Selecting your sticks

FELT

Our soft hand made felt is available in seven closely spaced depths to give subtle,
precise control of articulation

1mm - grade 10
Very articulate with excellent tone and none of the
harshness usually associated with hard sticks.
2mm - grade 20
Articulate intermediate grade.
3mm - grade 30
Medium articulate.
Excellent for solo work, clear rolls in
fortissimo and pianissimo, and single strokes.
4mm - grade 40
Medium articulate - excellent for less articulate
general playing, rolls and single strokes.
5mm - grade 50
  Intermediate medium soft grade.
6mm - grade 60
  Less articulate - excellent for symphonic rolls
and strokes where less definition is required.
7mm - grade 70
More muted and sonorous than grade 60.

CORES

Choose your sound
by selecting the size and type of core

Wood - Our classic core - clear and vibrant.
Cork Lighter, more rounded than wood.
Hard felt - Very warm rounded sound.

Smaller cores (300 & 400 series)
Less power, lighter sound, clearer articulation.

Larger cores (500 & 600 series)
Greater power, fullness and tone.

When making your selection, please take
account of your timpani, the music, the size of
your ensemble and the size and acoustic qualities
of your performance venue.
There is more information about this subject
further down the page.

SHAFTS

Our timpani mallets can be made with a
wide choice of shaft sizes and weights

The core and felt are the primary factors in
sound production when playing with our sticks.

The size and weight of the shafts will
determine how the sticks feel in your hands.

The sound produced by our sticks is not
significantly affected by the size and weight of
the shaft.

Standard dimensions
Our standard shafts are sized from 10.0mm to
11.0mm diameter (measured at the gripping point).

The overall length of our timpani sticks is 38cm.

The weight of a complete timpani stick with
standard shafts varies from 24g to 36g
depending upon the shaft diameter and the model.

Please choose the diameter you require and we
will ensure that the sticks are ideally weighted
and balanced.

Other sizes, weights and lengths can be
custom made to your own requirements.

On certain models we can fit larger shafts with
diameters from 11.5mm to 14mm. These large
shafts are heavier than normal, and make the
weight of a complete stick between 30g and 46g.

MODEL NUMBERING

Each one of our timpani sticks and mallets
has its own clear model identifier wrapped around the shaft for quick and easy selection

Upper band
(felt grade)

Lower band
(core size)

Number band

Examples:

Model number 460
4 = 400 series 28mm core
60 = felt number - 60 grade 6mm
no letters = wood core
Black bands = wood core

Model number 530KK
5 = 500 series 32mm core
30 = felt number - 30 grade 3mm
KK = cork core
White bands = cork core

PLAYING and ACOUSTICS

General

Large core sizes increase power and depth. Use large cores when you want maximum power and tone on large timpani. Higher head tensions generally need a larger core and/or more felt than lower head tensions.

Some types of timpani produce a less focused sound than others and may need smaller cores and/or less felt than other types to give good projection.

Natural skin timpani heads generally need a smaller core and slightly more felt than plastic heads.

Very slack heads and low notes are generally better with cork or hard-felt cores.

Clarity of sound and the acoustic qualities of your concert venue

The exact degree of clarity that your audience hears will be affected by many factors including your timpani and heads, but most significantly by the sticks you use and the acoustics of your concert venue.

Very resonant acoustics such as cathedrals can make the timpani very indistinct with a very heavy bass quality to the sound. This type of acoustic needs a more sharply focused, less full sound than usual. You can achieve this by using smaller cores and thinner felt than usual. The smaller cores will produce less fullness and depth from your timpani and the thinner felt will give a clearer and more articulate sound.

Concert halls with very dry acoustics need the opposite treatment and you may wish to select larger cores to maximise the depth of tone and resonance produced by the timpani and use thicker felt to reduce the articulation heard by the audience.

When playing in smaller halls or with a small group of players, you may wish to reduce the fullness of sound by choosing smaller than normal cores so that the timpani are not overpowering.

The perceived hardness of the sticks

The size of the core can affect the perceived hardness of the sound. For example a 310 stick (small core) will sound harder and more brittle than the larger 610, even though they both use the same 1mm depth of felt. This is because the 600 core produces more tone and depth than the 300 core and this bigger, fuller more rounded tone is perceived as less hard than the sound of the 300 core.