Ebony vs. Clear Heads

MrLeadFoot

Silver Member
Church setup with Gretsch Catalina 5 piece. I don't remember if it's birch or maple. I was pretty sure it was birch, but I don't think Gretsch made a 5-piece Catalina in birch. It's metallic silver, if that helps identify it.

In either case, each drum is close-mic'd, and has coated Evans heads on it now. It sounds terrible, IMHO. The coated heads make it too warm, with virtually no attack to speak of.

I was originally thinking of Evans heads, then considered Remo Emperors, but my experience with Emperors is that they sound good with simple 3-mic setups, but they resonate so much when each tom is mic'd, you end up having to use dampening rings and gels to tame the resonation. So, now I'm thinking Remo Pinstripes over Ambassador resos will be best. In my experience, the Pinstripes' 2-ply with glued edge ring gives a nice low, fat, thick sound without a ton of resonance/sustain, which we don't want because of the church environment, and since they are mic'd anyway.

I like the EMAD on kick batters, but I'd like to try a GMAD batter. Does the GMAD also have the foam rings like the EMADs? I hope so, because on my personal kick an EMAD with large ring makes for a wonderful attack, and if the GMAD really does add a lower tone, but still has the rings so I can get a good attack, I'd go with GMAD. Because of the church environment, I want to help tame the booming off the drum shield, so I'm leading toward an EMAD reso for the kick, because of the 4" port with ringed muffler.

My questions are whether or not the black (ebony) lines are actually a coating, like the white coateds, and to thus, do they affect the sound over clear heads. If the ebony affects the Pinstripes, I was thinking clear Pinstripes over ebony Ambassadors... or will the ebony on reso heads also significantly affect the sound, too?

I would appreciate hearing from anyone that has experience in these regards. Thanks!
 
I experimented with ebony pinstripes a long time ago, and just felt they were flat sounding. Putting them as reso heads was awful, and at one point I actually had some of the ebony material actually separating from the head.

Just out of curiosity, why a drum shield then mic the drums? Isn't that a bit counterproductive? Is the church huge?
 
The Remo ebony heads become black by adding a thin layer of film to the head.

So yes, this changes the sound. They become more flat/dull sounding compared to their clear counter parts.
 
I experimented with ebony pinstripes a long time ago, and just felt they were flat sounding.
Thanks for the feedback.
Putting them as reso heads was awful, and at one point I actually had some of the ebony material actually separating from the head.
I would never think of using Pinstripes as reso heads, so hearing of your experience in that regard only confirms what I thought. Thanks for that, too. ;-)

Just out of curiosity, why a drum shield then mic the drums? Isn't that a bit counterproductive? Is the church huge?
To the contrary, drum shields are great. I actually can't stand the sound of ambient drums. There is so much dirty noise from that. A drum shield prevents all that noise from smacking people in the face. Mics enable you to push a cleaner sound out to your audience, as well as allow you to mix the drums just right. You do have to pay a little bit of extra attention to tuning the drums, positioning of the shield and the mics, too, as well as mixing with a drum shield, because the ambient sound from one drum can bounce off the shield into other mics. Nevertheless, drum shields are so nice that I wish I had a drum shield at all my secular gigs, too. I mean, you can carry them, but along with everything else a gigging band has to carry, not only would it be just one more thing to carry, they would also get all scratched up in relatively short order.
 
Thanks for the feedback.

I would never think of using Pinstripes as reso heads, so hearing of your experience in that regard only confirms what I thought. Thanks for that, too. ;-)

To the contrary, drum shields are great. I actually can't stand the sound of ambient drums. There is so much dirty noise from that. A drum shield prevents all that noise from smacking people in the face. Mics enable you to push a cleaner sound out to your audience, as well as allow you to mix the drums just right. You do have to pay a little bit of extra attention to tuning the drums, positioning of the shield and the mics, too, as well as mixing with a drum shield, because the ambient sound from one drum can bounce off the shield into other mics. Nevertheless, drum shields are so nice that I wish I had a drum shield at all my secular gigs, too. I mean, you can carry them, but along with everything else a gigging band has to carry, not only would it be just one more thing to carry, they would also get all scratched up in relatively short order.

Oh okay. Most times shields are used to quiet the sound, which is why I thought that then micing them was counterproductive. All the churches in my area have them shieldless and unmiced.
 
The Remo ebony heads become black by adding a thin layer of film to the head.

So yes, this changes the sound. They become more flat/dull sounding compared to their clear counter parts.
Do you think Ebony Ambassadors would be OK as reso heads?
 
I bought Ebony Pinstripe for a floor tom a long time ago once. The other tom heads were clear and the snare was coated white. The black coating on that one skin got on the drums sticks, and onto the other drum heads, and onto my cymbals. I hated that.

I recently bought a Ebony suede head where the black color is not a coating. It kind of has a dark gray look.
 
I think any drumset with quality heads tuned well will sound good. The operating principle is that they're tuned well. I've tried all kinds of heads over my lifetime and can get at least an acceptable sound out of every type.

But I played at a big church once that supplied a mic'd kit behind the shield, and in the house it sounded good. In this case, I think it keeps the acoustic drum sound from bleeding into all the other mics and makes it easier on the sound guy and the room.

Remember when Garth Brooks had his drummer in that plexiglass case? Tthey would just use a forklift to put the drumset in place and leave the set always set-up inside. Same idea.
 
I used ebony heads as reso's for many years on my black yamaha kit. At the time I was young and mainly looking at the "cool factor" of what the audience would see. Once I grew up and started experimenting with heads I did an A/B comparison of of clear vs coated on the reso and the sound difference was very noticeable, the clear actually let the drum sound open up and they sounded so much better. I'm not a fan of the ebony heads anymore.

On the stage custom kit we have at church where all toms are mic'd, has over heads I use clear emperors over clear ambassadors and it sounds really good. No damping, moon gels or anything on the toms. Just a matter of finding the right tuning. The BD head is a clear PS3 with a 2" felt strip run across the head and an ebony ported PS3 for the BD reso (only head that the ebony coating doesn't bother me.)
 
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