Stinked By Evans

stinkedbyevans

Junior Member
Have you ever had a purchasing experience so bad that you just wanted to meet new people so you could tell them how bad it was? Well that's what has brought me to DrummerWorld's forum today. I'm a guitar player and haven't previously had a reason to register an account in a drummer's forum. But my company runs some music schools, and I recently wanted to get a custom printed bass drum head for our band. I did a little internet searching and found a supplier, Vintage Logos (www.vintagelogos.com) and thought it looked pretty straightforward, but I wanted to speak with some drummers before ordering because I didn't know if the printed head would affect the tone or life of the head, or maybe something else I didn't know.

I happened to visit my local music store that same day, March 3rd, and while ordering some other items asked them if they could share any words of wisdom about printing drum heads. They excitedly pulled something off their product pegboard, a card from Inked By Evans, which they explained was a drum head printing service by Evans. They even called the Evans rep to get me a good price on it. OK I thought, how different can one printing service be from another. I bought the card and drove to my office.

I went to the www.inkedbyevans.com site. It had a lot of nice artwork but not much explanatory information, but I had already bought the card, so onward we went. I did my own custom design and was really happy with it. I scratched off the code on the card, entered it in the site, uploaded my art and then got to the screen where you can choose to have a mic hole. That made sense since I remembered that Vintage Logos had a mic hole option also. The inkedbyevans.com screen showed where the hole would be placed, which was the first problem. The hole position was partially covering my logo, and there was no way to reposition it. That was a bit frustrating because I knew from Vintage Logos' site that they could position it as needed. I submitted the order without the hole, figuring that worst case we would cut it ourselves, even though I really wanted the hole to be cut professionally on this drum set for our shows.

I completed the order process, and I noticed that it never tells you during the process how long it will take to print. The email confirmation message doesn't say how long it will take either. But the main thing on my mind was the mic hole. So I decided to contact someone at Evans to see if they could still cut the hole for me, but just position it a bit lower so it didn't partially cover our logo. There's no contact info on the inkedbyevans.com site, but there is a form that can be used to send them a question. So I used it to explain what happened with the hole and could they just reposition it? The answer I got, quoted verbatim, was as follows:

"No, we can't do what you are asking, as we are only able to offer the mic port in the 5:00 position, where you see it. At this time, we are not able to offer custom mic hole placement."

OK I don't know much about drums, but you don't have to be Buddy Rich to know that the rim for a bass drum is the same all the way around, and they could just rotate it a bit in whatever jig they use to cut the hole. But OK, I already bought the damn card so we'll just cut the hole ourselves when the head arrives.

A little more than two weeks goes by, now it's March 18th, and I've heard nothing from Inked By Evans, and I'm starting to wonder when the order will arrive. Again, the inkedbyevans.com site has no contact info, but I navigate the regular evans website to find some phone numbers for their location on Long Island, and then start navigating the switchboard to find whoever is the inkedbyevans person. The one guys who answers the phone keeps telling me that someone named Ben is the guy and sends me to his phone, but his phone just rings and he doesn't have voicemail. After a few go rounds of this I basically insist that I get to speak with someone else about my order. When I finally do, and I give the guy my order number, and he finally finds the order in their system, he says "yes, here it is, it will ship on the 28th!" Wow I say, I ordered it on the 3rd, does it really take 25 days to print a drum head? Oh yes, he says proudly, all of our custom work takes 4 weeks. So I ask, is it really the case that you can't move my mic hole a little bit? That's right, he says, we can only do it in one place.

At this point I get irritated and ask if we can just cancel the order. He says he doesn't know, but he'll look into it and call me back. A few hours later I hear back that yes we can cancel it, and I can either get Evans products equal in value to the card, or get a check. We need some regular drum heads so my plan at this point is to take product against my credit.

In the meantime, later on the 18th I call Vintage Logos (www.vintagelogos.com). A breathless guy answers the phone and explains that he was moving some things around and had to dive over some boxes to get the phone. I ask him if I order today, when can he ship a drum printed drum head. He says Tuesday the 22nd. I placed the order, and noticed that the checkout process allowed me to select the exact location of the mic hole (from a clockface). Monday night they send me 3 proofs, with slightly different mic hole locations. On Tuesday, March 22nd (today as I write this) I get the shipment confirmation message. My drum head is on the way, 4 days from when I ordered it, including the Saturday and Sunday in the middle.

Meanwhile, back on the Evans front, I'm trying to clarify how the swap of drum products against my credit is going to work - is it the MSRP of the inkedbyevans.com card against the MSRP of drum products on Evans' site, which is much higher than the street price of drum heads. No, what they're offering is to use my street price as a credit against the MSRP of products on the Evans site. So my purchasing power is about half of what it would have been if I'd spent that same $79 in my local drum store. Disgusted, I tell the Evans guy to just send us a check, and I head off to find out what's the biggest drum forum out there so I can post this message.

