What's the consensus on resonant heads?

1-ply or 2-ply? Coated? Clear?

What's the advantage, if any, of one over the other for resonants?

Thanks for your input.

In my opinion all things equal you will get more resonance in this order
1. 2 ply coated...less resonance
2. 1 ply coated
3. 2 ply clear
4. 1ply clear...most resonant.

Keeping in mind that some 1 ply can be as thick as some 2 ply but I think you get the point. I know there are some that want to nit pick.

Should I tune the reso higher than the batter or the same or vice versa?

JesusMySavior said:

Should I tune the reso higher than the batter or the same or vice versa?

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On toms, my resos are probably tuned a little tighter than the batters, but I would think for extreme resonant tone, both heads should be about the same. At least that's what I discovered when I tune my drums with new heads quietly. The drum sings better when both skins are resonating equally.

When I start playing, that changes a little bit because the amount of air pushing on the bottom head makes it sound like it's going out of tune, so after I play them for awhile, my first adjustment is to bring the bottoms just slightly up from equal to keep it from sounding like it goes flat.

I have heard some say having two heads of the same thickness batter/reso
is good because they will resonant the same and you can tune them the same.
that may be so (for 1ply heads) but I tried it out with what I had:

clear emps top/bottom on my 12" tom - fiddled around with tuning for a while and it didn't take long for me to realize that it wasn't working (for me) Even though I had both heads tuned exactly the same there was still a lack in depth and resonance
compared to my 1ply ec reso. "subdued" is how I would describe the tone.

You really want your resonant head to react fast for tone and projection and a 2ply head
is slow and the friction of the 2plies retricts sustained motion resulting in LESS resonance and projection. If that's exactly what you want then go for it but if you want loud deep
thunderous sounding toms - 2ply resonant heads are not the way to that tone.

1ply for resonants - clear or coated but 2ply underneath SERIOUSLY kills tone IMO

I use Evans G1's on the bottom and Evans G2's on the top.

I tune the heads equally, or maybe the resonant head a hair below the batter head. My reasoning is that the G1 is thinner and will resonate more at a lower tension.