Sticks And Beaters May Break My Bones….
It’s interesting how a drummer’s choice in equipment and accessories evolves over the course of their playing career due to the experiences they have. I started practicing as an early teen in the confines of a small room in an apartment with an extremely used kit I bought from an acquaintance with my paper route money. Noise was obviously an issue so I started my drumming life using light jazz sticks (7a’s) with nylon tips. Extremely practical considering I was trying not to blow out the neighbors and most of the time I was playing along to tapes on a boom box. This experience obviously taught how to play quietly which of course is a very valuable skill. When it finally came time for me to play in actual rock clubs where the drums were mic’d I ran into an unusual problem. Because I was using very light sticks and I wasn’t hitting particularly hard the sound engineer had to turn my mics up to the point of feedback! As it turned out a bit later I ended up befriending a talented sound guy at the same club who gave me a few helpful suggestions. First was to move up to a heavier stick. I still kept the nylon tips just because I love the articulation they provide on toms and especially the ride. I guess because I spent my formative drumming years with nylons I could never get used to sound and feel of wood tips. I also kind of feel engineers whether in recording or live end up equalizing wood tips to get the same sound I can achieve in the first place with the nylons. The second suggestion my friend made was to switch from felt kick pedal beaters to either wood or plastic. This also provided me with a bit more power and more high end articulation for the sound guy to get that click on the attack. Once again this is something I think engineers do with judicious eq and gating with felt beaters. Might as well meet them as closely as possible and in that way take more control of your sound. As drummers we’re constantly striving to balance our individual and overall volumes around the kit. These were just a couple of things I picked up that ended up doing that for me.
Nicely written piece.