Pinstripes aren't evil!

I think that you kinda beat around the bush a little, as some Clear G2's probably would've done you justice, with more resonance than the Pins. Hell, if you really wanna stick with Remo, try some clear Emps. I think you'll be able to get just as good a sound out of them, but with more resonance.

Clear emps work very well... they are more open. I am firmly in the 2-ply camp of sorts. I can get clear ambs to sound good, but I like grabbing more low end from a drum.
 
Interesting post. But what a coincidence! Just 10 seconds before you posted this, I received a comment on Youtube:

nice drumming, snare and bass sound GREAT, but the toms sound very dead, they might sound great from the drivers seat, but they sound very dead from where I'm sitting.

He was talking about the pinstripes. Obviously, I didn't have them mic'ed, and I'm sure they would have sounded better if they were. However, I don't think they would be great for a live application, unless your kit is amplified.


hey, it's you. that was my comment. and from behind the kit, and from within a few feet they generally sound great(and as mentioned, miked). I like a nice open tone on my toms so I don't like them on my toms(but to each his own I guess), I have a PS3 on my kick and it gives a nice thud, never need to try a different bass head, I found the one I like....Toms I like coated emperors or even a coated ambassadors(gasp)...
 
Interesting. Yeah, eventually I'll invest in some mics, but obviously their not my priority. I have the Performance IIs tuned really high on the bottom, with the Pinstripes pretty medium on the top, which gives a nice deep, punchy sound. If I was gigging, I definitely wouldn't use these though.

I would recommend going out and getting some clear ambassadors for resos, I would not use a 2 ply head on the bottom-expecially one as dampened as a performance II.

I think you would be pleasantly suprised at the diffenece in sound with a different reso...

just my $ .02
 
No one here has made mention of the fact that the room that the drums are in greatly affects which frequencies get highlighted and attenuated....You could take a drumset that sounds horrible....with whatever head...and move it to a room with totally different acoustics, and voila...instant transformation. You can't make blanket statements about any head on a certain drum because the environment comes in to play in a major way. When you hear a set of drums in a GC, you like them and take them home and they don't sound the same, it's because that there aren't 50 drumkits in your house sympathetically reverberating in response to you playing your kit (and many other factors). Acoustics are very complex and can't really be pigeonholed so easily.
 
and no I'm using bose companion 3's.

As I said before I am just partial to open toms I guess. I'll give the second vid a listen now too.

The 2nd vid is much more open. I like toms that are mostly open myself. Thuddy and short was a phase in the 70's and 80's.

I also have to say that some small rooms are immensely bright, and you get that listening nearfield anyway. Sometimes a 2-ply on the bottom won't be as bright in person as one might think.

I am not a bose fan. No one uses them to mix with in a studio and it's not like you are getting a clean 40hz at 108db that can reasonably approximate a drum kit. So yes, there is room for vast improvement over bose companion 3's. You mention them as if Bob Ludwig used them. They aren't highly resolving. The upper FR rolloff starts at 13.5khz.

Reference fullrange paper whizzer cones and a woofer with no significant energy below 80hz:
0,1425,i=85380,00.jpg


Not exactly B&W 802, ATC or Westlake audio are they?
 
No one here has made mention of the fact that the room that the drums are in greatly affects which frequencies get highlighted and attenuated....You could take a drumset that sounds horrible....with whatever head...and move it to a room with totally different acoustics, and voila...instant transformation. You can't make blanket statements about any head on a certain drum because the environment comes in to play in a major way. When you hear a set of drums in a GC, you like them and take them home and they don't sound the same, it's because that there aren't 50 drumkits in your house sympathetically reverberating in response to you playing your kit (and many other factors). Acoustics are very complex and can't really be pigeonholed so easily.

Yep... I had a kit in my fathers basement back in the 70's. The area my kit was in was very small, and insanely bright with a ton of reverberation. Ambassadors or emperor clears would have been a joke without a ton of muffling.
 
A lot of the time I find GC kits sounding like crap in their store often times because they don't know how to tune correctly at the one I go to. Everytime I go in the toms are always producing nasty tones and they are in weird tuning ranges so when you take a kit home from them make sure you retune for sure.
 
hey, it's you. that was my comment. and from behind the kit, and from within a few feet they generally sound great(and as mentioned, miked). I like a nice open tone on my toms so I don't like them on my toms(but to each his own I guess), I have a PS3 on my kick and it gives a nice thud, never need to try a different bass head, I found the one I like....Toms I like coated emperors or even a coated ambassadors(gasp)...

Oh, that was you! What a coincidence!

