Grant

Those are also good for fending off home invaders or uppity lead singers.

For my money, Jean Paul (JP) is one of the best rock n roll drummers around today. SUPER dynamic, always grooving, and very musical. 

Hot Bottom Feeder - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HbbWtqlT5E

In Walks Barbarella - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIGT3IR33qM

Burning Beard - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G22m_Bu4SEo

JP has played on every Clutch record, but a couple I'd recommend checking out are: 

Blast Tyrant

Psychic Warfare 

🤘

Phil is on my list of greatest drummers. 

LOVE Joe Morello's drumming! 

JoJo is so creative, really inspiring what he has been able to do on the drums. 

Peter & Joni are one of my all time favorite musical combos. 

SUPER underrated modern rock drummer! Thanks for sharing! 

Love Gavin's playing! Absoluter master of the craft. 

Ooh got ya! Those tacky ones are pretty nice! My hands get so sweaty on stage sometimes even those start to slip in my hands. 

I've been playing drums for 14 years & i''m still clumsy 🤷‍♂️haha

Stick choices are so personal! If you ever happen to stumble across a pair that feels right in your hands, than stick with that!

I will say, whenever I've tried to play with painted sticks I end up throwing them all over the stage and at the audience on accident, but maybe I just need to try the green ones haha.

Happy to share from my own mistakes @Bruce. I do hope things turn around for you with this band, as I know it can be draining to be the most prepared or positive member of a group. 

Dude freaking heck yes @Dave!! What a steal. Happy for you, & a killer certificate as well. 

Yo people!

I just wanted to share this video I stumbled upon. Literally like every common Zildjian cymbal is in this demo. This is so helpful!

Dangggg that is cheap! I would hop on that if I were you!

Yo @Bruce!

I had a few thoughts to share on this subject. First off I completely agree, praise teams should strive for excellence. As believers we are called to do our best in everything, which includes the praise team doing their best. 

It sounds like you have some frustration with the lack of excellence that your praise team is showing, & honestly I think it can be a good thing to see laziness & be frustrated with it. 

As part of the praise team I think it is part of your job to help keep others around you accountable for their actions & efforts when it comes to the praise team...therefore I don't think it's too crazy for you to share these thoughts / frustrations with your worship leader & or band leader. 

Seeing something that can be better & making a change is such a good thing (maybe not every time, but in general).

I would suggest first striving for excellence in yourself, showing up being the most prepared member of the band, ready to help others. Then when you have established that reputation with the group, approaching the band leader & saying "Hey, I care about this church & I think we as a worship team can do better." Kind, respectful, but focused on the group being the best it can be. 

I hope all of those thoughts make sense! Again, this is just my opinion, not saying it's the only way to approach the situation, just the way I would choose to do so. 

@Jeffrey - I freaking love that attitude. You are so right, playing in church has nothing to do with us, but serving the body. Well said man. 

@Bruce - I have experienced both scenarios in the past, and like / dislike each one for different reasons.

I enjoy rehearsing with the band mid week, then a quick run through before church on Sunday morning. This lets the band get tight & also allows the group to work on transitions, specific parts etc. It really lets the band hone in on what they are doing & how to play together well. However it is difficult for everyone to be able to make those mid week rehearsals, which can lead to them being a waste of time. 

I also enjoy rehearsing just before church on Sunday mornings. This has pushed me to improve my charting, & the level of expectation is raised for the whole band. You can't show up to a run through before church & not know the songs. I think this method encourages the band to be responsible as individuals, it also is a much more flexible style of managing the praise band. 

I think both can be useful & have their own place in a church's organization. That's just my two cents though, I'm sure others will have their own opinions!

Yo @Dave! 

I owned the 21" Last year & loved it, however let it go because I was going for a few other sounds over the bright sound. 

If you like A Custom Zildjians, it's freaking amazing, especially the 23". 

