Am I imagining this?

Bull

Gold Member
I have always been a wooden snare guy with the exception of some Acros.My Supras are new(ish) to me.
I spent the evening tone chasing with a Supra. I tried a few heads and am shocked at the results. I tried an Evans S.T.,Vintage Emperor,Coated Emperor,and a Coated Ambassador. The Ambassador seemed to have less ring and fewer of the more unpleasant overtones than the 2-py heads. I have never noticed this to be the case with a wooden drum.

or maybe my hearing was shot by the time I got to the Ambassador. :)
 
After a fair amount of testing and listening, you could be suffering from ear fatigue. This comes on progressively faster the louder the sound source. When I'm mixing, I take short, frequent breaks to give my ears a rest. Coming back from the breaks I usually hear things very differently.

If you haven't done it, recording the trials will be a definite help. Just keep the drums placement in the room the same and also the placement of the microphone the same between takes. This may or may not give you a completely accurate sound of the drum, but it will give a fairly accurate assessment between the sounds of the different heads.

Dennis
 
A two ply head offers a more focused tone than a single ply on all my snares, both metal (including both sized Supras) and wood alike.
 
You aren't imagining it at all IMO.

If I put an Ambassador on my metal snares, the sound is so even, and the type of overtones that I want are pretty much non-existent, compared to what I LIKE to hear out of the snare.

An Emp. is totally different. Nice feel, and the overtones are there. I'll adjust the tension to get the amount I want. I mainly use the Coated Emp with a top dot though.
 
Interesting topic. Makes me think about the Gatzen video where he demos the different resonant qualities of heads of different thicknesses. I was surprised that the thinner heads (diplomat weight - don't recall the Evans equivalent) had less sustain. Perhaps not too surprising when you think about the snare side head and how dry they are.

Emperors are thicker and would normally be more resonant and have more overtones than an Ambassador, but there's a fair amount of dampening going on because they're two ply. I've be playing with an Ambassador X (12 mil vs the standard 10) on my Supra and like it a lot - best of both worlds between an Ambassador and an Emperor, IMO. I have a X14 on my Black Beauty that seems to play well, but I'm not as familiar with dialing that drum in quite right, so hard to tell what effect it's having on that drum.
 
Good to know that I might not be crazy. :)
I'm not finished,yet. Tonight,I am trying a Coated C.S. and Vintage A.
 
I had pretty good results with the X14, but I haven't tried the Ambassador X 12 mill head.

The Vintage Ambassador was too dead sounding for me--and I tried a couple times. A few friends liked it, but they said it took a while for it to "break in". Maybe it sounds cool afrter a while, but I don't want to have to wait til it sounds good haha!

An Emp is a bit brighter to my ear, mainly because of the added attack, but the top dot head I use gets me a solid center sound with nice crack, and depending on where I play on/off the dot, I can get a variety of sounds--more than what a Coated CS has.
The Coated CS works great on my CM, and a Hammered 402 though, and I like that heads sound better than the top dot Emp. on those 2 drums.
 
Liking the coated CS. It's a little more dry than the Emp or the Amb.

Any opinions on a Smooth White Emperor? I haven't played one since school and that was a long time ago. :)
 
On a whole ,I am liking single ply heads on this drum. I really expected the Coated A to have more overtones than the Vintage A but it is not the case. Single ply heads seem to tune up faster.

So far my fave is a Coated CS-X.

The tones I don't like seem to be linked to 2-ply heads.

Hmmmmm
 
I have tried Emperor and other 2-ply heads on my Ludwig Supras. I always come back to the Ambassador. It just sounds better to my ears.
 
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