No one here has made mention of the fact that the room that the drums are in greatly affects which frequencies get highlighted and attenuated....You could take a drumset that sounds horrible....with whatever head...and move it to a room with totally different acoustics, and voila...instant transformation. You can't make blanket statements about any head on a certain drum because the environment comes in to play in a major way. When you hear a set of drums in a GC, you like them and take them home and they don't sound the same, it's because that there aren't 50 drumkits in your house sympathetically reverberating in response to you playing your kit (and many other factors). Acoustics are very complex and can't really be pigeonholed so easily.

Is that why even the crappy kits at GC sound really good?
 
I agree with you that there is a place for pinstripes. In fact right now I'm running pinstripes on my Yamaha Maple Customs for a change of pace (Usually have coated ambassadors) and they sound really good miked up for recording. For me to get the sound I'm looking for, I tune a little tighter than most other kits that I've heard with pinstripes. I wouldn't want to use these heads live unmiked in a large room but for recording they can be really great.
I'll post a sound file soon.

Wayne
 
The 2nd vid is much more open. I like toms that are mostly open myself. Thuddy and short was a phase in the 70's and 80's.

I also have to say that some small rooms are immensely bright, and you get that listening nearfield anyway. Sometimes a 2-ply on the bottom won't be as bright in person as one might think.

I am not a bose fan. No one uses them to mix with in a studio and it's not like you are getting a clean 40hz at 108db that can reasonably approximate a drum kit. So yes, there is room for vast improvement over bose companion 3's. You mention them as if Bob Ludwig used them. They aren't highly resolving. The upper FR rolloff starts at 13.5khz.

Reference fullrange paper whizzer cones and a woofer with no significant energy below 80hz:
0,1425,i=85380,00.jpg





Not exactly B&W 802, ATC or Westlake audio are they?


well my dad has worked for bose all 18 years of my life so I have a pretty big bias, I wouldn't consider them "crappy" though, what would you consider better?(I am genuinely wondering, not in arguing mode)



EDIT: Just saw the last line of your post. I don't know, I have never heard any of those company's speakers before, so I couldn't say.
 
well my dad has worked for bose all 18 years of my life so I have a pretty big bias, I wouldn't consider them "crappy" though, what would you consider better?(I am genuinely wondering, not in arguing mode)
QUOTE]

I would consider Bose to be some of the worst performing, least accurate speakers at their pricepoint.

Cheap speakers that I think are much better than Bose at any pricepoint:
Vandersteen (I've owned)
Paradigm (I've owned)
PSB
Epos (I currently own)
NHT (I've owned)
B&W DM and CDM lines

Expensive speakers that I like
Wilson Audio (I currently own)
Vandersteen 4, 5
Rockport
Audio Physic
Dunlavy (out of bussiness)
Avalon
 
well my dad has worked for bose all 18 years of my life so I have a pretty big bias, I wouldn't consider them "crappy" though, what would you consider better?(I am genuinely wondering, not in arguing mode)



EDIT: Just saw the last line of your post. I don't know, I have never heard any of those company's speakers before, so I couldn't say.

Almost anything. I won't say that some bose products don't sound nice. I have a set of bose over the ear headsets. They are dynamic, but nowhere near as accurate as DENON 7000 series or SENN. HD or Grado rs headphones.

High end monitors and speaker systems are flat from the 1st octave (20hz) to 20khz. They are revealing of nuance and replicate as much of the audible spectrum as possible.

Bose are engineered to be pleasant to the average consumer, and they are. But they are not accurate enough to be used to judge recordings. They can't be used to mix with. They omit much of the audio spectrum, and really load up in the midbass (thick hump 80-120hz) for a thumpy bass, not an extended or accurate one.

Why I see someone is scrutinizing sound, it should be from a reference that replicates a drum kit with a realistic sound pressure level. They should also be able to recreate bass for drums at least into the 30hz range. Drums, especially kick drums have harmonics that low that are lost on many speaker systems.

The Bose acoustimass system for example has a frequency response (bass module) of about 48hz to 220hz (very jagged response at that) and the "cubes" from 280hz to 13.5hz. That cuts out a lot of the sound spectrum, detail and low end. Paiste cymbals sound spitty to me on Bose speakers...very grainy and not liquid or crisp at all.

When you are going to really judge a recording, there has to be more accuracy than that.
 
Cheap speakers that I think are much better than Bose at any pricepoint:
Vandersteen (I've owned)

---2ce signatures measure VERY well, they sound like music. Ref 3a's are stunning!

Paradigm (I've owned)
- From the titan to the reference, very good, especially for little $$

PSB (stratus gold)
- Nice dark-ish spound.

Epos (I currently own)
-never heard

NHT (I've owned)
I love all NHT's. The little zeros up to the towers. Very sweet, tight bass!

B&W DM and CDM lines
- I like B&W, they are appealing on the analytical side, need tons of good power. 802's are my overall favorite.