On 12/4/2019 at 1:20 PM, Bruce said:

@Joshua The sticks at the lower left corner are UltraTones from Lidwish Solutions.  They are definitely quiet - you get almost no volume at all out of a ride cymbal. They are marketed as a noise solution.  I've seen some videos where a drummer is managing to get a lot more tone than I ever could get out of them.  They are a separate breed from sticks or rods.

I recently tried a pair of maple Zildjian 7A (red dipped shaft in the picture).  I loved the feel of them on a pad and on my drums, but they are a bit soft in the tip and I don't get a lot of attach on my ride cymbals.

I wish I'd have bought the smaller broomsticks; the big ones are a bit much for traditional grip. LOL

     

Oh very interesting! What are the sticks made of that make them so quiet? That's very fascinating, I've never hard of sticks like that. Cool stuff my friend!

Nice kit @Noel! Is that what you use in the videos you've posted? 

I had no idea VicFirth made sticks for kids, what a great idea. 

On 11/21/2019 at 10:35 PM, Julia said:

@Joshua  It's kind of a mystery...from what I can tell, VF and Zildjian merged around 2010, but VF seems to have been making sticks for Zildjian since before that.  I have seen some complaints in forums about Zildjian stick quality, mostly quite some time ago, but it seems to have improved.  I kind of relate this to the art world where Blick brand colored pencils are made in the same plant as Koh-i-Noor pencils, but they are not identical products, they vary in quality and components.  Maybe Zildjian's old contracts with VF had a different quality standard than VF's own. 

Zildjian overhauled their stick lines recently, and I found that there are two newer equivalents for my discontinued 7a pair with them, and one with VF.  But one of the Zildjian designs is black, so I definitely have to check that out sometime.

I am more comfortable with shorter sticks — my wonky unison problem is less obvious when I play with them.  For a while I used thicker sticks than 7a because it seemed to be helping my traditional grip, but now I'm comfortable enough that the stick diameter doesn't matter as much (hooray for practice and improvement!). 

WOW. That's some solid info @Julia. Thank you for that. It's interesting to watch how big some of these companies get, & what decisions they make along the way to keep growing....

@Bruce - LOVE the collection my friend. Those ProMark broomsticks are so much fun to play. They are usually a bit too quiet for most scenarios, but I think they are tons of fun to play with. 

Also it looks you have a solid array of brushes vs sticks. It took me forever to dive into brushes, but they are unbelievably helpful. 

I second Tim's point. The perfect stick is probably not out there (however you never know), but there are plenty of sticks that do a number of things well, you just have to pick & choose. 

For all the country & rock I play I STICK with (see what I did there?) the VicFirth 5b extreme wood tip sticks. They feel great & allow a good amount of energy to be played without being too thick. 

For most everything else I use the VicFirth SD9 Drivers. A maple stick, a bit shorter & fatter than the 5B extreme with an oval tip. I LOVE that stick, however they break so quickly when you are hitting rimshots every song. So they are much better for soft, low key gigs. Those are my favorite for sure. 

What are the sticks in the bottom left hand corner of the picture? They look acrylic!

Ya'll. This dude is freaking nuts. Granted, he has a SUPER weird facial expression literally the whole times he's playing. But still. This is amazing. 

Very interesting thoughts @Julia!! 

I've never had the chance to play the 7a drumstick, however I just looked it up, sounds like a great stick. I prefer the extreme 5b right now. Which is 16 1/2 inches long, & bit thicker than the 7a. However I'm primarily using those for country / rock, so it's a pretty good fit. 

It's so interesting that Vic & Zildjian are the same company now, I believe it was a merger of the two, but I do wonder if one bought the other, or just how the conversation got started in general. Do you know anything else about it @Julia?

@Tim B. I definitely agree about the splash haha. I've never really been a huge fan of splashes. However I do love the additional trigger pads. Nothing is worse than playing a show in a dark room, & trying to turn to the side to play the SPD.