Brushes/Multi-Rods & Cymbals

tom711

Junior Member
Hey everyone I was wondering if anybody out there had any experiences with brushes or multi-rods that have particularly good cymbal definition.
 
There is a set of Mallets/sticks made by Vic Firth I believe.

One end is a stick, the butt end has mallet heads.

Yarn Mallets work best on cymbals, those mallets I speak of are more for like tri toms or suited better for set.

They wont bring out the cymbal like pure yarn mallets will.

For good brush instruction look up Tommy Igoe Groove essentials, he really breaks it down.
 
I've tried a few dowel bundles and the ones I like best especially for definition are the Firth/Steve Smith Tala Wands. They seem to have the best rebound and general attack of all the ones I've tried. I usually use the yellow birch models.

Brushes generally won't have much definition although you can usually get some gutsier sounds by playing with the middle part of the fan where the wires start coming together more.

I was given the Firth Live Wires with the small beads on the end but I've never been able to get the more traditional brush swish to sound good with them. You can definitely her them better on cymbals but...you have to like the sound of them on drums as well for that to work.
 
I don't use "Multi-Rods" but I do have several pairs of brushes laying around but I can't remember off hand who makes them. If I'm playing a venue that I know that I'll be using brushes for much of the music, I'll just mic my kit a bit differently and I may change the heads on my snare drum to either an Evans G1 or Ambassador coated batter head. I usually use Evans Power Center Reverse Dots. I also like to use cymbals that are a bit more aggressively lathed, in traditional finishes.

Dennis
 
You can always use the back end of a brush and scrape it or use the rubber (or wood if you use that Vic Firth brush) to hit the cymbal.

Live Wires an Rakes seems to have good definition.

Rods seem to all play cymbals the same depending on how many rods and their thickness to me.
 
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