Drum Head Replacement For Stock Heads

bradley23

Junior Member
hey guys, ive just purchased my tama imperialstar last week and im not totally impressed with the sound on the tama "stock" heads. the quality and finish of the kit is quite impressive though.

This will be the first time i will be changing my heads, so im a complete beginner in this. I've been looking around the internet and most people say that Coated Evans heads are good for playing jazz and funk genre. I am not looking for an expensive head as my budget now is pretty low. so can i have some advice on which heads to get mainly for playing jazz?

Thanks
 
Your basic option would be a coated 1-ply head, e.g. Evans G-1, Remo Ambassador, or Aquarian Texture Coated.

Evans and Remo (and probably Aquarian too, I just don't know for sure) offer pre-packs of standard tom sizes that would shave off a couple bucks from the price of buying them individually. Get 'em online from somewhere like Interstate Music and you're looking at about the cheapest way to go to get good drum heads.

If you can spare a few extra dollars I recommend trying a calfskin-style head, since the warmer tone definitely has more of a jazz vibe to me and I think they could really bring those toms to life.

Either the Evans Strata 1000, Remo Renaissance Ambassador, or Aquarian Modern Vintage would sound great. I'm using the Aquarian Modern Vintage on my kit right now and I absolutely love them, although I've used the Strata, Renaissance, and Fiberskyn heads and liked those a lot too.
 
I'm gunna echo what Winston-Wolf said and recommend 1 ply (1 layer of plastic) heads rather than 2 (layers of plastic) ply head because the 1 ply would have more of an open, naturally toneful sound to it. Rather than the slight dampening you get from any 2 ply head.

I'd also recommend Evans coated G1's. 1 ply, all purpose head and sound good out the box.

Once you make a decision, the best possible thing you can do is check out Bob Gatzen on youtube. He is my port of call for any tuning remedies and seems to have all the know-how on tuning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ9Unab1OzU

Definitely worth checking out.
On the related videos he has tuning guides for the snare, bass and reso heads as well. Things such as the effect of having both heads the same pitch, batter head higher in pitch than the reso and the reso higher than the batter etc.

xoxo
 
ok thanks for the advice guys, now i am stuck between Evans G1 Coated and Remo Ambassadors. which 1 would be better and what is the difference between these two heads?
 
ok thanks for the advice guys, now i am stuck between Evans G1 Coated and Remo Ambassadors. which 1 would be better and what is the difference between these two heads?

Realistically, none. They are the same head for all intensive purposes. 1 ply, 10mil, coated.

The main difference is the brand name printed on them. Some will argue a preferance, but all in all they are the same.
 
they are almost the same , the only difference is that evans coated heads are slightly smoother than remo , so the remo are a little bit warmer . but again , the difference is very subtle
 
my local music shop only provides ambassador X's for my 13 inch snare. they said that the regular coated ambassadors were out of stock.

What do you guys think? should i just go ahead and purchase the ambassador X for my snare? will it be suitable for jazz ?
 
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