Lets talk drum heads

Alex W

Pork and Beans connoisseur
What is your personal favorite and why? I got to hear a set of Aquarian super 2 coated and they really blew me away. Granted I didn't really have another point of reference to compare them to, but I was thinking that's the way I'm gonna go for the set I'm restoring.
 
I like thinner coated heads like the Remo Ambassadors or these Evans heads (I don't remember the model). You can tell how often I change them :embarrassed:

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Controlled Sound X on the Snare, Smooth White on Toms, Powerstroke 4 on Kick. I've tried some Evans and a few Aquarian, but at the end of the day I prefer Remo.
 
My sticks have changed though... I used to be a Pro Mark guy, but made the switch to Vic Firth a few years ago.
 
I've been buying random sticks just to try them out. I haven't liked any of the Zildjian sticks I have tried, I like the Joey Jordison Pro-Mark sticks, and I love the Vic Firth 7a's but I don't like the acorn tips on them
 
I've always liked a more open sound, but I did a gig in a gym once, where I didn't pay as much attention to the acoustics as I should have. In that case I should have tuned lower, or gone with a head with overtone control.

I still like an open sound to my drums, so I use coated Remo Ambassadors, over Diplomats, because I like them to have a certain amount of articulation. After my experience in the gym, though, I'm going to have a set of pinstripes on hand for my toms.

In the bass drum, I use an EMAD2 batter head, and a single ply ported resonant head, with a Kickport. On my snares, I generally prefer an Evans Genera HD Dry batter, with an Evans Hazy 300 on the snare side.
 
I know this is an old one, but I combine brands.

On toms I swear by the Evans EC2 heads (great heads with exceptional tuning range imo). On the snare, either the usual coated Remo Ambassador or the Evans Reverse Dot (quite surprised by how good that one was). Kick is always an Evans EQ3.

Personally I hate coated heads on anything but the snare. Too dull for me. :embarrassed:
 
I know this is an old one, but I combine brands.

On toms I swear by the Evans EC2 heads (great heads with exceptional tuning range imo). On the snare, either the usual coated Remo Ambassador or the Evans Reverse Dot (quite surprised by how good that one was). Kick is always an Evans EQ3.

Personally I hate coated heads on anything but the snare. Too dull for me. :embarrassed:

I ended up putting evans EC2 on everything except for my snare. I bought the snare on Ebay and it has a Drumcraft head made by Remo that sounds really good. The Bass drum has an Emad on the front and back and it sounds really good. I haven't been able to dial in my toms in yet.
 
I was just going to start a drum head thread :grin:

A quick question from a drumming idiot, does the bottom head make a difference in the sound? I am planning on changing out the heads and wondered if I would just be wasting money replacing the bottom ones.
 
I was just going to start a drum head thread :grin:

A quick question from a drumming idiot, does the bottom head make a difference in the sound? I am planning on changing out the heads and wondered if I would just be wasting money replacing the bottom ones.

It definitely does, but you're probably okay with them short term.
 
Yep, worn out bottom (resonant) heads make the drums go dull sounding - like guitar strings going bad. It's recommended that you change the bottom (resonant) heads for every 2-3 changes of the top (batter) head.
 
So I finally got around to replacing the heads on my toms. I went with Evan G2 coated heads. I like my drums to sound a bit mellow and not in your face, so from the description, these looked like they would fit the bill. They may be a tad too mellow, but a huge improvement over the shitty pearl heads that came with the it. I really need to replace the snare head now, it is way too bright for the toms now.
 
ok, so the heads sound great with regular sticks. I usually use those hot rod sticks, and the heads sounded a little flat with those, but with regular sticks they sound exactly how I want them too. So now I need to get a new snare and kick head.
 
Chad, you might want to look into the Evans HD Dry snare batter head. It does a nice job of cutting some of the overtones. If you want a nice punchy bass drum sound, look at the Evans EMAD2 batter head.
 
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