
You can get Vic Firth 5B's with a different tip, a round 'ball tip' is from the American Sound range. A 5BAS (American Sound) model is exactly the same as the 5B American Classic, but with a ball tip instead of a tear drop tip...
The AJ1 is a hickory 5B thickness and length with a slightly different taper that makes it a 'faster' stick, and the tear drop tip is smaller than a standard 5B.


MP

[gretsch-o-rama]

I bought some regal tip 9a's and I really like the diameter of those. I didn't like the length however.(too long) So I designed some drumsticks at http://www.customdrumstix.com/all-drum-sticks.html I designed kind of a 9A(.580) with a short taper and 15 and 7/8" in length(the harvey mason stick is that length and is cool). Only question is how short will the taper be. I hope very short.

Of all the sticks I've tried nothing comes close to the sound of the VC stick(I profess my VC love!)lol but I'm hoping that this stick above can give me a good sound without the nuclear volume.

[bclarkio]

This thread makes me reflect that the feel of the rebound is such a large part of the feel of the stick, and therefore stick choice.

[larryd]

Have you ever tried the Vic Firth extreme 5B model ? It's a little bit longer .