Thanks so much for this! Extremely useful stuff.

djimbe wrote:

mr.arrison wrote:Also, fuck Aquarian.

The Aquarian Vintage American series heads are real nice, especially for older drums that may have sketchy bearing edges. They're very similar to Remo coated Ambassador's, but they have just a hint of the Remo Fibreskyn "fake calfskin" feel and sound to them. And you can get kick heads that have an old school jazz style muffle strip affixed to the back side of the head, which is way cool for the reso head on a kick drum so you don't need to puch a hole in it (which sounds like ass most of the time...), or stuff the drum with crap. Fuck a buncha holes in a kick reso head.

them Aquarians finally allowed me to get the tune on my '71 Ludwigs correct.

this is true, and I revoke my comment about them. I used to have a Blue Onyx Roger's Holiday kit with damaged bearing edges and I too got a Super Kick Aquarian head to work well with it. For new drums with really sharp bearing edges, not so much.

eliya wrote:Am I the only one who likes pinstripes?
I was using coated ambassadors on toms, but when tuned low, they were flabbing, which was very annoying.

It scares me when no one likes pinstripes, makes me doubt my hearing/sound.

i will chime in and say i've used remo pinstripes on my toms for a long time. i never liked them much until i got my current drums, which were custom made for me a little more than 10 years ago. i tried many other types first (used to put coated emps on my older kit) - and finally settled on pinstripes. i like to tune my toms very low and they were the only ones i could tune as low as i wanted and maintain a sound i was happy with, especially over time (buying new heads $ucks!).

it depends on the drums and the drummer, i think. currently i use sticks with no tips and i hit hard. if i were playing lighter music with little itty bitty twigs, i'm sure pinstripes would sound like shit. for now though, they are what sound best to my ears on my drums.

tim wrote:
it depends on the drums and the drummer, i think. currently i use sticks with no tips and i hit hard. if i were playing lighter music with little itty bitty twigs, i'm sure pinstripes would sound like shit. for now though, they are what sound best to my ears on my drums.

Weird, I actually find the pinstripes to be fuller that coated heads when playing softly. This might sound like an oxymoron, but it's not - I can tune the pinstripes really low and they maintain their tension, so you get a low tone without them flabbing(is flabbing the word?), especially when playing softly. When hitting coated heads softly, they always sound(at least to me, on my kit) as if I'm hitting a bristol board, I believe that's because they're not tensioned enough when they're tuned low.
I think I became a better drum tuner lately, so it might have been just me, tuning the coated heads wrong.

Barbo wrote:I think so. It's ok though. As long as they are not the ebony pinstripes.

Ugh. My drummer uses ebony pinstripes. I haaaaaaaaate them. Awful. I'm not crazy about the clear ones either. However, in school there was a jazz-sized Slingerland with a pinstripe on the rack that sounded great. Floor wasn't bad either.

just get some calf skins and be done with it.

i'm sure sup' would vote for human skins, but those are too pricey.

Barbo wrote:I think so. It's ok though. As long as they are not the ebony pinstripes.

Wasn't Brendan Canty using ebony pinstripes?

I guess we don't all agree on drum heads, do we?

Anyways, it does have a ton to do with the type of drum, shell thickness, depth, shell material, bearing edge condition, new bearing edges vs. old, sound you are going for, wood beater, urethane beater, felt beater, hickory rock knockers vs. those plastic tipped pussy twigs, etc..

Please expound upon your kit and the sound you are going for and listen to whatever dontfeartheringo says.

mr.arrison wrote:I guess we don't all agree on drum heads, do we?

I just kept writing about my experience of each drum head cause it's fun. I like talking about this kind of stuff. None of my post was written to show that one poster or another is wrong.

mr.arrison wrote:Please expound upon your kit and the sound you are going for and listen to whatever dontfeartheringo says.

seconded.

eliya wrote:
I just kept writing about my experience of each drum head cause it's fun. I like talking about this kind of stuff. None of my post was written to show that one poster or another is wrong.

I know, we're all good. Just commenting on the difference of opinion and how surprised I am someone could actually squeeze a good sound out of a pinstripe head You guys have me doubting my ears once again.