6 Best Drum Gloves 2024

The topic of drumming gloves doesn’t come up too often in the drumming community. However, drum gloves work well for drummers who have sores on their hands or need a bit of extra grip during a lengthy tour.

Since they’re not that popular, drum brands don’t produce many of them. There are a few fantastic pairs of gloves to check out, though.

Here are some of the best gloves for drummers.

Vic Firth Drummers’ Gloves – Best Overall

The Vic Firth Drummers’ Gloves (compare price on Sweetwater and Amazon) are some of the most widely loved drummer gloves on the market. They’re brilliantly designed, and they’re made in a way that makes them both durable and stylish.

When looking at these gloves, you’ll see that there are a few different layers to them when it comes to materials. At the points where your hands grip the sticks, there are patches of rubber. These patches give you amazing grip, and I’ve found that they hold up very well over time.

The rest of the gloves are made from Cabretta leather and synthetic mesh. The Cabretta leather feels very solid and nowhere near as slick as the leather on most other drumming gloves.

The synthetic mesh material allows your hands to breathe, letting circulation flow and stopping your hands from sweating inside the gloves.

Vic Firth has designed these gloves in a way that makes them feel very natural to play with. While it takes a bit of getting used to when drumming with gloves, the transition with these will be a lot easier.

Overall, they’re an excellent pair of gloves that will stop your hands from blistering and provide a very solid grip.

Promark Leather Drum Gloves – Premium Option

The Promark Leather Drum Gloves (compare price on Amazon and Guitar Center) are some of the heaviest-duty gloves that you can find. They have the highest price tag, but they tend to last the longest out of all the gloves on this list.

They’re also made from Cabretta leather, but they have extra padding in several places on each glove to ensure extended durability.

There are pads on the four fingers and three pads around the palm to ensure that your grip on the sticks is secure. The thumb on each glove has a round pad to help with grip as well. All these pads make sticks feel incredibly stable in your hands.

Apart from those pads, extra material is placed at the fingertips and knuckles to add even more durability to the gloves.

At the back of each glove is a layer of breathable mesh material that helps with circulation in your hands. So, the gloves are heavy-duty, but they don’t feel restricting at all.

These are the gloves to get if you want the best option for most settings. The extra padding makes them slightly less sensitive compared to other gloves, though. That’s something that you’ll need to get accustomed to.

Meinl Half Finger Drummer Gloves – Best Budget Option

The Meinl Half Finger Drummer Gloves (Amazon) are an amazing fingerless glove option. While these fall under the budget category here, they’re certainly not just an option for a beginner or budget drummers.

The best thing about using fingerless gloves is that you get to feel the sticks on your fingers while still getting an enhanced grip on your palms. Many drummers may prefer this.

Another benefit of these gloves is that you can easily use your laptop, tablet, or smartphone in between playing the drums. Most gloves make using touch screens almost impossible, as you need to pull them off to use a device.

That can become a problem when you’re the one in charge of running click tracks at a gig, making these gloves the perfect answer.

They have a full leather surface on the palm side of your hand and a breathable mesh surface on the other side. The inside of each glove has a soft cotton material, which I love the feeling of.

These gloves also work very well for hand percussion, especially instruments like djembes and bongos. You get protection on your palms from hard impacts, but you can still use your bare fingers for intricate note playing.

The downside of fingerless gloves is that the sweat from your fingers may still affect your grip strength at times.

Zildjian Touchscreen Drummers’ Gloves

The Zildjian Touchscreen Drummers’ Gloves (compare price on Sweetwater and Amazon) are your best option if you’re looking for full gloves that can easily be used with touchscreen devices.

These gloves have special padding on the thumbs and pointer fingers that allow you to seamlessly use touchscreens with no hassles. So, these are the gloves to get if you’re controlling things from a tablet on stage, but you don’t want to use fingerless gloves.

They’re not the highest-quality gloves around, so they’re not as durable as many other options. However, they work very well for the length of their lifespan.

