Alternatives to drum sticks have been around for a long time, but it seems to me that their popularity somewhat exploded about twenty years ago with the release of a little song called Wonderwall. After that, rods seemed to start appearing everywhere.

These days, many manufacturers produce rods and they’re not just in the original wooden form either. However, the items in question this time around are made from either bamboo or birch.

Cozy Drum currently produces six variations on the rod theme; Custom, Lite, Dual, Brush, Rockers and Foamers. All are (usefully) colour coded which I liked quite a lot for the obvious practical reasons.

Custom Pro Rods – 16mm x 410mm, X19 Bamboo, bevelled end – Purple

I would say these are a fairly middle of the road, general purpose model. They’re not too thick or thin, are a nice balanced weight and have some give in them in terms of how they play in the hand.

Lite Pro Rods – 11mm x 410mm, 6mm Birch with dowel surround – Green

These are the model used in the video. They are exactly what they seem, thin and light but also quite rigid despite this. Although they are the thinnest of the models, they didn’t feel they were in any danger of breaking and produced a tight, focused sound.

Dual Pro Rods – 14mm x 410mm, X19 Bamboo dowel – Blue

The only model out of the group I felt less comfortable with simply because they are double ended and the feel of them wasn’t what I’m used to. Not that that’s bad, it was just different. In all other ways they were the same for me as the Custom model.

Brush Pro Rods – 16mm x 410mm, X19 Bamboo dowel – Orange

To hold these are the same as the Custom model but they don’t have band in the middle holding the rods together and so when you lower the o-rings (and therefore allow the rods to be less restricted and spread out more) you change the sound to a more lose open sound and feel.

Rockers Pro Rods – 15mm x 410mm, X7 Birch dowel, bevelled end – Red

Thicker rods which give a heavier and more defined sound and feel. I wouldn’t say they were particularly ‘rocky’ though, just more substantial than the other models because of how they’re made.

Foamer Pro Rods – 16mm x 410mm X19 Bamboo/Foam core – Black

Instead of having a rod-based centre like the other models, these have a foam core which softens the feel and sound they give. They’re very light and have a lot of play to them (i.e. they’re quite bendy) and would be generally suitable for low volume environments. I would guess they would naturally fall somewhere between a brush and a light stick in that context.

I had no problems using any of the models and was quite impressed with their feel and sound. Although under a microphone and playing a fairly straight groove, I couldn’t make out a huge audible difference between some of the models, the difference in feel in terms of using them on the kit was more obvious.

Whilst colour-coding isn’t exactly an original idea, it is quite a useful and practical one if you have different models or a mixture of sticks, rods and mallets in your bag. In addition, all of them were well made and best of all they’re also reasonably priced too.

For more info check out – Soar Valley Music who have just taken on distribution of them.

David Bateman