Drumheads and selection..

[pucho812]

Been going over this with others at the studio. We have a 1964 cameo drum kit as the house kit. It’s made with maple shells in a natural finish.
Drum sizes are 22” kick, 14” snare, and rims of 12”, 13” and 16”.

Well it’s time to do new heads and as a drummer I know what I would prefer we have on there just to make it sound pretty. But others are so adamant, that I can’t get a real word in nor will they even try anything else other then remo ambassador coated  heads on everything.
It’s always the same lines  like a broken record the toms ring and have a bend in the note. The front head on the kick causes a loss in low end.

If you ask me,  the kick sounds gross,  and the toms ring to much.
Any suggestions?  In my personal kit I have Aquarian’s and it’s a more controlled sound.
Would love to hear some suggestions in head selection as I am open to possibilities.

 

[kambo]

Been going over this with others at the studio. We have a 1964 cameo drum kit as the house kit. It’s made with maple shells in a natural finish.
Drum sizes are 22” kick, 14” snare, and rims of 12”, 13” and 16”.

Well it’s time to do new heads and as a drummer I know what I would prefer we have on there just to make it sound pretty. But others are so adamant, that I can’t get a real word in nor will they even try anything else other then remo ambassador coated  heads on everything.
It’s always the same lines  like a broken record the toms ring and have a bend in the note. The front head on the kick causes a loss in low end.

If you ask me,  the kick sounds gross,  and the toms ring to much.
Any suggestions?  In my personal kit I have Aquarian’s and it’s a more controlled sound.
Would love to hear some suggestions in head selection as I am open to possibilities.

all this mostly/almost  about bad tuning.... i have 20USD kick drum,
sounds like  10K kick drum ever since i have Johns tuner!

i would suggest this quote from John

"Don't only half-ass tune your drums. Visit https://circularscience.com to hear what properly "cleared" drums sound like."

 

[JohnRoberts]

Been going over this with others at the studio. We have a 1964 cameo drum kit as the house kit. It’s made with maple shells in a natural finish.
Drum sizes are 22” kick, 14” snare, and rims of 12”, 13” and 16”.

Well it’s time to do new heads and as a drummer I know what I would prefer we have on there just to make it sound pretty. But others are so adamant, that I can’t get a real word in nor will they even try anything else other then remo ambassador coated  heads on everything.

who is the customer?  Are those customers pleased with the current drum sound (voicing?).

It’s always the same lines  like a broken record the toms ring and have a bend in the note.

Its complicated and I am not a drummer so caveat lector (reader beware). Heads can make a difference and so will how the lugs are tensioned. There are two sources of note bend, one is actual bend (when first struck hard the head is momentarily tighter so sounds higher), then there is after ring an interaction between how the batter head is tensioned relative to the resonant head. 

The front head on the kick causes a loss in low end.

bass drum for recording is a somewhat different issue than live where it needs more projection. Close micing the back of the kick batter head will give more edge and attack, modest distance micing from a kick resonant head will give a smoother fundamental sound, but this is all somewhat subjective and may vary with what is needed for the track. 

If you ask me,  the kick sounds gross,  and the toms ring to much.
Any suggestions?  In my personal kit I have Aquarian’s and it’s a more controlled sound.
Would love to hear some suggestions in head selection as I am open to possibilities.

I just make the measurement tool, you need to figure out what you want to accomplish... I am agnostic about voicing.

JR

 

[pucho812]

Customer?  This is for the studio house  drum kit.  There is no customer at the moment other than the studio.  I would like to have new heads on it.  The current heads are spent.

We do keep the drums heads even tensioned around and we do match top and bottom head as closely as possible..

 

[PRR]

> There is no customer at the moment other than the studio.

If nobody plays them, who cares?

If Tom, Dick, and Harriett rent the studio and play the drums, what do that think of the sound? And can they go across town to some better drums? (In my neck of the woods, you play what you can get.)

I am NOT-NOT a drummer. But I know enough vibration theory and music to understand that tuning two skins with dozens of pegs is not an easy ear-job. Some skins may be easier to pull toward shape, but they can't tune themselves, and an easy-tune may be a boring sound. I see why John spent much time doping this out. Maybe not for this conflicted studio, but when you eventually break-out, run your own studio, and can't spend time drum-tuning, you should try John's tuner.

Jeez! You can't get one GOOD piano tuning for what John charges for his tuner. 30-day "I don't like it" refund, 3 year warranty, and you know who to talk to.

 

[pucho812]

I seen his tuner in action, it's on the list I was made a believer out of.
but that still missed my question of what drum heads people think I should check out.

 

[Tubetec]

Try going with pinstripe up top on the toms , they provide a bit more damping ,
plain clear thin single ply on the ends,

Ambasador on top of the snare , clear thin single ply underneath, crank the tension on the top of the snare right up until it sounds like a rifle shot , keep it nice and even though or else it might stretch unevenly ,it becomes impossible to tune then

Pinstripe on the beater side of the kick , try adding the little fibrepad thing too,always a hard beater ,never felt ,  front side single ply heavy(black)  with a hole for the mic. Sometimes a damper ring fitted between shell and skin is good too ,

White lithium grease is a good bet also , even under stage conditions it will remain viscous, a little dip for each tuning bolt will make tuning much more precise . Theres all kinds of things can cause spurious noise in vintage kits , a handheld mic and headphones can be used to identify troublesome lugs or other shakey hardware , weed out the nasties one by one until its just shell resonance and skin and all the rattle snake shake is gone .

Johns do-hickey id say is worth a try , time saved and repeatability pays dividends in studio , theres also damper rings for snare and toms as well as jelly pads , these can provide a very quick method of changing drum tone without a full dismantle and rebuild /retune/reskin,

 

[Ricardus]

Ambasador on top of the snare , clear thin single ply underneath, crank the tension on the top of the snare right up until it sounds like a rifle shot , keep it nice and even though or else it might stretch unevenly ,it becomes impossible to tune then

The only other thing on a snare top that recorded well for me was an Evans Genera G1. I might even like it better than the Ambassador.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Johns do-hickey id say is worth a try , time saved and repeatability pays dividends in studio , theres also damper rings for snare and toms as well as jelly pads , these can provide a very quick method of changing drum tone without a full dismantle and rebuild /retune/reskin,

I do not want to lapse into a hard sell (not my style) but I do have several studio customers.

One obvious benefit is being able to change heads in the middle of a session, and get back to the original kit voicing. In fact, you could get back the same voicing months later for overdubbing (if people still do that).

Of course my tuner is not the only one that can extract tuning pitch. My tuner's unique benefit is fine tuning (clearing).

JR

 

[Rob Flinn]

Personally I use coated ambassadors on the toms.

I like the Aquarian vintage double ply coated on the snare.  I hate coated ambassadors on the snare, because when I play with brushes you get a nasty plasticy zipper noise.  The double ply Aquarian is more damped & sounds a bit more like a calf skin head. 

I had a great bass drum sound for jazz with a fibreskin on the front with no hole, which if you bounced the beater gave a nice ringing note, which in conjunction with a damped stroke burying the beater was great for playing Brazilian music.  However I wasn't playing bossa nova so much any more so I went with a ported coated ambassador on the front, for a more modern sound.

You may have guessed I don't play Rock........

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Any suggestions? 

My studio kit has Remo pinstripes, with moongels inside. Drummer happy, me happy.

 

[boji]

I like Aquarian II for bass head and floor toms, really no contest unless you want the Bonham felt strip sound.  For the rest remo thin plys / ambassador. Top heads wear out fast but are great for a few sessions.