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.
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.