These mallets feel great in every aspect, and are great for the upper 3.5ish octaves of the keyboard. I would say they are very harsh for a medium mallet, and the brighter movements reveal an even harsher sound, much more like a wrapped xylophone mallet. Great for marimba concertos as they can project and will last you very long.
These mallets have a beautiful sound and dynamic range on both high and low ends of the marimba. They are amazing starter mallets for anyone.
This is by far my favorite marimba mallet. It produces great sound on all registers of the marimba. Want to play some Bach? This mallet has you covered. Want to play some Robert Oetomo? This mallet has you covered. Playing some David Manslanka? This mallet has you covered. This mallet can do no wrong. It will last literally forever, and will take any beating you throw at it. Well worth the money.
This mallet series is by far my favorite series for solo performance marimba, I do not practice with these all the time because I am concerned they may way out faster than I'd like so I just try and preserve them. But these are amazing for performance, never any contact sound but each note doesn't get muffled. Absolutely an amazing purchase.
These were a gift for my wife. She loves the mallets and says they have the best sound and are super light. Thanks again.
Normally my mallets frey pretty quickly because I play so much. These have the best durability I have encountered yet. They have amazing tone range and I couldn't be happier with them. They're great planning on buying more.
I've been playing marimba and vibraphone for more than 40 years, always searching for the "ideal" mallet. For marimba, I have to rate new Vic Firth Robert Van Sice a major breakthrough. The construction of the core and complex wrapping provides the player with a broad range of colors in all octaves of the instrument, something that previous mallets failed to achieve. So far I haven't found a tone or color which these mallets fail to produce as I intended them. Since I have been using them for only a month or so, I cannot comment on their durability, but a previous version of the Van Sice mallets made by Vic Firth have held up well after four years, so I am optimistic about the current model.
These mallets are one of the best multi-tonal marimba mallets I have ever seen. They are perfect for playing legato passages, to playing loud articulated passages in the higher octave ranges. It is amazing how much dynamic range these mallets have. I highly recommend these mallets, especially for solo marimba repertoire.
Definitely my favorite mallets now! I have the whole set of van sice rubber cores, and now working on synthetic. I don't need anything else. They feel so amazing in my hands and the weight is perfect. I couldn't ask for a better mallet.
