Custom Bass drum logo heads. Help!

Dj magic d

Senior Member
I need to order a front bass drum head, with my band's logo on it. Sounds simple enough, however, I need recommendations before spending $ on it. Who sells heads where the logo is integrated into the head, without just simply being an aftermarket "sticker" of some sort? This obviously would be for sound purposes...since I refuse to use a head that sacrifices sound quality just to advertise the band name.
I currently use an evans emad resonant, and want to get as close as possible to that. Can anyone recommend the best company for this? Price considerations are not as important as the sound quality. Thanks.
 
Do you guys happen to know how long it takes to get a custom bass head using my own logo from drumart.com?
 
Jim at Drumart does fabulous work, pretty much every overlay seen on kits at NAMM is done by him. He did this little number for me:

keystones_head2.jpg


Two things to know: Drumart does a stick-on layer, but you'd never know, not a chance of it coming off (except maybe in extreme heat after your heads have melted anyway.) And they use Aquarian heads exclusively. Jim did me a big favor by digging up an Evans head. Even though I had the Evans logo as part of my art, and nobody would have known it wasn't an Evans head underneath, he wanted to keep everyone honest. So that's three things, he's also ethical.

Turnaround probably varies, and I can tell you that he's probably busy with NAMM orders right now. But worth sending an email, he'll respond quickly and tell you what he can do.

Bermuda
 
Looks like drumart is a clear favorite. Bermuda, that head looks great...killer artwork! So I am guessing (by the company praises) that the overlay doesn't really make any huge difference in sound or response from the head, then?
 
I too am looking at creating a logo head for my kit. I have been playing with the Headbuilder tool at Drumart, and have come up with some really neat possibilities.
My biggest issue now is what to get! Wish I could afford to buy two or three!!
Good luck!
 
No apparent difference in sound, the overlay is extremely thin and has perfect integrity with the head, so there's none of the damping that a 2-ply head would have, if that's the concern. If there's any effect at all, I'd think the pitch of the head might be lowered a bit, but simply tune it as needed.

Bermuda
 
Hi, This guy does great work, he is fast and reasonable. Check his website out and see for yourself.

http://www.drumart.com/


That guys a D**K, ripped me off for $10, I did the artwork on the web sites headbuilder the way I wanted it and submitted it with the cash, he emails back telling me he cant do it that way but could do it this way and sends me a pic of how he could do it, I said I dont want it that way I will pick another one, he said fine but I have to charge you $10 for the artwork I already did, I said why, I didnt want it that way or even ask you to do the one you send me, he said it was policy and refunded my money except $10 short, needless to say I didnt pick another one.
 
Hmmm, that's the first negative thing I've ever heard about Jim or his work. Sorry you had a bad experience. Jim's customer service and work are normally exemplary.

Bermuda
 
That guys a D**K, ripped me off for $10,..... needless to say I didnt pick another one.

I love DW, all the stories, who did what etc. Shared experience. Its such a great resource.
Gotta love Abe Alboriel Jrs. minimalist 'custom' artwork on his drum head with McCartney band. Two letters in white tape "PM"

Anyone ever question why drummers are asked to wear a band's logo but its rare on other members equip, like the front cloth on amps?
 
Anyone ever question why drummers are asked to wear a band's logo but its rare on other members equip, like the front cloth on amps?

Undoubtedly dates back to the time before amps, when the bass drum head was the largest piece of real estate in the band.

For example:

king_biscuit2_f.jpg


Bermuda
 
Here's another option:
Vintage Logos
I haven't used them, so I can't testify, but I've been considering buying a head from them.
The website will allow you to import your own art and edit it for the head. They also have many canned choices.
If you use them, report back, so I'll know if I should too. ;)
 
Hmmm, that's the first negative thing I've ever heard about Jim or his work. Sorry you had a bad experience. Jim's customer service and work are normally exemplary.

Bermuda

Yeh, I had heard that and thats one of the reasons I tried to order from him plus it turned out he was also a radial player at the time.

I checked thru my bookmarks and found these companies too.

http://www.drumsigns.com/
http://www.vintagelogos.com/
http://www.kustombassdrumgraphics.com.au/
http://www.customskins.co.uk/
http://www.rockdrummers.co.uk/
 
Do you guys happen to know how long it takes to get a custom bass head using my own logo from drumart.com?

Hi all,

Jim from DrumART here -- thanks for the kind words!

DJ_magic_d, please see here for information on our printing process and our philosophy on custom bass drumhead artwork as it relates to the sound of the drum:

http://www.drumart.com/help/39-help...the-artwork-affect-the-sound-of-the-drum.html

PeteN, our turnaround time is 3 to 5 business days (yes, DAYS). Please see here for more information:

http://www.drumart.com/help/40-help-order-shipping/61-help-order-shipping-turnaround.html

GRUNTERSDAD, we also offer banners. ;-)

And finally, our good friend Tard...what to say. I guess it's good to see you finally follow through on your threat to bash me and my company! As anyone who has ever worked in a business will know, it's impossible to satisfy all customers at all times. That said, we do our absolute best, and our sterling public record is testament to our efforts. To wit, more than 900 independent customer reviews on DrumART averaging a solid 5-stars across the board:

http://www.shopperapproved.com/certificates/www.drumart.com/

By way of explanation and in defense of my company, Tard (Drew) designed his drumhead through our *amazing* HeadBuilder by purchasing background artwork from our catalog of more than 19.7 million (yes, MILLION) images. Normally, HeadBuilder orders are fulfilled as-designed since customers have the ability to resize artwork, add text, change fonts and colors, add manufacturer logos, include ports and port protectors, etc. all right within the HeadBuilder. It's truly a wonderful tool. That said, we are happy to enhance designs (adding outlines, glows, shadows, cleaning up edges, etc.) if the customer allows us to, but the overall design is usually pretty solid.

