I once used nylon tips, too. I no longer think about them, either. But I stopped using them so long ago that memory no longer supplies the reason why. The sound must not have appealed to me; I seem to remember that the nylon delivered a relatively soft ping. I have a clearer memory of doing mental math that ran like this: since it was never the tips that broke, why accept a lower sonic characteristic to preserve a piece of the drumstick that still looked perfectly fine on the end of one of two pieces?
Currently, my sticks never break, but the tips do shatter. One day the beads are round, and the next they have a flat spot. This is a new phenomenon to me; I know Cliff and I mentioned it a little while ago, and he was wondering if the quality control of the wood had gone down. I am still using a group of sticks I bought before tip attenuation began, so I am fairly confident that it is not the quality of wood that shifted.
I believe it's the flat ride. SInce one can whack away at it without creating unwanted wash or overtones, the bead, without customary restraint, carries an impact that I never used to deliver to any cymbal. Tip decline showed up about the same time as the flat ride.
Whatever the cause, nylon tipped sticks are likely a response to shattered beads. Since I love the sound of wood on metal, I doubt that nylon tips would be useful.
Tips, when they wear down without shattering, do so rather wonderfully. As the bead loses material, the weight of the stick shifts, and the cymbal strike changes in sound. I now have a battery of sticks that were pretty much identical when new, but that now have a very different feel and sound. Some ping bright, some ping dark. Some are for faster and lighter playing, some for heavier hitting. Obviously, the heavier hitters are the newer sticks, which in turn become the lighter players as they wear.
Now, I could get behind the notion of a better lasting tip, but stop a moment. There has to be a reason to throw a stick away. With nylon tip, a stick might last me the rest of my life. As I have gotten older, the number of things that I can do before I die has decreased, and I sure don't want to include purchasing new sticks among them
Egads! I just remembered that nylon tips left nylon smears all over the cymbals. Is that true?
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