The palms of the gloves have lambskin material, which makes these gloves feel a lot lighter than all the leather ones that I’ve mentioned so far. If you’d prefer to wear lighter gloves, these may be a better option for you.

They have synthetic mesh material on the back of the gloves to allow your hands to breathe. However, the lightweight nature of these Zildjian gloves makes it even less likely that your hands will sweat underneath them.

Overall, the Zildjian Touchscreen gloves are a solid option, with the biggest benefit being that you can use touchscreen devices while wearing them.

Ahead Drum Gloves

The Ahead Drum Gloves (compare prices on Sweetwater and Amazon) are incredibly popular in the rock and metal drumming community. There are so many heavy drummers that use these gloves, including Tommy Lee, Vinnie Paul, and Arejay Hale.

The best thing about these gloves is that they feel very light, but they remain as durable as most of the other options I’ve mentioned. They give an almost seamless feeling, making it feel like you’re barely wearing gloves when playing.

The materials used for these gloves are slightly different from the material combinations used in most of the others. They’re made from Spandex, Lycra, and very thin leather. This material combination is what makes the gloves feel so comfortable.

The material on the back of the gloves is a bit thicker than the mesh used in others. However, all the fingertips are vented, allowing air to circulate inside the gloves.

Not only do these gloves help with grip, but they also protect your wrists. The wrist straps are very solid and thick, preventing you from getting repetitive stress injuries when using them. They take a lot of the impact on your wrist away when you hit the drums.

These gloves are an amazing option to consider. The big downside is that they don’t last near as long as many other gloves from different brands. The seamless comfort comes at the cost of durability.

Tama Drummers’ Gloves

The Tama Drummers’ Gloves (compare prices on Sweetwater and Amazon) are the final glove option to mention for this list. These are made with high-quality materials, making them quite expensive compared to the others.

The thing I like most about these Tama gloves is that you have the choice to get them in a black or white color. The white option is pure white, looking like the classic gloves that Carter Beauford always wears. The black option has accented red stripes to add a bit of variety.

These gloves are made from synthetic leather, making them more durable than gloves with standard leather. They’re designed to add comfort to your grip and be extremely durable at the same time.

The gloves are sweat and element-proof, meaning they’ll work wonderfully in any environment where you may find yourself playing the drums in. They’re perfect for hot outdoor gigs as well as cold indoor gigs.

The mesh material on the back of the gloves is very stretchy, allowing your hands to fit quite comfortably inside. They don’t make a small option for these gloves, but the medium version tends to fit most smaller hands.

Tama isn’t a brand that I’d expect to be making gloves for drummers, but I think they nailed it out the park with these. If you’re happy to pay a higher price, they’re an excellent option.

What To Look For In Drum Gloves

Price

Drum gloves are fairly inexpensive pieces of gear. However, there are a few things to note when it comes to prices.

More expensive drum gloves are generally thicker, more durable, and feel more comfortable to wear for longer periods. If you’re planning to wear drum gloves regularly, I highly recommend getting one of the more expensive pairs.

You’ll get a lot more bang for your buck with that purchase. Cheaper drum gloves aren’t as comfortable, and they won’t last as long, so you may end up buying more after a while.

I’d suggest getting an inexpensive pair of drum gloves if you’re only planning to use them every now and then. Some drummers play a serious number of gigs on a tour and need the added comfort near the end of a few gigs. Inexpensive gloves would be perfect for that.

You may find some very inexpensive gloves from unknown brands. I suggest steering clear of those as they provide almost no layered protection for your hands. They also don’t have any grip on them, making it hard to hold your drumsticks comfortably.

Materials

All the best drum gloves are made with some sort of leather. Leather is a high-quality material that works incredibly well to strengthen your grip around the drumsticks.

So, always look for gloves that have leather in them. If the whole glove isn’t made from leather, at least make sure that some of it is.

It’s quite common for gloves to have specific leather patches to help you with your grip around the sticks.

