Bon Hoga wrote:We should change all the heads on our kit sometime soon, the drummer wants coated Ambassadors on both sides of both toms. Crap idea or not crap idea?Not Crap. After years of R&D, that's how I roll. Sounds great on four different kits, maple, birch, fiberglass, whatever.

I may have mentioned this already, but I tend to not try and hit a certain pitch in tuning, so much as try and hit the point where the head/drum combination has the most resonance. I find that usually puts the drum (toms, especially) at a higher pitch than I'd expect, but I find in a band context, it works pretty well and when recording I may be able to get away without close-micing toms. It seems like once bands had enough tracks to have close-miced toms and snare, the fundamental notes of those drums started to drop, and my completely untested, unsubstantiated theory is that back with 8 track recording, you needed to tune the drums so they could cut through better because you couldn't fix it in the mix.

garthplinko wrote: just thinking about using a snark tunerI think many folks on the PRF should get a snark tuner..

twelvepoint wrote:I may have mentioned this already, but I tend to not try and hit a certain pitch in tuning, so much as try and hit the point where the head/drum combination has the most resonance. I find that usually puts the drum (toms, especially) at a higher pitch than I'd expect, but I find in a band context, it works pretty well and when recording I may be able to get away without close-micing toms. It seems like once bands had enough tracks to have close-miced toms and snare, the fundamental notes of those drums started to drop, and my completely untested, unsubstantiated theory is that back with 8 track recording, you needed to tune the drums so they could cut through better because you couldn't fix it in the mix.I just hit around every tuning lug and try to get them to match... Never really mess with the bottom heads at all... Maybe I should...

I'm trying out Aquarian American Vintage Medium skins for our forties Radio King 16" floor tom. Up until now, I've been using coated Evans G2s. I liked the sound and Emperors didn't fit properly. Sadly, Evans new 360 heads are smaller. I guess that's why they've changed their models, to use less plastic and advertise it as an improvement. Anyway, has anyone noticed a drop in volume with the American Vintage heads in comparison to G2s or Emperors (both coated)?

Emperor batter for sure. I'd get a falam pad, too.

Seems like an Ambassador would only do what Arrison didn't like but worse, and would be less durable. I'd try the felt strip only on the batter at first and go from there, especially if the Premier has birch shells.

Ok, so we've bought matching coated Ambassadors for the toms, in a few days we'll be going back to the shop to get some kick drum heads. Right now it's a toss-up between matching coated Ambassadors and coated Emperor batter + coated Ambassador reso. The drum is a 22 Premier Royale, btw, and we won't be porting the resonant head, because fuck that.