Reso heads
- Thread starter kuren84
- Start date
Fuo
Platinum Member
If you're not sure, just try it with ONE drum and see how you like the difference. No need to go all-in at once.
A
audiotech
Guest
I'll have to consciously listen to the tone of the spring, when it goes flat, I'll change it, lol.
I for one regularly change my resonant heads, in fact I did an entire head change this week on my Tama Starclassic Bubinga set. In doing so I found that I had two brand new heads in my stock that were dead. A resonant head going bad is sometimes a very gradual thing, similar to loosing your hearing over a period of time. You don't notice it until it's too late and the tone is gone or changed.
Dennis
NerfLad
Silver Member
evilg99
Platinum Member
For all you non believers that new resos don't make a difference or that they don't wear out over time - go over to You Tube and search for super slow motion drums - the stuff with Mike Mangini - I know, those videos are all batter heads and cymbals, but still, I can imagine that the reso heads move waaaay more than most folks think.
Neal
Neal
P
plangentmusic
Guest
I never heard a set with new heads and thought "yeah, but the resos sound dead. " But okay, if everyone says they hear a difference I guess there's something to it. I haven't changed my reso heads in about 10 years and I always get complements of how good my drums sound. I just think it's splitting hairs.
Some guys change their guitar or bass strings every show. Some guys leave a set on for years. I think there's a happy medium. I actually think hi hats go dead after a few years, but changing them would just be impractical. Even piano strings get a little more mellow over time. It all depends on how fastidious you want to get.
Some guys change their guitar or bass strings every show. Some guys leave a set on for years. I think there's a happy medium. I actually think hi hats go dead after a few years, but changing them would just be impractical. Even piano strings get a little more mellow over time. It all depends on how fastidious you want to get.
Richards1008
Member
Thats an idiotic comment for a few reasons...
#1, A spring stretches far less over it's lifetime, Look at Mangini's slo-mo drum video, Those heads move a whole lot more than you think... springs have a limited movement, heads do not.
#2 Springs have a useful life that they have been engineered to sustain, heads are the same way, they are disposable just like everything. They all have a lifespan.
Maybe some quick material physics would help you guys out here, materials have an elastic, plastic, and yield point. Elastic means the material will bounce back to its original state, this is the state the heads are in when new and when they are considered fresh... when they start to degrade in sustain and feel (they loose that "bounce") They begin to enter the plastic phase... this is when heads begin to loose the ability to bounce back into position. This is the phase we typically replace the heads, ever notice most well used heads when the tension is dropped are concave? That head has entered the plastic stage and been stretched out in the center by repeated vibrations and impacts. Yield point is the point at which the material breaks. All three of these phases can be demonstrated by over tightening or over stretching a head. Three stages can be also demonstrated by dents or holes in the head... you hit the head normally and get a great rebound... then you hit the piss out of it and get a dent, that area is now in the plastic phase as it has been stretched too far by the impact of the stick. Hit it hard enough and it will break through. It is easier to break into the yield point if the head is in the plastic phase already.
For those who want to know the truth about Reso heads, I use the 3 to 1 policy already mentioned... And despite the vent, the reso heads deflect and resonate every bit as much as the batter heads... the only reason we replace batters more is because the force of the stick is concentrated in small surface areas... whereas the air column moving the reso head is distributed rather equally over the entire surface area.
Hope this puts some actual facts behind the argument that new reso's sound better, I did in fact just place an order for new batters and reso's... and look forward to the drums coming back alive like they always do. Maybe I will make a video...
nickg
Silver Member
back in the day (late 80's/early 90's) when i was playing 3-5 nights a week i used to change my reso heads twice a year....and probably could have gotten away with once a year. i don't put a whole lot of stock in changing the reso heads that often. in the same respect, i used to change my batter heads about every 6 weeks or so. if you gotta change batters a hell of a lot more often than that, it's either time to switch to a different head or a different stick.
P
plangentmusic
Guest
Andy
Honorary Member
All heads deteriorate over time, & not just by mechanical means. Plasticisers are used to keep plastic materials in a flexible state. Exposure to both UV & ozone diminishes the plastic ability. The time taken for these affects to be noticed in isolation depends on exposure to the aforementioned elements.
The deflection of the reso head is close to the amplitude of the batter head, so wear through cyclic flexing is similar, but overall wear is still significantly less because of a lack of impact damage.
Away from the science, & into the real world, the reso head will change in characteristics over time, but it's typically gradual, & that's why it's ageing affects are often dismissed. Change your batter head on one drum. Of course, you'll hear a difference. Then, if the reso head is old, change that out too, & you should notice a brighter timbre & generally more vibrant tone to the drum.
Changing reso heads will never produce as much benefit as changing the batter head, but to suggest that reso heads somehow possess a miraculous ability to defy the affects of ageing, is wrong.
I change my reso's every 4th batter head change, or every year, depending on which is the sooner. I have changed just the batter heads on a couple of occasions, because I noticed a fairly rapid change in my drum tone that couldn't be explained by the batter head condition. Sure enough, on both occasions, the reso head change did the trick.
I generally find, that players who don't tune for long sustain, notice reso head deterioration far less than those who do.
The deflection of the reso head is close to the amplitude of the batter head, so wear through cyclic flexing is similar, but overall wear is still significantly less because of a lack of impact damage.
Away from the science, & into the real world, the reso head will change in characteristics over time, but it's typically gradual, & that's why it's ageing affects are often dismissed. Change your batter head on one drum. Of course, you'll hear a difference. Then, if the reso head is old, change that out too, & you should notice a brighter timbre & generally more vibrant tone to the drum.
Changing reso heads will never produce as much benefit as changing the batter head, but to suggest that reso heads somehow possess a miraculous ability to defy the affects of ageing, is wrong.
I change my reso's every 4th batter head change, or every year, depending on which is the sooner. I have changed just the batter heads on a couple of occasions, because I noticed a fairly rapid change in my drum tone that couldn't be explained by the batter head condition. Sure enough, on both occasions, the reso head change did the trick.
I generally find, that players who don't tune for long sustain, notice reso head deterioration far less than those who do.