oil-filled heads

Ive been using Remo Pinstripes since 2005. They are a good skin and dont kill the tone of the drum and they are so easy to tune, nut fussy at all. I love them, they give a crazy good bass response.
 
Ive been using Remo Pinstripes since 2005. They are a good skin and dont kill the tone of the drum and they are so easy to tune, nut fussy at all. I love them, they give a crazy good bass response.

A single ply would still allow you to tune lower and give you more attack. A 2 ply head tricks you into thinking its lower because of the reduced higher frequences but the single ply has a wider range, high and low.
 
I would try the EC2s to get a more controlled sound. They get rid of some of the overtones and give a nice fat sound, have a decent tunning range.

I use clear G2s on the toms. Great balance of resonance, tone, attack.
 
Yup! It's quite a small amount but it definitely does the trick. It always blows me away how some people trash the Hydraulic series, yet when I see what they're using, it's a two-ply with a studio ring, moongel and a duct tape...

Most of my life I have been playing drums and a good part of that time I have also been setting up and running sound in live events. I also do a lot of recording in the studio.

The fascination with drummers having to get the maximum resonance is always a battle with the sound engineers. It’s real easy in a live event and in a studio to add depth and resonance to drums (hydraulic heads are very easy to record) - it’s very hard to remove too much resonance and sustain.
 
Most of my life I have been playing drums and a good part of that time I have also been setting up and running sound in live events. I also do a lot of recording in the studio.

The fascination with drummers having to get the maximum resonance is always a battle with the sound engineers. It’s real easy in a live event and in a studio to add depth and resonance to drums (hydraulic heads are very easy to record) - it’s very hard to remove too much resonance and sustain.

I have had studio engineers want to deaden my toms only to add reverb and delay to make them sound more resonant than they were originally, but found it also makes them less warm and have less attack, plus it reduces stick definition and dynamics. Then I have talked them into recording them both ways and in the end everyone agreed that the natural resonance sounds much better than effects. BTW its very easy to remove resonance and sustain if you really want to or need to just by using a gate, even compressor / limiters can help some and a lot of the recording software will now allow you to go in and just by dragging the mouse you can change everything including pitch, tempo and length of each note, be it vocals or instruments.
 
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I have had studio engineers want to deaden my toms ...... BTW its very easy to remove resonance and sustain if you really want to or need to just by using a gate....

Gates are a band-aid, I use them more for noisy instruments. If you have ever used a gate on Toms they never work well in all cases, mostly sounding unnatural with pumping during a roll or cutting off the tail strangely.
 
Gates are a band-aid, I use them more for noisy instruments. If you have ever used a gate on Toms they never work well in all cases, mostly sounding unnatural with pumping during a roll or cutting off the tail strangely.

Band aid? Yes! But if set up properly can be used in toms and still sound natural and no pumping, they just have to close slowly instead of slamming shut but have never had to use them on my kit anyway, I tune my toms with as much resonance as I can possibly get but tune out and sometimes still need a moon jell on large toms to remove the odd harmonic overtones and have never had a problem. Like I said studio engineers have said they are just way too resonant and want them dead only to add reverb and delay to give them a longer decay than they were originally. Why? Just because they are used to doing it that way and it becomes routine because many times they are working with entry or intermediate kits that are sometimes harder to tune with no overtones.
 
........., I tune my toms with as much resonance as I can possibly get but tune out and sometimes still need a moon jell on large toms to remove the odd harmonic overtones and have never had a problem. Like I said studio engineers have said they are just way too resonant and want them dead only to add reverb and delay to give them a longer decay than they were originally. Why? Just because they are used to doing it that way and it becomes routine because many times they are working with entry or intermediate kits that are sometimes harder to tune with no overtones.



Back to the thread topic of oil filled skins (many drummers seem to bash them, without owning them). Well in my case - I am the drummer, I am the recording engineer, I am the mix engineer and the producer. I have many kits with different heads on them, side by side in my studio. The easiest heads to record are the Hydraulics, hands down. I spend more time trying to FIX the mix with drummer’s resonant kits than if they were to use the hydraulic set. Usually drums have to FIT with other instruments in the mix of a song, a resonant kit tends to drown out other instruments and vocals IMO.
 
Back to the thread topic of oil filled skins (many drummers seem to bash them, without owning them). Well in my case - I am the drummer, I am the recording engineer, I am the mix engineer and the producer. I have many kits with different heads on them, side by side in my studio. The easiest heads to record are the Hydraulics, hands down. I spend more time trying to FIX the mix with drummer’s resonant kits than if they were to use the hydraulic set. Usually drums have to FIT with other instruments in the mix of a song, a resonant kit tends to drown out other instruments and vocals IMO.

To each his own and I to am a drummer and an engineer an I prefer natural resonance instead of adding reverb and delay to heads that sound like nothing other than wet cardboard IMO. The loss of warmth, tone and attack is not worth the saved studio time. Just cause its easier dont mean its right. Plus I will still bet by the time your done adding effects the decay on the toms with hydraulics is longer than it would be if they had well tuned single plys on them. With no exaggeration I have made at least 5 or 6 engineers eat crow on this exact debate after recording my kit their way then my way and listening to both finished products.
 
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