Recommendations for mallets?

Question

I need help picking out good sounding mallets, I'm pretty sure I am going to buy off the Vic Firth website; which is included in the first two questions.

First, for xylophone I'm not quite sure what I want, but I only play xylophone during concert band/wind ensemble season. So I want loud rubber mallets, but at the same time not ear-splitting; recommendations?

http://www.vicfirth.com/products/orchestralkeyboard.html

For bells I'm thinking of going with M142 for marching band, is this any good? It's under the bells section further down the page:

http://www.vicfirth.com/products/orchestralkeyboard.html

And finally, yarn mallets. This is always a pain for me, because I personally don't like the audible hit on the marimba you hear from loud yarn mallets. Yet at the same time soft/soft-medium mallets you can't hear at all. I sometimes play four mallets, so I need two pairs, one of lower end and one for the upper.

http://www.vicfirth.com/products/multi-application-series.html

Of course if you have other mallets that you personally like that are not from vic firth, please include another website so I can check them out.

Answer 1

your selections are fine but check with your director or coach too!

also; look into innovative percussion products-they are used by as many dci lines as vic firth stuff is.