So next year, I've been chosen to be our front ensemble captain, which is super exciting for me. As a captain, since we have a very large pit, we are asked to pick a certain series (any brand) of mallets for the members in our pit to use/buy for the season. We are playing a Phantom of The Opera show next year, and I was wondering what brand and series ya'll would suggest for a fairly large pit (about 24 people).

Thanks in advance,
Avneesh.

If you're only going to use one type of mallet for everyone, you're gonna want to go with something that will give you the widest range of tone.

I would recommend something like the M164s for Marimba and perhaps the M228s for Vibes. The key is to get the most options out of one type mallet.

(P.S. For future reference, you only need to make a post once in one forum. It comes up on the front page twice if you post it twice and nobody really likes that, FYI)

Well no, I'm looking for any kind of series, not just one mallet across the board for everyone.

In regards to posting twice, it was an honest mistake, I didn't meant to post it twice anywhere, I'm not honestly not sure how it happened.

So just to clarify, you're looking for a series of mallets to play with and not just one pair. For example: The virtuoso series is a series of mallets from Vic Firth. Do you have a certain sound you're going for? As a V.F. guy, I'd probably choose the Multi Application series for an all purpose series. Why exactly are you limiting yourself to only one series anyways though?

thats exactly it. I'm looking for a series so there is uniformity to the group. Unless thats a bad idea? I'm open to any ideas right now. Our school has had some bad experiences with Vic, no disrespect, but the mallets especially from the Multi- Application series, create a lot of overtones, which doesn't appeal to our tech.

We're playing Phantom of The Opera next year, so I'm guessing a series that creates a darker/warmer sound? I'm not very sure, that's Why I turned to this and the snarescience forum.

Thanks for the help!

Yes, that's a bad idea. I don't think you'll find any decent line anywhere that plays their entire book with one series of mallets. One brand maybe, which makes sense if there's an endorsement deal involved, but not one series. All you're doing by limiting yourself to one series of mallets is limiting the palette of sounds you can pull from your keyboards. What if you find "the" soft marimba mallet for a certain piece, but you like a vibe mallet from a different series or even a different manufacturer? Why shouldn't you be able to use them both if they make the sounds you want?



Vic, like most of the major manufacturers, makes a huge range of mallets. Just because your tech doesn't like the Multi-Application series doesn't mean they don't make other things that might be right up your alley. I personally can't stand the Jeff Lee mallets for example, but they make plenty of other ones I do like.

And out of curiosity, why is a student taking the lead on mallet selection when you've got a tech? One with apparent mallet preferences, no less.

Another question out of curiosity: Do your students buy their own keyboard mallets, or will the school be buying these? If it's the school buying them, why not re-use whatever mallets survived in decent condition from last year?

The multi-application series is not my favorite either, but it's the only series I would suggest if a group was only considering one series. I think we supplemented the M.A. series with the Gif Howarth series for your exact reasons, but those are just so long and heavy that I wouldn't suggest just using those mallets. We actually stopped using those in favor of the Pesante series V.F. came out with a couple of years ago and I personally love the sound of those mallets. The Pesante series creates a deep warm sound with whatever mallet in the series because they're made to just have more mass. Once again, I wouldn't suggest that as a single series to draw from. They have Rattan shafts and are rather short compared to a standard Marimba mallet. The only other series I would suggest (from V.F.) is the Andrew Markworth series which is new. Basically if you go to the V.F. site they did a video on the idea behind the series in a video and it seems right up your alley. Basically, mr. Markworth wanted to create a mallet that had a warm sound throughout the range of the instrument without that harsh sound you are talking about with the M.A. series. Once again though, The dude that designed the mallets still uses the M.A. series for various sounds he needs to get from the ensemble.

The thing with the multi-app series is that it's the quintessential mallet. The size and feel is basically the middle of the pack for all other mallets out there. I suggest checking out those new Multi-app mallets with a rubber core instead of the synthetic variety. I don't feel comfortable talking about other brand mallets that you should look at because I just don't know enough about them.

