Stick Experimentation Disease?

After playing drums for over fifty years, I know what I like. Peace and goodwill.
 
Not suffered this specific affliction although I’m having a midlife crisis about pedals at the minute (seriously considering switching to Tama or BDC); something I’ve never worried about in the past...who knows, a bad case of SED may be just around the corner; until then I’m “sticking” with my Vic Firth STL’s!! (y) :D
 
I have a bin near my kit filled with all different sizes and makes that I’ve acquired over the years. They may come in handy at some point so not in a rush to jettison them; already paid for and not taking up much space. I have settled on a stick model that works for all of the playing I do, so no more experimentation. I am a fully recovered former addict.
 
I just go Vater 5A or B, nylon or wood depending on the gig. Hickory. Not a fan of the forward weighted Pro marks is my only rule. It feels like I work too hard with forward weighted sticks. No maple either. A broken maple stick...why it'll take your eye out! Pointy!

If I can't make a regular 5A or B stick do what I want, I'd be working on my technique instead of buying different drumsticks.

But hey if you enjoy it then it's good. More power to you. No judgements either. Drums and drumming are one of the things in life that is the closest thing I can think of...to total freedom.

I'm a pretty big drum geek, but I don't really think about sticks, pedals, and even hi hat stands much at all.

Everything else drumming I split hairs by default.
 
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I have Stick Acquisition Disorder. This is a disorder in which ones normal stick is not in stock. One must then try to find an equivalent stick.

I now have 3 sticks that are all basically identical minus some very minor differences. I had to find an equivalent to the equivalent. I wont buy sticks online. I need them in my hands first. My local GC never has what I want in stock stick wise.
 
for the first 30ish years of playing I did...

then I finally settled on Vic Firth 3A's...

my issue was that I spend about 90% of my drumming time with marching sticks in my hands due to my job and really needed to find a pair of set sticks that felt like marching sticks. I also did not want telephone poles on the set due to possible cymbal damage, so I floated through a lot of stick types.

I needed to find something that felt substantial in my hands, and also had nearly round tips for my ride cymbal sound. I floated to VF SD-1 Generals for a while, but did not like the way the taper at the shoulder felt on set. After that, i tried Pro Mark PW808- Shakira Kashi oak sticks, and they felt great, but also, the taper felt "fragile". I still use these for jazz stuff though
 
I’ve been suffering from stick experimentation disease for the last 3 years. I was settled on Ahead for quite a few years. Time with my drums slowed down substantially when I had a child. After about a 2 year break (for lack of a better term) I decided I would start using trees again. I’ve used about 5 different brands and more different sizes. With each stick I try I think I’m getting closer to come back around to Ahead sticks.
 
I did. I have Maybe a hundred pair of usable sticks.

But I’ve settled on the Benny Greb signatures and my experimenting is done
 
I don't know, but I'm suffering from *sticking* experimentation disease. Specifically, I want to develop a phone app to generate stickings for drumset.

Calling all programmers (preference for Python)..
 
for the first 30ish years of playing I did...

then I finally settled on Vic Firth 3A's...

my issue was that I spend about 90% of my drumming time with marching sticks in my hands due to my job and really needed to find a pair of set sticks that felt like marching sticks. I also did not want telephone poles on the set due to possible cymbal damage, so I floated through a lot of stick types.

I needed to find something that felt substantial in my hands, and also had nearly round tips for my ride cymbal sound. I floated to VF SD-1 Generals for a while, but did not like the way the taper at the shoulder felt on set. After that, i tried Pro Mark PW808- Shakira Kashi oak sticks, and they felt great, but also, the taper felt "fragile". I still use these for jazz stuff though

Drum-Eze has some nice foam grips you can put on regular-size sticks.
 
I don't know, but I'm suffering from *sticking* experimentation disease. Specifically, I want to develop a phone app to generate stickings for drumset.

Calling all programmers (preference for Python)..

If you want, message me with more info about your project. Interesting.
 
I had a fever and the only prescription are Vater Sugar Maple 5B's
 
Interesting, I also keep coming back to the Vater Sugar Maple 5B as a go-to stick for the past 15 years or so. I also like the VF Akira Jimbo sig sticks, but they're completely different thing all together.
 
