head question

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daav

daav

Flailing up a storm.
This is probably a dumb question, but:
I have new batter/beater heads on my snare and kick, stock snare side/reso heads, and toms have stock heads that all sound like crap.

I am kind of saving $, so picking up new heads here and there over weeks/months instead of jsut replaceing everything at once.

What would be the biggest improvement to buy first, and suggestions to go with the heads i have now? In order of what i have been thinking:
Snare head for the snare (acrolight with coated emperor on batter side).
Reso head for kick (20 inch, EQ3 on the beater now).
Toms (batter side first, then reso).

Thanks.
Daav
 
It is completely up to your technique and what sound you're going for. Explain how you play the drums, i.e. hard and you bury your sticks into the head, or with the moeller technique or a snap and release. And what type of music are you going to play.

Whose sound do you like better, Danny Carey of Tool, or Steve Gadd of EVERYTHING.
 
tubby said:
It is completely up to your technique and what sound you're going for. Explain how you play the drums, i.e. hard and you bury your sticks into the head, or with the moeller technique or a snap and release. And what type of music are you going to play.

Whose sound do you like better, Danny Carey of Tool, or Steve Gadd of EVERYTHING.
Click to expand...

Well, i suck at drums, play rockish stuff, more about groove than being hardhitting. Not much time spent playing toms. Still in the learning stages. I will likely say this about drums, guitar, keys etc until i die.

i am more in the school of the dude from Morphine, or yuval galbay, or Chris Franz. Or maybe ?estlove, but that is out there. I like Steve SMith's drum dvds a lot, but I'm not into the fusiony stuff.

So anyway, does that help? In the meantime, for recording purposes, would a kick with a decent reso head be a bigger improvement than a snare with a decent snare side head? Does it matter? am i working on my post count?

Who knows, i just wondered what others thought.

Daav
 
I'm sure many people would tell you to remove the resonant head on the kick to get your mic in there. So I'd say snare side head first, either Remo ambassodor or diplomat weight snare side, or Evans 300 hazy. For kick either another EQ3 or Remo Powerstroke 3 resonant. Also, when it comes time, check out the Aquarian superkicks for your kick batter head, you'll be surprised.

With toms, for a rock groove, or as I'd go for, use a double ply head for the batter: Remo Emporer or Evans G2. Coated heads are a little drier with a bit more definition. Clear heads have more of a slappy wet sound which you may like. Resonant heads for toms should generally be clear single ply heads like Remo ambassadors and Evans G1's. That being said I've use coated Remo ambassador heads as resonants to good affect.

If you are not very good at tuning, and you're looking for a forgiving head, try Remo pinstripes, Evans hydrolics, or my personal favorite head (but hard to find), the Remo coated powerstroke 4. This head allows for a low tuning while getting rid of overtones, giving the impression of a drum that is tuned better. It also is a live engineers dream.

So here are my suggestions as a rock player of 15 years:
Snare: Powerstroke 3 reverse dot coated batter, ambassador snare side (not
regular ambassador but snare side)
Kick: Aquarian Superkick II clear batter, Remo Powerstroke 3 Resonant (a
little muffling like a pillow, 3" felt strips like Steve Smith uses, or the
Evans EQ pillows)
Toms: Remo emperor coated or clear batters (if you like thick toms, find some
coated powerstroke 4's), clear ambassador resonant heads

Just a tip, Evans and Remo sound completely different so when you have the money, experiment with the two.
 
Also depends on what kind of drums you are using. What is the shell material and how are the bearing edges? A good maple set with good edges doesn't need anything fancy, whereas a mahogany kit with messed up edges might do better with powerstrokes and pinstripes.

To me, the most important sound in the kit is always the snare, as you will hear it more than any other drum. Get a good snare sound first and then even your other drums will start to sound better. Good snare and cymbal sounds are the key to good sounding drums, IMO. Anything else can be improved with EQ, but if those two things aren't happening, the sound won't be very good.

Most of the snare drum sounds we hear recorded commercially are from a maple shell drum with an ambassador on top and a diplomat snare side on the bottom. It works.
 
IMO I would try to upgrade all at once.. yeah it will be a pain tuning but if you do one at a time you find yourself replacing heads more constantly. Also, a big part of the toms, I've noticed, is the resonant head. I've got some of the stock heads for my higher toms and they sound like poop. I got ahold of a couple of ambassadors for the reso on my two low toms and it sounds wayy better than the stock ones, even with the same heads on the batter side.

Also for kick resonant, make sure you get a powerstroke 3 RESONANT. One of the dudes at ****** ****** sold me a normal powerstroke 3 and it didn't sound very good for reso. Also he told me to cut a hole in it, so I did... right in the middle (using a template of course) and it sounds worse. On top of that the collar is bent and the head wont seat right. IMO I like the aquarian regulator for kick reso. It's got a real big boom to it though and can be tuned really really low...

BUT then again, a lot of it comes from personal preference and what kind of equipment you are working with..
Good luck!
 
Thanks very much everyone, every post has had good stuff in it.

One thing, is we are really trying to polish a turd here i am afraid. It is a Sonor force 1001, very entry level. but sounds good, considering, i will be replacing the shells before too long. But in the meantime, learning tuning, playing, and recording is fine, no one else really needs to hear it.

Short term, i am going to try to see how the kick sounds without the reso head, and get the snare side snare head. I'll make the next call from there.
I really appreciate the suggestions about heads that will compensate for lackluster tuning and edges. I'll use that and work my way up from there,


Daav
 
that all depends on the sound....i upgraded about a year ago and cant be happier then what i got...I got the evens hydrolic in a set at guitar center and their way more thorty ( deeper with some punch) and the evens EMad and that kicks ass. My snare however is a different story. I had a remo pinstripe on it for two years before i broke it...(i played a lot then) and that was good for everything...then i got a evans st dry and its maybe a little to dry....i like dry snare heads but i hate when i lose some of the snare sound in my roll...and thats what happend
hope that helps
god luck
 
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