Apart from leather, many gloves are made from synthetic layered materials that are lighter and make it easier for your hands to breathe. These are a bit easier to get used to using as opposed to thick and heavy leather gloves. They’re not as durable, though.

If you see gloves that only have soft material, don’t go for them. Gloves that only have soft material don’t do anything to help your stick grip, which is the main purpose of drumming gloves.

You may come across gloves with soft material that are purely intended to be used when handling cymbals. If you try drumming with them, your sticks will most likely slip out of your hands at some point.

Fingers vs Fingerless Gloves

Wearing full gloves can make you feel detached from your drumsticks. An option to counter that feeling is to use fingerless drum gloves. These aren’t as commonly found, but a few brands sell them.

Fingerless gloves allow your fingers to breathe and have direct contact with the drumsticks. They also still have the benefit of helping your grip on your palms.

I’d suggest getting fingerless drumming gloves if you use a lot of finger technique while playing as opposed to wrist technique.

However, fingerless gloves won’t stop you from sweating at your fingers, and that may affect your grip with your fingers. So, they’re not as reliable as standard drumming gloves, but they do feel better for many drummers.

Fit

All drumming gloves come in multiple sizes. When buying a pair, make sure to get the appropriate size for your hands. If you get gloves that are too small, they won’t fit. If you get gloves that are too big, they’ll feel loose and eventually slip off while you’re playing.

You’ll only ever feel comfortable while drumming with gloves if you get a pair that fits your hands perfectly.

This will be a bit of a trial-and-error thing if you don’t know what size you should get. Do your best to assume which size to get. If that doesn’t work, you’ll have to purchase a smaller or larger size.

Thankfully, drum gloves aren’t expensive. So, your size wrong once won’t be the end of the world!

Durability

Apart from drumsticks, drum gloves seem to be one of the least durable pieces of drumming equipment. Understand that when you buy a pair of drum gloves, they’re not going to last a decade if you use them constantly.

They get so much action between your hands and sticks that the material gets worn over time, causing them to break.

The higher-priced drum gloves with better materials tend to last longer, but they’re still not invincible. So, take note that you may need to buy new gloves every few years if you use them a lot.

Again, drum gloves are one of the least expensive pieces of drum gear, so they’re easy to replace. You could even buy a few pairs at once so that you don’t need to worry about buying them again after the first pair break.

I also suggest trying gloves from different brands to see which ones you like the most. Branching out from your regular option often leads to finding a better one.

Best Drum Glove Brands

Want to make sure that you’re getting a reliable pair of gloves from a trusted brand? Check these out.

Zildjian

Zildjian is one of the oldest companies in the world. They have a long-standing history of making some of the best products on the market.

While they’re mainly known for cymbals, they also have a division that produces drumsticks and drum gloves.

Meinl

Meinl is one of the top four cymbal brands. Apart from cymbals, they make amazing drumsticks, along with affordable drum gloves for drummers to use with them.

Meinl sell light gloves to use when handling cymbals, so make sure to get proper drumming gloves instead of those lighter ones.

Vic Firth

Vic Firth is a leading drumstick brand, and the company has been making drum gloves for decades that are loved by many drummers.

Many of their gloves are used by drum kit players as well as drummers who play in drumlines.

Promark

Promark is another leading drumstick brand that arguably makes some of the best drum gloves on the market.

Their top-tier leather drum gloves are an amazing option for drummers who want a high-quality pair to use.

Ahead

Ahead is a lesser-known drumstick brand, but their drum gloves are incredibly popular, even amongst drummers who use sticks from other brands.

Many metal drummers are known to use and love Ahead’s drum gloves.

Tama

Tama is mainly a drum kit brand, but they sell gloves with interesting color variety. This makes them a unique brand to choose from!

Top Drum Gloves, Final Thoughts

Drum glove designs are fairly consistent across every brand. So, you should simply choose a pair of gloves that stand out to you the most.

Remember to get the exact size that fits your hands, and you’ll have a great pair of drumming gloves that you can use for extra grip and to protect your hands when they have blisters.