Only because they stopped making my favourite stick.

It's not my only stick, but for regular drum set itæs te choice 99.99% of the time
.
 
I tried just about everything at some point. My favorite stick was discontinued (Carter Beauford signature) but I found one I like even more.
I bought up a bunch of the Carter Beauford sticks before they were discontinued but I'm down to five pairs. The Zildjian coating actually lasts longer, so that's a plus.
 
Promark 5B active grip rebound. There are some Vater 7As lying about as well, don't get used much though.
 
If you want, message me with more info about your project. Interesting.
Okay will do. Maybe start a separate thread on it. The idea came while I was revisiting a song during practice yesterday - "Reminiscing" by Little River Band - and I was struggling coming up with groove ideas. The main idea is to provide the application the consistent parts of the groove (eg kick, snare) over a number of bars, and have it generate sticking permutations for selected surfaces, based on some rules for conventional drumset layout. The latter part of that sentence is the tough part - generating the rules we all play by but don't consciously think about every day, eg it's virtually impossible to play the ride with both hands (or difficult enough that you could specify it as a rule) but not for the hihat. Another rule would be that if you want the same hand to play the snare backbeat, then the other hand must be on the hihat for beats 2 and 4 for a eighth note groove, etc.

Anyway, here is my python representation of the consistent or known groove part of Reminiscing. Obviously, you'd want a user-friendly GUI for generating this data structure (which is called a dictionary in python):

Code:
# ---- Groove for "Reminiscing" by Little River Band ----
groove = {'sig': [4,4],
          'bars': 4,                                     # the number of bars for the longest pattern; use this number
                                                         # to 'fill' bars for shorter patterns (eg snare pattern)
          'bar_grid':             [1,0,0,1,0,0, 1,0,0,1,0,0],   # '1' for quarter note (or beat note in time signature)
          'snare_pattern': {'0': [[0,0,0,0,0,0, 1,0,0,0,0,0],],
                            },
          'kick_pattern':  {'0': [[1,0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0,1],
                                  [0,0,1,1,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0,0],
                                  [1,0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0,1],
                                  [0,0,1,1,0,0, 0,0,1,0,0,0],],
                            },
          'hihat_pattern': {'0': [[1,0,0,1,0,0, 1,0,0,1,0,0]],    # easy straight quarter notes
                            '1': [[1,0,0,1,0,0, 1,0,0,1,0,1],    # two-bar variation
                                  [0,0,0,1,0,0, 1,0,0,1,0,0],],
                            '2': [[1,0,0,1,0,0, 1,0,0,1,0,1],    # four-bar variation
                                  [0,0,0,1,0,0, 1,0,0,1,0,0],
                                  [1,0,0,1,0,0, 1,0,0,1,0,1],
                                  [0,0,0,1,0,0, 1,0,1,0,0,0],],
                            },
     'open_hihat_pattern': {'0': [[0,0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0,0],   # '1' for open hihat foot
                                  [0,0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0,0],
                                  [0,0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0,1],
                                  [0,0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,1,0,0,0],],
                            },
          'crash_pattern': {'0': [[1,0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0,0],
                                  [0,0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0,0],
                                  [0,0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0,0],
                                  [0,0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,1,0,0,0],],
                            },
          }

Other data structures for rudiments and time signatures:

Code:
# ---- Patterns ----
# Rudiments  ('1' is right hand, '2' is left hand, '0' is note rest)
double_paradiddle = [1,2,1,2,1,1]
paradiddle = [1,2,1,1]
open_stroke = [1,2]
double_stroke_roll = [1,1,2,2]

# One-handed patterns
jazz_ride  = [1,0,0,1,0,1]
jazz_ride2 = [1,0,1,1,0,0]
shuffle = [1,0,1,1,0,1]

time_signatures = [[6,8],[9,8],[12,8],  # triplet-based
                   [2,4],[4,4],[6,4],           # even
                   [3,4],[5,4],[7,4],[9,4],[11,4],[13,4]]   # odd

Apologies for the attempted hijacking LOL. I've created a separate thread for this content here - https://www.drummerworld.com/forums/index.php?threads/ai-for-drum-set-grooves.174215/.
 
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