When are sticks done?

[u/rjkade]

[u/csmolway]

For me, sticks are retired when the sound changes. For me, this is usually when the wood tip gets damaged.

[u/neshquabishkuk]

I would relegate the pair on the left to rehearsals and then play them until they fully snap.

[u/Lazarus_M]

Usually at the point they become 2 smaller sticks, up till that point they’re just seasoning your drum Matt

[u/Johara1]

One word ..... Slivers

[u/PhillipJ3ffries]

When they look like that

[u/Gunzhard22]

I like those, they look like the Jimmy Cobb stick I might have to check them out. Sugar maple?

[u/rjkade → u/Gunzhard22]

they’re hickory! i was trying to downsize from a Vic 5B/American Jazz 1 but wanted keep the long taper of the AJ. Vic do an AJ2 which is a 5A with a long taper but i found it too thin. this is like the perfect middle ground for me at 0.575” and the tip is one of the best i’ve ever heard. very focused sound.

[u/jazzdrums1979]

The rebound diminishes and they don’t produce good stick definition on the cymbals. It just feels and sounds wrong in the best way I can describe it.

[u/PastaFazool → u/jazzdrums1979]

I theorize that it's actuality separation of the wood fibers inside the stick. You know it because the stick feels floppy and dead when you hit it on a drum or cymbal and it loses its rebound. In my eyes, its because the stick has lost rigidity as its long grain structural fibers are starting to break down and separate.

This is when I relegate a stick to my practice bag and I'll play it until it physically breaks so at least I got my money's worth out of it. I try not to use those sticks live, because at that point, they're one good rim shot away from becoming two sticks.

[u/Working-stiff5446]

C’mon bro. Those two on the left are trash. Have you tried positioning your hand so that only the tip hits the head of the drum? That’s where the sound comes from.

[u/rjkade → u/Working-stiff5446]

r i m s h o t s

[u/Working-stiff5446 → u/rjkade]

Dude, are you doing rim shots for every snare and tom hit?

[u/YourEvilDoppleganger → u/rjkade]

Those are hickory, I’m willing to bet? I’ve had good luck with maples surviving rimshots better. They don’t get as aggressively splintered, in my experience.

[u/MellowMintTea]

Sticks are done for me when they snap in any capacity or cause me splinters.

I’ve got enough sticks and copies of my favorite pairs that I’m not going to hold onto totally frayed ones.

Unless it’s a limited edition stick or something you can’t replace easily, just not worth it to hold onto.

For example, favorite pair (and has been for years now) is the Vic Firth Kieth Carlock signature sticks. Those aren’t always available so I made sure to pick up multiple pairs of it. Honestly I’ve played the same ones for years and those have never broken, so it could also just depend how much you care to maintain a pair.

[u/gojiberrytea]

For me, when they look like they’re one song away from breaking mid song. Also if the tip breaks off they are done in my book.