*✅ Submit Let's Watch videos to our Discord server: **www.adamtanpercussion.com/discord* *🎤Get my mallets now from Steve Weiss Music (just restocked!): **www.steveweissmusic.com/category/s?keyword=encore+mallets+adam+tan* *🎤Get my mallets now from Percussion Source (just restocked!): **www.percussionsource.com/search-results?q=adam+tan+encore+mallets* *✅ Subscribe to my NEW vlog channel: **www.adamtanpercussion.com/vlogs* THIS VIDEO IS BIASED AND IS 100% MY OPINION HAHAHA don't take it too seriously!! The best marimba for you is the one that suits your needs and goals for the instrument e.g. don't buy a fixed heavy framed instrument if you're planning to move around a lot, or don't buy a super bright instrument if you're planning to play music that requires more warmth. That being said... I like tier lists a lot ahahahaha hope you enjoyed the video! Let me know down in the comments below what you'd put as a BEST BUY~ #TheStudioFamily
I would love to see someone do a blind test of all these marimbas and see if they could actually rank them somewhat cohesively, see if the brand name is a bias or if some of the “lower tier” marimbas aren’t all that bad in a blind test
@@AdamTanPercussion Pre programed solenoids with various mallets could do it. The tech behind the improv robot would make this easy. The reason it isn't done (much like why its not done with timpani or timpani mallets) is because manufactures have too much to lose. There is too high a risk to supply an instrument to make this happen. The resources to do it without heavy manufacture support are far beyond any hobbyist. The degradation of rosewood is also an important factor. Does my old marimba (pre submerged by 4 ft of flood water) sound better in my mind than my new one ? But, yeah this it could be done with ease if the resources were there.
I’ll always say Yamaha vibes and marimbas are top tier. Followed by Marimba One. But marching perc will always be top tier, cymbals gongs tubular bells synths and drum set on top of it all. Any brands.
I played my senior recital on the YM-6100! I've searched for my own board for 3 years and finally found a COE that I liked the sound on that I could afford and I'm really happy with it!
The Wave is insanely well designed. It seems to have the sturdiest frame out there without looking clunky. In fact, I think it looks the cleanest and most modern. This is all based on my initial reaction at TMEA this past February, but I’m hoping to buy one soon and put it through its paces. I should also add that I played open 5ths across the full range of every marimba at TMEA and the Wave had the best temperament. It also seemed to sing back at my ears more easily. This was in a loud exhibit hall so take that with a grain of salt.
I agree with you! And that's a clever experiment doing open 5ths across all instruments, I'm glad you got an actual result out of it (unlike my heavily biased video 😅)
Real fun video. While I don’t completely agree with your tier list, my experiences with these models are generally similar. Thankfully the only one on the list that I have no experience with is the Musser lol
Had a Yamaha 5100 at my conservatory and played hours and hours on it. The lowest bars do tend to crack but the marimba has held up so well for so manyyy years and still had a lovely sound. It’s quite flat sound profile indeed, which makes it versatile. Great memories. Played also a lot of Adams when at their factory in Ittervoort, and damnnnn, they have some amazing models. Great video as always Adam!
I could never be thankful enough to play one of these higher tier instruments in my high school. Just the feeling of playing on a 5 o is what pulls me back to band every time. Nice video idea and I can agree with the list made although I'm a marching band player.
It still amazes me that Musser, a brand with the name of literally one of the most important people to the development of the instrument, continues to make such poor quality instruments compared to the rest. Even other legacy companies like Deagan, Leedy, and Ludwig made significantly better quality instruments back in their day. It's a shame they haven't caught up to the modern day competition.
I received my Demorrow 5.0 Concert Marimba about one year ago. I sold my Demorrow 4.3 Studio Marimba which was a very fine instrument. The Demorrow Marimba is so amazing. Doug Demorrow grades the Rosewood bars and tunes the resonators himself. The German brass resonators are so beautiful. These instruments are truly worth the money and wait time. Doug Demorrow and his staff are great. Doug Demorrow is a humble man and works 7 days a week at his craft. Several of my friends have his instruments and love them. One can always reach him when he is in the shop.