I really like Innovative Percussion's Jim Casella series. The mallets have great projection and durability for the marching section, but they also sound great in concert and solo & ensemble settings. I mix Casella series mallets with IP's Field series mallets. I have a chart of all these on my web site which can help you pick what you need: http://sites.google.com/site/gakingmusic/percussion/materials/keyboard-mallets

I recently discovered Pro-Mark's Jim Wunderlich series, which are used by the Blue Devils and a couple indoor groups. These are comparable to the Jim Casella series.

I think I like Casella's marimba mallets best and Wunderlich's vibe mallets best. Don't forget that these mallets aren't limited to one instrument. You can play vibe mallets on marimba and marimba mallets on vibes.

You will probably use your medium and medium hard mallets the most in a marching setting, so if you have a limited budget, buy those first, then the hards, then the medium softs and softs. Soft mallets tend to get lost unless your pit is miked.

If you're absolutely stuck with one series of mallets, I really like the Diversity series from Pro-Mark. It's what I use with all of my ensembles. They produce great tone from the bars and are weighted just the way I like them.

I've been using the Casella, Ancona, Astrand and Ross series mallets from IP with my groups. They all bring something different to the table in terms of wraps and yarn material to give me the sound I want.

The Ross series gives me all the bell/crotale/xylo sounds that I could ever need.

Yes, what Bill said and:

Don't forget the importance of the accessory mallets, like timpani, bass/gong, snare sticks, multi-sticks, etc.

It is interesting to see how much a group frets about keyboard mallet selection and even battery implements, and then uses questionable tools for the percussionists in the front.

Look into having a good set of options there as well to color the great keyboard sounds you are making!

NL

Whichever series you choose, please try not to get them in a bright obvious color that matches nothing.

If its a good brand that'll work good, then fine, ignore it. but if you do like my school does and get a random multi-application kind from Vicfirth, get a darker color, or one that matches the theme of your show.

I cannot tell you how annoying and not-uniform it looked this year to look at our front ensemble and see half of us with bright pink mallets and the other half was just random assortments of colors. I dont know if this is an obvious post or not, but just a heads up.

Yeahhh....they're mallets. What they look like in relation to EVERYTHING is not even going to factor in to the judges minds.

If you're playing cleanly and with a good sound, your mallets could have flippin dead dolphin heads on them and it wouldn't matter. In my many years of teaching, I have never, EVER chosen mallets based on the color of the cord or yarn. I have always chosen mallets based on the sound that I need the keyboards at a particular spot in the show.

The IP Casella series are great for outdoor usage. They can produce a lot of sound.

For my high school Front, we use Innovative Percussion IP2002's (Soft marimba), IP2003's (medium hard marimba), and IP2004's (hard marimba) (part of the James Ancona series) for marimba and IP1005's (soft vibes) and IP1006's (hard vibes) (part of the Jim Casella series) for vibraphone.

Along with Marimba and Vibraphone, we also use Innovative for Xylophone/glockenspiel, Timpani, and our rack player.
Our xylophone player plays with IP ENS360's (hard rubber xylophone; part of Ensemble series) IP907's (small brass glockenspiel mallets), IP904's (very hard and bright xylophone, large hard plastic head.),( part of the James Ross series) and for chimes, we use CC-1 chime beaters (standard chime beaters).
Our rack player uses an IP CB-1 (standard X-Large concert/marching bass drum mallet) for the Contra bass drum and an IP CG-1 (X-Large, soft Gong mallet) for the gong. IP2002's for cymbal rolling on rack. Our pit timpanist uses a WIDE selection of mallets. The three best for what you may need are:
FS-T1 (soft, legato), FS-T3 (Medium, general), and FS-T5 (extra hard felt, staccato) All three of these are part of the IP Field Timpani Series.

Something to think about when buying mallets is the cost (of course!). For any brand and make of mallets (except cheap, low end mallets that I'm not going to bother mentioning), considering the size of your ensemble, is going to be rather high. Factoring in having to replace marimba mallets often (if your music includes dead strokes especially) makes it even higher. All of the James Ancona mallets run about $35-45 a pair.
Good price for the high quality of the mallet. Ultimately, it comes down to what you need in terms of sound. There are literally hundreds of choices to go through. Pick out what you need.
Just my two cents.

Justin
North Cobb High School Front Ensemble 2010-2012