
sonusman
Banned
Just produced a session this weekend (didn't engineer it...hehe...it has been a while since I could tell an engineer what to do....
).
The drummer bought all new top heads for his Yamaha Stage Custom and last Friday, I helped him seat them and tune them as he didn't know squat about either procedure. During this time, I found out (although it was quite obvious upon visual inspection) that the bottom heads were indeed VERY old. Yup, you guessed it, they were the original bottom heads that came with the kit he bought new 3 years ago!!!
Oh no, it get's even better! All three rack tom's had dents in the bottom heads!!!
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....
Needless to say, I had to settle for a very distorted sounded tom sound, which was okay enough of the 16" floor tom, but mostly drove me nuts on the three rack toms! There is NO mic placement that get's rid of that distortion in the sound, it it almost always seems to cloud the attack of the drum! In addition, it is mostly impossible to get even tension across the lugs on either head in this case.
So, let's just say that in this case, new top heads didn't really pay off! If you haven't replaced your bottom heads lately, and are having troubles with tuning, suspect that first!
Also, if you are not a moderately heavy hitter, DO NOT buy freaking pin stripes!!!
Ed

The drummer bought all new top heads for his Yamaha Stage Custom and last Friday, I helped him seat them and tune them as he didn't know squat about either procedure. During this time, I found out (although it was quite obvious upon visual inspection) that the bottom heads were indeed VERY old. Yup, you guessed it, they were the original bottom heads that came with the kit he bought new 3 years ago!!!
Oh no, it get's even better! All three rack tom's had dents in the bottom heads!!!
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....



Needless to say, I had to settle for a very distorted sounded tom sound, which was okay enough of the 16" floor tom, but mostly drove me nuts on the three rack toms! There is NO mic placement that get's rid of that distortion in the sound, it it almost always seems to cloud the attack of the drum! In addition, it is mostly impossible to get even tension across the lugs on either head in this case.
So, let's just say that in this case, new top heads didn't really pay off! If you haven't replaced your bottom heads lately, and are having troubles with tuning, suspect that first!
Also, if you are not a moderately heavy hitter, DO NOT buy freaking pin stripes!!!
Ed