Drum Blog

Multi-Rods: The perfect tool for many jobs

Anyone working in a music/drum shop has likely had the following conversation; “My (guitarist, choir director, wife, band director) told me I need to play quieter, so I need some brushes.” “So, what kind of music are you playing?” “Just normal rock stuff.” “Have you ever used brushes before?” “No, they just told me that I needed them.” Conversations like this one have, for decades, resulted in the destruction of many pairs of carefully made brushes because people thought that they were to be played just like drum sticks.  I will go into brush technique in a later blog, but for today, I want to talk about the “stick” that should be used if you want to play rock music, but quieter; the multi-rod stick.

The multi-rod stick or bundle stick has been around for about 20 years, (at least in mass production) with the first ProMark Hot Rods being used around the time of Metallica's “Metallica” or “The Black Album.”  The first pair that I was actually able to confirm online were in Nirvana's All Apologies from the November 1993 recording of their MTV unplugged album, which you can check out on youTube.  

Multi-rod sticks look and are played like normal drum sticks, however, instead of being one piece of wood, they are a bunch of rods bundled together to act as one stick.  The idea is that the force of impact is lessened by the fact that the space in between the rods absorbs some of the momentum.  Multi-rod sticks are so similar to drum sticks in fact, that multiple bounce and buzz rolls are actually possible.  Also, all of the rods being bound together, you get a percussive sound with just the sticks making it sound like you have a second player for drum set parts, or can add a very interesting colour on hand drums or multi percussion set-ups of kit and hand drums.

Seeing that this design had potential in a lot of musical situations, other companies created similar products to the point that almost every stick maker has something like it, including Vic Firth's Rute.  One drawback of the wooden multi-rod stick is that they have a softer sound on the cymbals than a standard stick.  The response to this from stick innovator Regal Tip was the Blastick, which was like the hot rods, but with plastic rods, giving the stick more definition on cymbals, which blends better with drums at a lower volume.  Again, now, just about every stick maker has a stick like this.  

The flaw with both of these types of products (wooden or plastic bundle) has been that the weighting seems off compared to a normal drum stick.  So, a couple of years ago, ProMark came out with a new twist on the bundled stick, which features ¼ stick length of bundles on a wooden shaft, in an attempt to shift the weighting issue.

So, the next time your guitarist or band director is consistently asking you to play quieter, you know that the best bet is to switch to some sort of multi-rod stick.  It make take some experimenting to find out which one has the weighting and sound for your application, or you could just be like me, and have tons of them, and just use different ones depending on the gig.

Drum Tuning - Snare Drum

One of the most common questions that we get asked is “How do I get that crack I am looking for from my snare drum?”  Although there are many different types of snare wires, heads, and drums that can be mixed and matched together to personalize your tone.  You also need to remember that the snare drum is the center piece of your drum set.  And if your snare drum is a well tuned you are well on your way to a great sounding snare drum. Thanks to our friends at Evans drum heads for producing this video.