I'm purchasing new mallets and I looking to have a diverse selection. I was wondering what people thought of Innovative, Malletech, and Vic Firth?
Innovatvie makes great mallets. I would especcially reccomend the WIlliam Moersch and Mark Ford line.
Malletech has some MASSIVE quality control problems in their mallets (and marimbas/xylophones). But Ive had nice results with the She-e Wu mediums.
Vic FIrth has a nice mallet line as well. The Robert Van Slice rubber cores are pretty nice.
Dont discount Encore mallets or Mike Balter mallets either, the Encore Nancy Zeltsman line is VERY nice, as is the Balter Contemporary Series.
Scott
My experience has been that mallet selection has a lot to do with personal preference as well as repertoire.
I like the IP soloists which have a good balance between their weight and composition. They are very good general application mallets. I like their field mallets a great deal also.
Malletech Steven's I am not a huge fan of because of the rawness of their shafts and their low weight. I, however, have a friend who loves them because of both attributes as he says he sweats a lot when he plays and he likes low weight for higher mobility and because he is a hard hitter.
Yamaha recently released their Keiko Abe line, which I think are very cool. They have rattan shafts which I don't typically endorse, but they are pretty good for two mallet playing (I use Steven's 4-mallet grip, not cross) as they have great weight and produce a strong fundamental. They are clearly designed, however, for the cross grip user, as the butts are harshly rounded and thus uncomfortable for the rest of us. These mallets definitely feel like they were made for Abe, too, just because of the feel they give. . .
I've not sed Balter's in years, nor've I used Firths. So my picks, based on my limited experience and tastes would be IP soloists for general applications, Yamaha Abe's for two mallets requiring strong attacks and some power (or Japanese style compositions), and IP Fields for. . . outdoor performance.
Greg,
Don't waste your money buying pre-wrapped mallets. Buy(if you must buy anything) the shafts and the mallet heads you like and wrap them yourself. Why pay somebody to pay somebody to pay somebody to pay even somebody else to sit in front of a mallet-wrapping machine all day, when you can easily learn to do it yourself and get EXACTLY what you want..with MUCH more variation and exactness..at 1/4 the price?? The only downside is...you'll get sore thumbs.. :>)
Bill Youhass
Fall Creek Marimbas
www.marimbas.com
Yes, let's all take hours a week for several months experimenting with types of yarn, wrapping styles, different shafts and cores, and not knowing WHAT the hell we're doing. That's SO much easier. OR, you could just play around with other folks mallets and see what you like, not what THEY like. It doesn't matter if they don't like Malletech, Innovative, Balter - that's useless. To get your sound you should seek out and play whatever the hell you want, but mallet companies make mallets, that's what they do, so most of them do it well, and a good selection is offered with all the crap out there.