If you've read this far, perhaps you're contemplating the purchase of a custom drum head. If so, I suggest you try www.vintagelogos.com and avoid Inked By Evans. I have no connection with either company, other than my experiences described above.
 
There is an Evans guy on this forum who seems nice enough. EvansSpecialist is his username I think. Send him a pm. I bet he can help you.
 
Wow man, that really sucks.

Well, at least you finally got your logo I guess, and thanks for sharing this.

Let's wait for EvansSpecialist's answer.. he ain't gonna like this a bit..

Cool off now and enjoy your new drumhead, things like this unfortunately happen all the time. :)

Cheers.
 
A quick glance at this thread title is going to lead people to believe it's about Evans the - outstanding - head company. NG
 
Next time let your drummer buy his heads ;)
 
There is an Evans guy on this forum who seems nice enough. EvansSpecialist is his username I think. Send him a pm. I bet he can help you.

Thanks Doug, but at this point my problem is solved - my drum head is en route as is my refund check. My purpose in posting here was to help other people avoid a similar experience, and to hopefully get Evans to examine this particular service offering in light of the benchmark established by another competitor. If they are a top-notch company they will look at their process and see that it is in dire need of improvement. If they are not, they will just blame me, the customer.
 
The problem may be that they either A: don't do it in house at the main facility or B: don't really have it up and running as it should to take orders properly and get the finished product out quicker than 4 weeks. It's a pretty new offering and there's probably not a huge crew of people doing the work on these.

If they print on the mylar and THEN make it into the head, they probably do a bunch at a time. That's most likely why it takes 4 weeks--which seems kinda long.
I'm not saying a week, because there is probably several hundred orders coming in and out at any given time.
14 business days from Evans seems fairly reasonable though.

4 days form the Vintage logo's is a real good turn around time.

In simple terms, it's basically a giant Inkjet printer that is able to print on the material (it's a bit more complicated, and you gave to enter the art and all that).
Depending on how good the machine is, it's a faster or slower process.
Still doesn't seem like it should take 4 weeks, but it depends on how many orders are coming in, how long the process takes per head & if they do a finish assemble of a bunch of heads, or as they come in.
My guess is they do several at a time. The hole position is set to keep everything "standard", and when the punch out the holes, the person doesn't have to look at a work order and precisely put the hole exactly where someone wants it.
It's a time saver.

If I were to do one of these, I would put the hole in myself.

Good luck with the head you ordered from vintage logo's.
Post pics when you get it.
 
The problem may be that they either A: don't do it in house at the main facility or B: don't really have it up and running as it should to take orders properly and get the finished product out quicker than 4 weeks.

They do do them in-house, and 4 weeks is the lead-time... period. Not any sooner, not any later. 4 weeks. On the nose. As an endorser with a good relationship, I couldn't get a break. But they did deliver right on time.

As for the hole, I ordered mine without, but positioned the art so that it would accommodate the hole that I planned to cut. I'm a little curious as to why they won't position the hole where requested though.

They did do a terrific job, but I can also recommend Jim at www.drumart.com if anyone is still hesitant about Evans.

Bermuda
 
They do do them in-house, and 4 weeks is the lead-time... period. Not any sooner, not any later. 4 weeks.

It's their prerogative to offer a four week lead time while their competitors are doing a few days to a week. My specific suggestion to them for improving this is to state the lead time on the Inked By Evans card packaging sold at the retail counter, and to state it on the website prior to ordering. Maybe rename the service "28 Day Custom Drum Head Printing" - I'll bet that URL is available. I would also suggest a "What if I Need It Sooner Than 4 Weeks?" link to explain how to cancel the card and get a refund before you've scratched off the coating that reveals the code. This isn't hard.
 
A quick glance at this thread title is going to lead people to believe it's about Evans the - outstanding - head company. NG

Frank, as far as I know, it IS about Evans, the same company that makes the outstanding drum heads. Maybe I'm missing your point.
 
I'd have imagined the did have an in-house operation for this, it'd be stupid not to.
If it's 4 weeks, it must be for a reason then.
The amount of heads to do at any one time must be large to need that kind of lead time.
 
It's their prerogative to offer a four week lead time while their competitors are doing a few days to a week. My specific suggestion to them for improving this is to state the lead time on the Inked By Evans card packaging sold at the retail counter, and to state it on the website prior to ordering.

I don't know what the card is, but I'm pretty sure that info is on their site, as I knew it beforehand and asked if it could be rushed. I agree that if other people can turn custom art around in days rather than weeks, Evans should be able to do the same, and for the sake of competition, should explore that. But Evans employees have a full-time job in the factory manufacturing and packaging several head types and sizes, with only a small area dedicated to the custom art, and perhaps one employee who has other duties there during the work week.

