Glasstix - the natural partner for your Vistalite kit....

A VISTALITES.COM gear review by Andy Youell

"A drum stick made of clear acrylic? Shouldn't these things be made of wood?"

In 1973, when the clearly different Vistalite drum line was launched on an unsuspecting world, many wondered if acrylic could ever take the place of wood in this realm of percussion. Acrylic drums were one of the biggest success stories of the 1970s and now, thirty years later, it looks like we could be on the dawn of a new era - the acrylic drum stick.

Glasstix - the dawn of a new era?

Glasstix are produced in America by Tracy Frischkorn and we recently received a pair a VISTALITES.COM central control. The sticks are roughly equivalent in size to a 5B model and are, as you can see, the perfect accompaniament for that Vistalite snare drum.

The sticks are made from a rod of solid acrylic, machined to form the shoulder and tip of the drum stick. The acrylic is clear, though with a very slightly frosted effect and the sticks certainly look impressive with a little light thrown on them.

The sticks are actually marketed as practise sticks and, with thre acrylic being considerably heavier than wood, they do give the wrists and forearms a good workout. The acrylic also has a pleasing amount of flex and I found them excellent on my electronic kit - providing a little more give to the usually unforgiving Yamaha rubber pads.

On an acoustic kit, the stick sound awesome due, in no small part, to the considerable force generated by their weight. The material also makes a pleasingly bright sound on cymbals - reminiscent of the more usual nylon-tipped wooden sticks.

After some time my wrists began to show the strain and I reverted to my more usual wooden sticks and "hot rods" - these provide a hard workout for the hands and live up to their billing as practise sticks.

With Glasstix you can undertake a rigorous programme of drumming exercises, building up speed and strength in those drumming muscles. The sticks look great, have excellent balance and certainly feel as though they're made to last.

Acrylic drums were first produced by players looking for the ultimate drum shell material....and we wouldn't play anything other than plastic drum heads today would we... so maybe this is the dawn of the acrylic drum stick. The product is good, and is priced well. Plastic fantastic indeed !

To find out more about Glasstix - and to order your own pair - goto the Glasstix web site.