What Are the Best Drum Sticks to Use to Minimize Breakage - Article?

A fellow drummer "Dirk", provided this question. Thanks Dirk!

I will only speak for myself here, but maybe what I've found will be useful to others. First off, for essentially all playing situations, I currently use 5B sticks from Vic Firth. Occasionally I will use their Rock'N or American Classic Rock models. For speed drumming workouts I will alternate between Drum Corp-type, 2B and 5B sticks - depending upon the exercises I am doing.

As for stick breakage, this is now an infrequent occurrence for me (with sticks of any size or manufacturer) since I tilted my hi hat and crash cymbals downwards (towards me). In addition, I use cymbal spring mounts on all large diameter crash cymbals. This serves to reduce cymbal motion once I have struck them.

Before doing this, I found that stick breakage was resulting from playing sticks that had slowly become thinned towards the tip, due to "cymbal chewing" (my term). By the way, my hi hat was the biggest culprit in this! I have also observed that sticks of any wood type will break far less often when they don't get thinned in this manner over time - wood tip or nylon tip.

As for "wood type" in a drum stick, I really have no preference. I just like a wood stick that "feels good" in my hand, and is as straight as possible. I ALWAYS roll my sticks on a flat surface before I buy them to ensure they are flat and have been made properly. A warped stick feels terrible in my hand, and will likely bow further (depending on where you live). It also is a hindrance if your trying to play subtly or very fast.

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