Vic firth are lighter now?

Duck Tape

Duck Tape

Platinum Member
I use Vic Firth extreme 5A nylon tips

I just bought a few new pairs and I notice the new ones are much lighter

They appear to be the same size.

What’s going on? Batch variances? New recipe? Is it intentional? Has anyone else noticed it?
 
producing drumstick it's unaviodable there'll be light med heavy when making thousands
unless you (as the manufacturer) wanna discard and no one wants that
I ask the store picker pick me 2 heavy one medium- and it's in his /her hands/perception
and that's how I believe it to be

I haven't specified in the past and got absolute lead logs practically unplayable whereas the same model bought at another time were medium and light.

I have a Harvey Mason and a Steve Gadd vic firth pair of each; that are so heavy; I could jack up the rear end of a Pontiac with them.
not specifying was negligence on my part

I dream of light versions of the thick Vic Firth Customs like the Driver model.
in the past the pairs I have usually were too heavy for me..
It's just a quirk of wood
 
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jda said:
producing drumstick it's unaviodable there'll be light med heavy when making thousands
unless you (as the manufacturer) wanna discard and no one wants that
I ask the store picker pick me 2 heavy one medium- and it's in his /her hands/perception
and that's how I believe it to be

I haven't specified in the past and got absolute lead logs practically unplayable whereas the same model bought at another time were medium and light.

I have a Harvey Mason and a Steve Gadd vic firth pair of each; that are so heavy; I could jack up the rear end of a Pontiac with them.
not specifying was negligence on my part

I dream of light versions of the thick Vic Firth Customs like the Driver model.
in the past the pairs I have usually were too heavy for me..
It's just a quirk of wood
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Well I’d give them to you if it were practicable. Honestly they feel about 1/2 the weight and that’s sure to affect my time.
 
Not necessarily once you start playing once the song begins once the band activates...Our minds move on to other things besides what stick we're on don't give up on em or use em till they explode
I didn't mean to infer I like light sticks. I like hefty size sticks at a medium weight. Once they're hefty (in size diameter) and heavy it's trouble or 'too' much..
 
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There’s a maple Vic firth stick I use. Just got a new pair a few months ago. The last pair I got was a couple years ago.
This new one does seem a little different but maybe it’s just because it’s new? Like JDA said once you start playing you don’t really notice it.
 
I would send an email to vic firth and ask. It's possible they changed something, it's also possible it's a defect (or maybe a mislabel, they could be maple not hickory). Regardless, they'll likely send you a new pair or two for free and you can go from there. If they did infact change something and you don't like the feel of the sticks anymore then it's time to explore other options. Vic firth make great sticks... As does vater, promark, Zildjian, etc etc etc.
 
Sticks are wood... wood is an organic material, and no two will ever be identical.
When a stick is cut it's weighed. They match pairs according to weight, but that doesn't mean all stick of the same size will weigh the same. There's about a 20 gram difference that can be found in for every model. When the sticks are put into bricks of 12 and shipped to stores they internally mix pairs of different weights so consumers don't end up with all super heavy sticks at one store, and all super light at another.

No need to stress. Vic hasn't changed anything. You probably just ended up with sticks that were lighter on the spectrum from that particular batch.
 
I’ve noticed sticks in general have gotten lighter compared to the good old days. I started playing drums in 1975. Back then I played ProMark 5a’s and recall those sticks being dense, darker in color and lasted fairly long. I’ve stayed with 5a’s but have been using Vic Firth and more recently bought about a half dozen Vater Recording sticks (almost a 5A). I find most of the new Vic Firth sticks and all of the Vaters are very light in color, weight and as a result, begin to chip almost immediately. Yeah, I know bad technique. But I’ve always had bad techniques so that’s not the issue. It’s the wood used to make sticks. Tree farms have learned how to speed up growth dramatically faster than decades ago. As a result, today’s wood tends to be much less dense and lighter. Compare a brand new 2x4 with one removed from a 100 year old home. Almost two completely different types of wood. I think this is the issue we are seeing. Not a figment of your imagination.
 
I notice the difference between pairs of sticks in the same brick—some are lighter, some are heavier. There’s also the feel of the stick—some are stiffer, some are more flexible. I take those factors into consideration when picking out sticks at the shop.

You might have just gotten some lighter specimens. Or, perhaps the density of the wood was inconsistent from tip to butt, becoming more dense towards the grip. Did you weight them with a scale?
 
Soulfinger said:
Spot on! I used to play VF 85A for a while. The lightest pair was 88 grams, the heaviest was 108 grams.
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I think my next YouTube video is going to be about drumstick manufacturing...

When I worked at Regal Tip, like literally the week I started there, the company changed the ink on the sticks from the classic Green to Black. The reasoning was because they wanted it to stand out more in photographs.
For THREE YEARS I got calls and emails questioning the quality of our sticks due to the new ink. Some people said our sticks were better now. Some said the quality dipped. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING changing in the manufacturing. We got the wood from the same supplier we always had. We dried and teated the wood the same as we had always done. All we did was go back to the inking station and say "hey, start using that black ink in the silk screen instead of the green." That was it! But people lost their minds thinking we changed our sticks.
 
Living Dead Drummer said:
I think my next YouTube video is going to be about drumstick manufacturing...

When I worked at Regal Tip, like literally the week I started there, the company changed the ink on the sticks from the classic Green to Black. The reasoning was because they wanted it to stand out more in photographs.
For THREE YEARS I got calls and emails questioning the quality of our sticks due to the new ink. Some people said our sticks were better now. Some said the quality dipped. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING changing in the manufacturing. We got the wood from the same supplier we always had. We dried and teated the wood the same as we had always done. All we did was go back to the inking station and say "hey, start using that black ink in the silk screen instead of the green." That was it! But people lost their minds thinking we changed our sticks.
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You have to see it from the customers side though, maybe there was a difference between their last brick of sticks (e.g different weight) and the green ink made them think production had shifted to another facility.

Sorry guys I haven’t weighed them yet, I don’t have the appropriate scales but it’s on my to do list. I started using a pair and they play great, despite the weight difference.
 
I use Ahead's now- but I have several pairs of VF5a's after using them for years. The newer ones are definitely less........'consistent'.
Not always by weight but more by 'feel'... rigidity, hardness, balance perhaps? Not sure exactly.....
Matched pairs is all well and good but on the odd occasion one breaks ( or goes flying ) and you have to grab another one, you really don't want it to feel noticeably different. :unsure:
 
Living Dead Drummer said:
Sticks are wood... wood is an organic material, and no two will ever be identical.
Click to expand...

Yup, I was gonna say "Wood's gonna wood," but you said it much better than I did.

I'll also add that sometimes I think stick companies just get "bad wood" sometimes. I remember I bought a bunch of Pro Mark sticks at the same time, and I swear I broke so many of those things in a short amount of time (I also had a problem with a lot of the nylon tips flying off, but that's a different sermon for a different Sunday).
 
PorkPieGuy said:
Yup, I was gonna say "Wood's gonna wood," but you said it much better than I did.

I'll also add that sometimes I think stick companies just get "bad wood" sometimes. I remember I bought a bunch of Pro Mark sticks at the same time, and I swear I broke so many of those things in a short amount of time (I also had a problem with a lot of the nylon tips flying off, but that's a different sermon for a different Sunday).
Click to expand...

The odds of a company getting a bad batch of wood is fairly uncommon. They have checks and balances in place with their supplies before the lumber is ever put on a truck. It's more likely that whatever you purchased was just bottom of the barrel in terms of weights based on what other consumers got their first.

I addressed this in a new YT video I just uploaded today. Check it out:

 
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