In his order, our friend Drew made many requests normally outside the realm of what is included which we happily accommodated. Swapping out logos (Peavey for Premier), adding extra logos (Aquarian, Vic Firth and Sabian), leveling things out, etc. Here's how he formatted his artwork through the HeadBuilder:

Millard_Original.jpg


And here are the changes we made for him as a courtesy for free.

Millard_Formatted.jpg


While I don't personally see any issues with the modified head, we understand that opinions are subjective and Drew did not share mine. Instead, he felt entitled to make more changes. I explained to him that HeadBuilder orders do not generally include additional design time or revisions, but that we do offer another, slightly more expensive, order option (Leave the work to us) that includes additional design time and another mockup. At that point, he got belligerent and demanded a refund which we happily provided immediately upon his request.

Our published refund policy states that HeadBuilder orders are subject to a 15% cancellation fee which we waived, again, as a courtesy:

http://www.drumart.com/help/41-help...arrantyreturnorder-cancellation-policies.html

The $10 mentioned in his post is the license fee paid to our image repository for the catalog image he selected. This is a non-refundable fee since it is paid by the customer to the image repository on the back-end at the time of purchase (also outlined in our Help article above).

We DID send him a high-resolution version of the artwork he licensed, but that was unfortunately not enough to satisfy him. He became increasingly belligerent in his tone, so I had a bit of fun with him. As I said to Drew in the long and comical chain of e-mails that resulted from this little debacle, we're in business to do good work and make a bit of money, not take sh*t from unreasonable customers. So we don't.

Anyway, that's the long and the not-so-short of our interaction with Tard. To Berm's point, it's the first negative thing you've heard about me personally (obviously not our work since Drew never actually received a head) because we very, VERY rarely have issues with customers. After more than 15,000 heads produced, I can count on ONE HAND the number of interactions like this that we've had. I sleep very well at night knowing that we do good work very quickly and for a reasonable price.

Rest assured that we at DrumART work very hard to satisfy ALL of our customers. If you're even relatively close to reasonable, we'll work great together as you can see from our reviews and the generally kind words you've seen about us here and elsewhere. If not, I can send you links to a couple competitors you might like to work with... ;-)

And thanks for reading if you actually made it this far! Please don't hesitate to contact me directly if you have additional questions, comments or concerns about DrumART or bass drumhead artwork in general at jim AT drumart DOT com.

--Jim.
 
Here's another option:
Vintage Logos
I haven't used them, so I can't testify, but I've been considering buying a head from them.
The website will allow you to import your own art and edit it for the head. They also have many canned choices.
If you use them, report back, so I'll know if I should too. ;)

I personally would not use that site. I have no experience or examples of their work but I find their site to be a bit shady.

The high school drumline used in the photo on this link is a photoshop.

http://www.vintagelogos.com/marchingheads.html

The reason I know this is because I taught that drumline. It is from a school in Ohio and their Mascot is not the Red Tigers. That photo was blatantly taken from their website and had the fake bass drums heads photoshopped on. That picture is probably from 2002 or 2003.

They might do ok work but if they can't use real examples on their site, it makes me wonder how good they could possibly be.
 
And finally, our good friend Tard...what to say. I guess it's good to see you finally follow through on your threat to bash me and my company! As anyone who has ever worked in a business will know, it's impossible to satisfy all customers at all times. That said, we do our absolute best, and our sterling public record is testament to our efforts.:

Still full of BS I see, you forgot the part about how you did the artwork and sent it to me without my approval then charged me for it and tried to justify it by saying head builder designs are non refundable, but yet, and here is the funny part, you can use head builder as many times as you want with no fees until you send in the cash, if what you say was true then there would be a $10 fee each time you used it. You should have just told me you could not print the other 2 names before doing the high resolution artwork, its not like I wanted to go elsewhere, just wanted to do something different. Also you stated below that you added the logos free of charge, like its something you did out of the goodness of your heart, again I call BS, you state right on your web site ("As long as you legitimately own and play the brand of drums that you are advertising on your head then yes, you are legally allowed to include the logo on your head.") You also state you had "some fun with me", no, what you did was act like a d**k and thats when the friendship turned to henshit. BTW its not finally, I have been bashing your company everywhere it gets mentioned since it happened, you have lost my business and many others that I have convinced to go elsewhere as well, I hope it was worth the $10..
 
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Still full of BS I see, you forgot the part about how you did the artwork and sent it to me without my approval then charged me for it and tried to justify it by saying head builder designs are non refundable, but yet, and here is the funny part, you can use head builder as many times as you want with no fees until you send in the cash, if what you say was true then there would be a $10 fee each time you used it.

Um...again:

"The $10 mentioned in his post is the license fee paid to our image repository for the catalog image he selected. This is a non-refundable fee since it is paid by the customer to the image repository on the back-end at the time of purchase (also outlined in our Help article above)."

Of course you can load as many images into the HeadBuilder from our Catalog as you'd like -- it wouldn't be much use if you couldn't. As a layout tool, the HeadBuilder uses free, low-resolution, watermarked images from our repository (called "comps") to allow our customers design their heads.

Obviously the license fee would be paid to the image repository on our customers' behalf at the time of purchase since the image license purchase is theirs, not ours.

Hopefully this clears up any potential confusion for anyone interested in our service.

Cheers!

--Jim.
 
Hey Jim! I just checked out your website, and it's pretty awesome! It looks like you guys do good work...

I have a question... I live in Taiwan, and play in a band here. I'm wondering, do you ship overseas? Any idea how much it would cost to get a head shipped over?
 
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