I'm not saying 4 weeks is speedy or a preferrable lead-time, I'm saying that Evans just got into this recently, while also maintaining a head factory. It would be like asking DW to do a custom finish, and wondering why it takes them 12 weeks, when any of the small, custom builders can offer to turn it around in 3 weeks.

I hope Evans looks into making the Inked area more of a full-time concern, and can cut that time down so ordering is more attractive. They really do nice work. I would also hope they will put the mic hole where the customer wants. It seems easy enough, as their logo is added as part of the art, and could therefore be kept at the bottom regardless where the hole is specified.

BTW I do understand your frustration with the whole experience... I'd be mad, too.

Bermuda
 
Bermuda,

Reading your message I got the idea to go through every page of their site and see if the delivery schedule could be found, and I did find it on the info/prices page as follows:

Any customized (with text or imagery) Inked By Evans drum
head will be shipped within 4 weeks.

I never visited this page, since I had the card and didn't need pricing info, and was just going through the ordering steps. So in hindsight I'll take the rap for not specifically looking into the delivery interval. It never occurred to me that it could be 4 weeks. I'll revise my suggestion to Evans that the delivery interval be part of the point of sale packaging for the service, so you know the interval before purchasing the card at a retailer, and then given that the interval is so long, make this information part of the screens you have to go through to order.
 
BTW, I agree that 4 weeks is a long time, and too long given the other options available to drummers. I really hope Evans can cut that at least in half so they can hang better with the independents.

Bermuda
 
It's probably not Evans in particular. Most of the name brand companies are like this. They gets LOTS of buisness, so it doesn't matter if they lose a customer or two. Where as vintagedrumlogos doesn't get as much buisness, so they are extra helpful to their customers.

Not only drumhead companies, but most other really big drum companies are like this, with a few exceptions of course. The guys at Sabian are really nice and helpful, as are the guys at Gretsch.
 
I can understand why you are miffed. I am glad that I am not planning to get a custom bass drum head. Peace and goodwill.
 
First off, I'd like to apologize for not seeing this earlier. I haven't been on the forums in a while because things have been incredibly busy lately (which is a good thing). What with the acquisition of Pro-Mark and all of the new artists we've had coming on board, we've all been putting in some serious time and the extra things like checking forums and responding to threads has had to take a back seat.

Second, I'd like to apologize for your experience with the Inked by Evans site. It seems that your main issue was with the lead time for a custom head. Though this is mentioned on the site, I will be working to make the info page a more prominent part of the experience (maybe a landing page you have to go through prior to designing a head). Also, I'm in the process of revising the contact emails that the user receives in order to provide more information. I've collected the feedback we've received since the beginning of the Inked program and will be working to accommodate as many requests as possible.

In regards to the mic hole location, this was based on all of our other ported heads. The distance of the hole from the edge offers the best possible sound. We will be looking into the possibility of allowing the user to move the port around the perimeter of the head while still at a fixed distance from the edge.

As for the 4-week lead time, we set a this duration as a guarantee that your customer Inked head will be shipped out within the 4-week period. If we can finish the heads sooner, they are sent out sooner. We are doing all of the work in-house but the necessary resources are used for a variety of processes. Every design is reviewed by a committee and requires a custom setup. However, it's possible that we may be able to shorten the lead time in the future. As I mentioned, I'm working on doing a bit of an overhaul to make sure that things run as smoothly as possible.

At the same time, I want to mention that, while other custom head printing services charge for shipping, larger head sizes and the addition of things like a mic port, we have a flat cost and free shipping.

Please feel free to private message me with your email address and/or phone number and I will get in touch with you directly.

If anyone has any questions about Inked By Evans or Evans Drumheads in general, please feel free to contact me directly at Evans @ daddario . com (no spaces) and I will respond as soon as I can.
 
Stinked By Evans

Thank you for sharing your experience. I'm sorry that you had to go through all of the frustration to get the product you wanted. I'm looking to get a custom head made and Inked by Evans was one source that I was looking at. However, I don't think that I will use them after your experience. The port hole is one of the biggest concerns for me as well. I see that the guy from Evans posted a reply to your experience back in March and stated that he would work on getting the port placement issue worked out. However, I was just on their website last night and you still can't move the port hole to a different location. So, I have another source here in Cleveland that offers this service. He's done work for Elton John, Bruno Mars, Boston, Kansas, etc. I would think that they do good work.

Again, thanks for sharing your experience.
 
I've had nothing but painless, prompt experiences from VintageLogos, as have my friends. Polite, prompt, and considerate every time.

It must not be worth it for Evans to figure out how to place a mic hole. I hope they realize soon that there is nothing more personal than business, because their drum heads are great. Why they haven't yet subcontracted their custom work to VintageLogos is beyond me!
 
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