Expensive speakers that I like
Wilson Audio (I currently own)
-- Would have to sell my car to get some...

Vandersteen 4, 5
-- Quattros and 5's are liquid music!

Rockport

--Ouch... Mortgage the house...

Dunlavy (out of bussiness)

--Dunlavy/Duntech... nice monstrous speakers. Impact of a train....

Avalon
-- With the ceramic tweeter are buttery smooth....eerily transparent

Great stuff indeed!
 
Almost anything. I won't say that some bose products don't sound nice. I have a set of bose over the ear headsets. They are dynamic, but nowhere near as accurate as DENON 7000 series or SENN. HD or Grado rs headphones.

High end monitors and speaker systems are flat from the 1st octave (20hz) to 20khz. They are revealing of nuance and replicate as much of the audible spectrum as possible.

Bose are engineered to be pleasant to the average consumer, and they are. But they are not accurate enough to be used to judge recordings. They can't be used to mix with. They omit much of the audio spectrum, and really load up in the midbass (thick hump 80-120hz) for a thumpy bass, not an extended or accurate one.

Why I see someone is scrutinizing sound, it should be from a reference that replicates a drum kit with a realistic sound pressure level. They should also be able to recreate bass for drums at least into the 30hz range. Drums, especially kick drums have harmonics that low that are lost on many speaker systems.

The Bose acoustimass system for example has a frequency response (bass module) of about 48hz to 220hz (very jagged response at that) and the "cubes" from 280hz to 13.5hz. That cuts out a lot of the sound spectrum, detail and low end. Paiste cymbals sound spitty to me on Bose speakers...very grainy and not liquid or crisp at all.

When you are going to really judge a recording, there has to be more accuracy than that.

With all you know about sound, your drums must sound VERY GOOD on recording.
 
With all you know about sound, your drums must sound VERY GOOD on recording.

Well, they sound pretty good, but hi-fi listening isn't the same as the recording process. There are plenty of environmental variables. Anyone can sit between speakers, but it takes work to capture a kit properly and make it sound the way you want.

Mine isn't that difficult, I am just picky.
 
As a few of you folks can attest, the 70's pinstripes were much deader than today's. Remo used to promise "That wet flat and funky" drum sound. The formula is different now. Today, among pre-muffled heads, pinstripes are mildly muffled compared to most.

My Aluminum kit is almost analogous to birch. it's a "balanced" sound across the spectrum with no nasty overtones. It's also tonally rounded like maple.

I have been tweaking my kit for recording. My room can be considered acoustically on the dead side, so there is not a lot to exaggerate brightness/high frequencies.

I had EC-1 clears on my deccabons. The problem was, the tone was too flat and the attack wasn't so hot. I dug out some pinstripes and viola: The "octabans" sounded really cool with a nice attack.

I already had evans resonant glass (per recommendation) on the bottom of my kit. Those do help open up a drum with a 2-ply on top.

I tried ec-2. They were nice, but a little too dull on the small toms, and I could hear too much of a plastic slap on the larger toms.

Aquarian response 2 were nice and warm, a pretty good middle ground.

G2 coated didn't sound open enough for me on the small toms, and a bit dry on the larger toms for what I was after.

Gauging the aluminum works a bit like the fiberglass octabans (no overtones) I tried pins. My drums really resonate so they can handle a wide range of heads and tunings. What the heck, $70 experiment.

The pins sounded *perfect* on the small toms. I used just a dab of moongel on the 14/16. What I have is a deep, dark and not as muffled as you'd think sound. There is nice attack, but no plastic slap. And yes, they have a wetter sound than g2 coated.

My .02 cents is that pinstripes aren't evil, especially for rock, metal or prog. Everyone's drums have their own characteristics. The pins may/may not do all drums justice. And they are not for those wanting a wide-open sound. But they work very well in some applications. And the final strength they have: tonal "neutrality." They are neither dark, nor bright. So in this case, I am getting as much tonality from my shells as from the pins.

Pinstripes aren't evil, but some applications of them might be.

I am happy with them.

YMMV

I have never found pinstripes all that muted, until recently I have been using them exclusively on my toms and only changed them recently to suit a new band I am working out with, They will go back on for other musical adventures. It of course depends on the drums being used etc. but I highly recommend them.
 
For my liking, with my kit and how I tune it, the old half-worn-out pin sounded better on the toms than a new coated emp.
I ran this experiment over a couple of weeks of rehersals using a coated emp on one tom. After bedding it in and constant re-tuning, I still couldn't get a sound that I was happy with. On went the worn pin, and I ran with that until I went and refitted with all new pins.
For me and my drums, I like pins. Having said that, I might get a clear emp next time and try that out.
 
Back
Top