Great video! I almost agree with all of your ranking. In my experience the two Majestic are also in the meh Category. And sure the Yamaha 5100 is a little bit bland in the sound but is a good instrument. For me is a good buy. Amazing content!
A year late but I had the opportunity to rent a demarrow concert marimba from a friend and it is absolutely the easiest marimba I’ve ever put together and the best sounding marimba. I had a bunch of recitals this summer so I was traveling with it a lot and remember this is the massive CONCERT size and it fit deconstructed in my small Nissan Sentra! Every inch of the instrument speaks and it is my favorite instrument I’ve ever used
All this reminds me of was watching Adam play at PASIC and making small errors, and my friend said "Yeah I'd play like shit if I was playing on an Adams" (It should be noted that our Percussion Professor is a Marimba One educator, so we also have a Marimba One bias). It was really funny actually.
Did you play the Majestic Concert Black Padouk or Rosewood? I think this is a sleeper. It's super portable, frame and resonators are well sorted, itstprice is great.... The way you described the sound it sounds as though you played the Padouk.
Currently in university...... and those are literally almost the exact same marimbas I play on.... except the Musser I use is the 250 4.3 octave...... spooky vibes
I have the 4.3 version of the M-Tech. The M-Tech is Malletech's budget/student line, with padouk keys, rather than rosewood, so I don't know that it's fair to call that a "just okay" when you're comparing against concert-level rosewood instruments. You can get the 5 octave version for less than $7k (and less than $3.5k for the 4.3 version), compared with a rosewood model, which generally starts around $10k regardless of manufacturer. I would love a M1 Wave - that's what I hope to get eventually, and they really do seem like the best bang for the buck - but for learning purposes, the M-Tech is much more wallet-friendly.
Fun video! I actually prefer the Malletech Stiletto out of everything on this list. I know most don't, but it's so perfect. The bars are the perfect size, they sound amazing, they don't crack easily, it has tunable resonators, easy and efficient height adjustability, the resonators don't get in the way (like the MJB), it's easy to assemble, and honestly I like the look of it. Do you really feel that Malletech makes the worst marimbas? Did Marimba One pay you to make this? 🤪 (jk lol) Anyway, it's interesting to me how we have completely different takes on Malletech vs. Marimba One. I like them both for different reasons. The mid-low to mid-upper register on the Marimba One is a beauty. Might be my favorite sounding mid-range. But the resonance is very inconsistent. I've never played a Marimba One that had equal resonance; and since they don't have tunable resonators, there's not much I can do about it. I once had a convo with Ron Samuels about this. He was super nice and offered to retune, but the issue cannot be solved by tuning, because there will always be fluctuations in temperature, moisture, air pressure, the metals, the wood, the natural room resonance, etc. I used a Marimba One for my video of the Cello Suite Prelude, and I had to crank the EQ on the 2nd F# by over 300% to get it to match the others. Yay, the magic of audio engineering!! On a Malletech, when resonance is off, it takes a few seconds to correct it. It's also difficult if not impossible to get equal resonance on Yamahas and Adams.
Thanks for watching man! And I'm glad we have a difference in taste in marimbas, I have preferred the sound of M1 (even before I became an M1 artist) even though it's not as 'clean' or clinical as other brands and I also have a lot of friends who make their Malletechs sound incredible! I guess I'm just more used to it haha. But yeah at the end of the day I love to listen to any brand of marimba if the person loves the sound they're making and feels like it represents them :) you make all marimbas sound good Aaron!
I have heard Malletech marimbas that literally sounded like the heavens. It was beyond compare. However, (and I assume based on economy of scale) I have also heard a lot that sound like trash. One of the semi recent LHS professional demo vids has an instrument that certainly does not sound good at all. With such inconsistency, yeah NG. There are reasons why some resellers call some of the instruments "a good one"
Have you ever seen or played on Dynasty marimbas? They're definitely rarer than something like yamaha and aren't super international, but I like their design
Your comments about look and function of the marimbas I get, but I wonder if it would have been worth talking about the science of it. There are sound differences with different resonator and bar shapes/thickness. It would be interesting to do a blind listening where the recording parameters were the same. (Room, Mic Setup, Recording Equipment)
HAHAHA thank you my biceps are still small though 😅 but yes definitely lifting has given me far better projection, stability and stamina on marimba, would recommend to all percussionists!
