Bass drum sounds fantastic when played HARD, but...

Sjogras

Silver Member
...there is no way I can maintain that power with every stroke, so I am in search of a more easily responsive bass drum. I am currently using a Remo powerstroke 4, 2 ply head with a sound control ring, so it's a heavy head. So, is it a 1 ply head that I should be using? Remo ps3 perhaps, or should I skip the sound control ring? Coated ambassador perhaps?

Could you share your experiences with 1 ply vs 2 ply bass drum heads? Help! Bass drum heads are expensive!
 
Remo PS3, or other 1 ply heads, sound like what you're looking for.
Put it on, tune it up, step on the pedal....and you got a boom (not a thud).
A PS3 is basically an Ambassador with some dampening ring on the rim. Its helps control 'ring', but an Ambassador will work too.
 
As soon as you add dampening to a head the overall volume level comes down (with all things being equal like energy expended). You may not like the sound of a wide open head but that's the loudest.

I would most certainly go for a less dampened head like a Powerstroke 3 if you are looking for more presence and volume. You could also go for something like a coated Emperor and then adjust dampening as needed. Just remember if you get a thinner, less dampened head and then throw a pillow or packing blanket inside of it - you're back where you started.

Jim
 
Jim, I'm not talking that kind of loud! :) I do use some dampening, a medium sized pillow resting against the batter head. Does that change the premise? My setup is as follows, a 22x17.5 sonor 3007 with the reso head (the Sonor stock head with a 3" hole) tuned pretty much as low as possible while still producing a tone, and the batter head tuned slightly higher than that. The pillow is covering about 6"x10" so there is some space on the sides.

I guess my question is really whether a single ply head will make much difference or not, compared to the 2 ply. But I noticed now that a coated ambassador isn't more than 25-30$ so I might just go ahead and try one.
 
If it was me, I would play more with the tuning of the drum first. I would also delete the internal pillow because the way the Powerstroke 4 is made, (two plys and a control ring) they're not well know for their sustain anyway. If you hadn't already put a port hole in the resonant head, I would also advise you not to, although a three inch hole is much better than a five or six inch hole.

Dennis
 
Jim, I'm not talking that
I guess my question is really whether a single ply head will make much difference or not, compared to the 2 ply. But I noticed now that a coated ambassador isn't more than 25-30$ so I might just go ahead and try one.

A single ply head will not make a difference if you have a pillow resting against it, that muffles its entire purpose, to be wide open sounding.
As noted above, why not get pillow out of there and work with the already dampened 2 ply PS4 head you have, esp. since you want to save $$ on heads.
 
Thanks for the input guys, but I'm not going for a more open sound, or louder for that matter. And I'm not going for the sound of a bassdrum without muffling, I have played this drum nicely tuned without muffling, which (to me) is fun for the sake of a very powerful sound but I want more punch than that.

What I feel is simply that the drum requires a lot of power to reach it's full potential in sound, just like a heavy tom with e.g Remo pinstripe requires a hard stroke to open up. That's why I assumed that a single ply head would help in this case but I realize that the pillow lessens the batter head's impact on the sound.

Eventually I'll have to replace the batter head and then I'll get a single ply head but for now I've found a smaller pillow that I'll try tomorrow.
 
If you want a change of heads, try the Evans EQ4 batter head, I use them on five of my bass drums. They're built very similarly to a Remo PS3 head, except the Evans internal dampening ring varies in width proportionally to the head's size. Did I say that it's a single ply (10mil) head?

Dennis
 
I didn't think they were similar. My sonor 22x16 has an eq4 and my mapex 22x16 has ps3 and its much louder, lower and punchier. Same tuning and muffling.. Maybe the shells are making all the difference. Thanks, I was thinking of getting a ps3 for the sonor but it sounds like I'd be wasting my $$$
 
I'm back again..! Been experimenting a bit without muffling, I'm very surprised by how muffled the ps4 really is, and I get can a nice low end punch but it does compromise the feel since the head is vibrating a lot. When playing fast doubles (I play single pedal) it's as though the drum head isn't there when I'm expecting the beater to hit it, and even when I'm not burying the beater I can feel the head vibrate through the beater when doing a stroke. It would take some time to get used to this and I'm sure I would get used to it, but I'm sticking with a small/medium sized pillow resting against the batter head.

In your experience, how does a single ply and a double ply head compare regarding that vibrating feeling? If you know what I'm talking about...
 
Back
Top