Meinl Nano Sticks

These do exactly what you think. Allow quieter practice while still practising your real stick feel. As opposed to hot rods which are quieter still but don’t help you with feel when you switch back to sticks. Volume reduction on cymbals is significant. Volume reduction on drums is not that dramatic but they take out a fair bit of low end which is helpful. They also guide you to hit more lightly due to the lighter weight which further reduces volume if you focus on doing that, so overall it has allowed me to practice stick playing at home at more times of day. The sharp ends don’t pose any particular problems for me but I don’t mash sticks on the edge of my hi-hats so I can’t say how quickly they degrade used like that. The butt ends work as expected for a heavier drum hit. They feel fiddly to hold and harder to control than normal sticks but so far I think that’s helping my grip and when I switch back to fatter sticks they feel easier to control and so I’m benefitting from the training. In general these have been good for my project to practise more at home with sticks that actually help me improve what I do when gigging, as opposed to rods and brushes which sound cool but don’t develop my feel and dynamic control in a way that helps me when gigging. Finally, I would say as good as these are they aren’t quiet enough that you (or I, at least, yet) can get a really quiet snare ghost note that’s quiet enough relative to accent hits to form a convincing Purdie shuffle or similar, when playing the accent hits at a level that’s low enough for quiet practice at home. Maybe I will get there with more practice, maybe we need to go...thinner?