I know a lot of people say that when playing with Vic Firth's sticks, you should have your fulcrum placed at the flag which is on every Vic Firth stick. Is this true? Does it make playing easier, or just make it a way to know where to always keep your hands?

No. The Fulcrum can be slightly different depending on the model of stick and wear/usage. The flag is conveniently usually in the right location.

Tan

So the fulcrum may be different, in different sticks of the same model?

Yes, keep in mind that different people play at different fulcrum positions too. I've also heard between the flag and text on V.F. sticks for example.

The one consistent thing about wood is the inconsistency. Each one is like a finger print, they are all slightly different with weight and balance. The trick is finding two that are so close that you don't notice the difference without lab equipment.

Tan

What I teach is 5/8 to 2/3 up the stick, for me it gets the best motion from the fulcrum. Then again, it depends on the person and the stick.

Take your stick and pinch it in the middle, between your first finger and thumb, like the pencil trick you did in elementary school.  Now move your hand up and down  trying  to get the stick to flop or move. In the middle there is not much movement so move your finger position towards the butt of the stick.

At the first sign of correct movement place a mark. Now continue moving your fingers to the end of the stick while flopping it.  At the point when you lose control of the motion make another mark. Now between those two marks will be the sweet spot, you will have to play around and find where inside those marks feels best to you.

One of the better explanations of the fulcrum grip is over at Snare Science - 
http://www.snarescience.com/articles/levers.html
Another good one is on Jeff Queen's DVD, "Playing with sticks" where he explains all the grips that are used in a drumline.

Hope this helps!

I don't pay attention to the printed logos on the stick, but it's pretty obvious to figure out where the "sweet spot" is by feel. It's generally about 1/3 of the way up from the butt of the stick, and when you've got it right, the stick will have a very responsive feel with plenty of power and optimum rebound.

Grip the stick too close to the butt and it will feel heavy and sluggish with too little rebound. Grip the stick too close to the bead and rebound will be reduced because you'll have too much counterweight behind the fulcrum. Power will also be reduced.

Sirflam and Skydog pretty much covered your original post, but I'd like to get into this a little bit.

The way each model is designed is by the dimensions. The beads are designed with the same shape and size, the taper should start at the same point on the stick, the diameter of the stick should be pretty consistent, etc. One place where companies can get inconsistent, however, is with the weight. While they may use the same type of wood, put it in this perspective - when you walk through a forest, there may be 1,000 different individual pine trees. They can be the exact same genus, species, whatever, but within those 1,000 trees, you also have 1,000 different densities, different notches in the wood, different weathering patterns, etc. Now, look at each of those trees, and think about the way a tree grows. A tree grows outward as well as upward as it ages (hence the rings to tell a trees age), because of this, the type of wood that you have in the CENTER of a tree trunk is going to vary greatly from the wood on the OUTSIDE. Now, let's go back to those 1,000 trees, and let's cut them up into 500 drumsticks per tree. Now you have 500,000 drumsticks, each of them from different parts of different trees. The thought of them all being 100% consistent is just impossible.

Now, with that being said, the stick manufacturers are supposed to go through and test/weigh each stick, then pair them up with the best possible match (Just throwing this out there, Vic Firth is EASILY the best one out there at matching sticks, in my personal experience). However, even after this, you still have the issue of people like me that have to try the sticks individually to find the best possible pair. "Matched pairs" become a jumbled mess of sticks that have been placed and replaced in sleeves with new "matches."

And that's not even all of it. THEN you have to consider the player. They human body is fairly symmetrical, but it is FAR from perfect. Even if you play matched grip, your left hand may be weaker than your right hand, or your right hand might have more difficulty rotating than your left hand, or maybe one hand is better at responding to rebound than the other. All of these variables effect your fulcrum as well, and this has NOTHING to do with the stick itself. This is exactly why people like me try sticks out individually when they go to purchase them. While Vic Firth may be good at finding the "Perfect Pair," they're not good at finding "BCAVINESS'S perfect pair."

So, there you have it. You've just heard my speech that I give to people about why they should NEVER order sticks online, but I gave it a little twist to apply it to your question, haha. Just keep it in mind in the future when you go to purchase your next pair of sticks, when you get used to it, you'll start to notice DRASTIC differences between individual sticks - same model/brand or not.

Happy drumming!
B

I disagree with not buying sticks online. Most music stores I go to either do not carry the stick I'm looking for (like marching sticks), OR someone has gone through and already mismatched pairs from what should have been a perfect match. I'm not saying that you can't pick up a pair from a music store (I do it all the time), but coming into marching season, when I buy a brick of sticks, it'll be from the internet. Typically with that many to choose from, I should be able to match them up for something good.

Tan

When you order in bulk, then there's not a problem with ordering online, since you can mix and match them on your own. The way I personally purchase sticks is by going to my local music store, and the guys there are ALWAYS willing to order a brick of sticks for me if the school I'm marching or teaching for is going to come by to purchase them. When you're purchasing 1 pair of sticks at a time, you're likely not going to get a perfect pair out of the one pair they mail to you, and that's when going to a store with multiple pairs of a certain brand is beneficial.