Triggering some very old memories. Trying to play druckman or glennies Giles on a malletech - misery. Issue I had w marimba one was the harmonic tuning - low d and high f was so damned dissonant when I was playing bach 2p invention otherwise gorgeous
I want to keep playing marimba for the rest of my life. The only problem is this: I don't plan on going professional. I really want to buy one in the future, but is it even worth it? Should I only stick to 4.3 octave pieces aand invest in one of those instead?
If you want some good recordings of the Malletech Stilleto, check out Jiyeon Kim 2021 Universal Marimba Competition videos! She plays the following: Marimbics Mirage pour Marimba Moi, Jeu Uluradel Tigre Rhythmic Caprice Khan Variations Reflections on the Nature of Water, mvt 2 & 4 Velocities
What is the best marimba for me? I am currently in college and I am wanting a marimba once I get out of college and have the money. I played in high school but lost the time for continuing my education in percussion due to my major. What marimba would be best to have for someone like me who just plans to play it at home for fun?
Just curious, but have you ever broken one of the keys on your Marimba One? because at my high school we have 1 Marimba One and a few of the lower keys are cracked and sound really bad. Then again I don't know how old ours is but I'm still curious.
As a percussion tech who has to work on these things: I totally agree with most of this. Musser/Ludwig has really fallen from grace since Conn-Selmer bought them out. A lot of their stuff seems like it's pretty much designed to be abused in middle/high school bands and ordered by band directors with no percussion experience who recognize the name from when they were kids. Yamaha sounds clinical and their frame designs are... Sometimes questionable. Especially on their vibraphones. Malletech is definitely overrated as well. They all sound far too bright and tinney for my taste even if the frames are very well designed.
I love my Marimba One, especially for solo or chamber music. Yamaha is for me a soulless instrument. It is predictable but the sound does not draw me in. The Majestic marimba is terrible, the worst sounding marimba ever. Adams are functional and I haven’t played one of the more recent ones. Bergerault are for me similar to Majestic but again, I haven’t played a recent instrument. I have no experience of the others so no opinion. I would like you to do a similar comparison on vibes please.
great video, randomly feel like inputting my opinion that majestic is truly awful--not just with marimbas but all concert instruments. i actually own a 5 octave rosewood majestic marimba on a quantum field frame, formerly used in a marching ensemble, it's TRASH--very little warmth or resonance to the bars, it's like playing a big xylophone. i got a great deal on it but it sucks. i marched WGI on majestic timpani and they were trash too. i taught drum corps at a group that used majestic and everything was trash. they just don't make good stuff.
You can tell this is not a credible review because the dude thinks the Yamaha YM-6100 and Adams Alpha is better than the YM-5100. Definitely needs to get his ears (and hands) checked...
Very disappointed with this video compared the rest. Yes, you say you are biased at the beginning but it is very misleading. You should have taken yourself out of the equation by using objective metrics and using surveys along guest panel to provide the subjective aspect. As an influencer, PASIC would have been a good place to do the comparisons and do the surveys.
I really liked this video. He is of coursed biased but he has tried all these instruments and I think the way he categorized and rated instrument is pretty cool 😃
@@ktoobaa I get it that it’s his rankings and that he’s played them all. But I haven’t seen many good marimba comparison videos given the number of models from varying companies. It would have been a good opportunity to make a very informative video. Besides, every other video he makes he states how he thinks Marimba One is the best. OK, but what about using this topic to conjure good deliberate discussion? He did a better job of this with a previous video. I think expanding on that previous video by exploring metrics and panel discussion could have made something memorable as well as being useful for younger marimists
He's not a critic though. The video is in the style of a conversation, which is cool. It's not about objective, it's about hearing Adam's opinion on all these boards
Thanks for your points! But this video isn't supposed to be an impartial review because there's no such thing as objective metrics with marimbas - everyone wants different things for theirs and if it's not me it'll be someone else's opinion that determines what is "good".
