Ok so I have two drum sets. One is the Gretsch which you've seen in the first post.. the other is my baby.. Yamaha Recording custom. I was kind of afraid to bring it to school and play with it because of how nice and expensive it is.. which I realized after I played it again the other day was really really dumb. The sizes for that set are 10" 12" 14" 16" and 22". the 10 and 12 have clear G2's on them and the other two have clear EC2's. The bass has a clear EQ3. The heads are old, but I haven't played them in a long time because the kit's been kept in my basement while I'm at school. So the heads are old but not beaten to hell. I was really looking into getting either the black suede heads from Remo or the onyx heads from Evans. The two seem like they'd be similar but apparently not. The suede heads are supposed to be quite bright where the onyx heads are rather dark. An old friend of mine (who I used to work with at Guitar Center) said he put the Onyx heads on his Orange County kit and he absolutely loves them. He said they're incredibly durable and sound great, but they have a very dark sound. I'm assuming he meant that the attack isn't as pronounced. That got me thinking though.. I like attack and sustain.. I like my higher toms to sing and be heard and I like my lower toms to be big, focused, with attack.
So I tuned the kit again something hit me. I fell in love with the heads I chose from the beginning and kind of feel slightly dumb for it! The clear heads give me that attack I'm looking for and he EC2's have that muffling ring around the edge that controls the over tones perfectly... Along with re-falling in love with the drums I remembered I have a whopping $2 in my bank account... yay for being a broke college student??
'Til next time friends.....
Last week I had to change my bottom head of my snare drum. The snare itself started to sound a little lifeless. I've always used the Evans "hazy" series heads so I thought I'd try something a little different. I was walking around Sam Ash in White Plains and browsed the heads section and was looking at the variety of bottom snare heads. I read the little tag and it said that it was slightly thicker than usual and got rid of some overtones (always my problem). I bought it and slapped it on my snare. Within the last 5 days I've had 2 recording sessions and thought it'd be a good excuse to mess around with the tunings and what not. The first recording it sounded really dark and not very good to be honest. I didn't have much time to tweak it around so I was kind of stuck with this dry dark sounding snare drum.. not very good for the pop/rock I was recording. Before the 2nd session (last night) I had plenty of time to mess around with it. I tuned the bottom a bit tighter than usual and it started to take on a more lively character, while still taking out some overtones. It honestly sounded great. It had a great attack, not too ringy, and a nice pop to it. I slapped a single moon-gel on it and it sounded very very nice. I got a picture of how it was mic'd up and when I get the recordings I'll post those up too. I'm thinking about trying the remo black suede heads next and I'll definitely be writing a blog up about those guys...
Here's a pic of the snare... it's a Pearl Masters maple 14x6 I think....
Hey everyone, you like drums, you want to read about things related to drums, you want product reviews, you're not alone. I looked around on the internet and found some halfway decent sites but nothing with pure honest product review, so I'm going to do it. My first review is going to by my baby, my Gretsch Birch Catalina kit. I absolutely love this thing. I use it for live shows, recording, and teaching and it does it all for a good price and has an amazing sound. I first heard the kit when I was about 14-15 years old (I'm 23 now) and fell in love with it right away. I walked into the store, the guy set it up for me, and I played it and wanted it immediately without even looking at the price tag. I played some kits that cost about a grand to $1,500 and they sounded ok but this kit sounded great for $750. At the time they were selling it with an 8, 10, 12, 14" tom's 14" snare and 22" bass drum. The bass sounded like a monster and the toms sounded like they were in a recording studio, even though I was in the cymbal room of guitar center. I've put many different kinds of heads on everything and I've found that they sound best with Evans G2 coated on the toms and an Evans eq2 or 3 on the bass. At a recording studio I interned for they lined the bass drums with those egg crate sound proofing things and I've been doing it ever since and I'll never NOT do it again. If you can find one of these kits, grab it. Don't ask questions.. go and get it and you'll be amazed.
