Sonor Safari Power Stroke 3 bass drum head report

rpt50

Member
Hey all;
I posted about a week ago wanting to find a good replacement head for the Sonor Safari bass drum--something close to the stock head. The most common recommendation was the PS3, so that is what I ordered. In short, very happy with the results!

The key difference (and I would say improvement) is that the bass drum now has a clearly discernible pitch with some resonance. We tune the bass and toms by putting pressure in the middle and tightening the lugs just enough that the wrinkles disappear. Using this method with the stock head on the bass, it had a very healthy "thump", but it was hard to detect a clear pitch that was lower than the floor tom. It's difficult to describe, but the bass and the floor tom clearly sounded different, but the difference did not really seem to have much to do with pitch.

With the new PS3 head (tuned the same way), the bass drum has retained the healthy thump, but it also now has a very clear fundamental pitch that is clearly a step down from the floor tom, and there is also a very nice bit of resonance and pitch bend. It sounds fantastic!

The only glitch in the whole deal is that the beater patch must have slipped out of the box during shipping, but the vendor is sending a new patch. Since my son has a gig before it will get here, we put an Evans patch on instead.
 
Hey all;
I posted about a week ago wanting to find a good replacement head for the Sonor Safari bass drum--something close to the stock head. The most common recommendation was the PS3, so that is what I ordered. In short, very happy with the results!

The key difference (and I would say improvement) is that the bass drum now has a clearly discernible pitch with some resonance. We tune the bass and toms by putting pressure in the middle and tightening the lugs just enough that the wrinkles disappear. Using this method with the stock head on the bass, it had a very healthy "thump", but it was hard to detect a clear pitch that was lower than the floor tom. It's difficult to describe, but the bass and the floor tom clearly sounded different, but the difference did not really seem to have much to do with pitch.

With the new PS3 head (tuned the same way), the bass drum has retained the healthy thump, but it also now has a very clear fundamental pitch that is clearly a step down from the floor tom, and there is also a very nice bit of resonance and pitch bend. It sounds fantastic!

The only glitch in the whole deal is that the beater patch must have slipped out of the box during shipping, but the vendor is sending a new patch. Since my son has a gig before it will get here, we put an Evans patch on instead.

Excellent! Glad to hear you like the result. I've never heard a PS3 sound bad on any bass drum. Nice to know that little 16" is no exception.
 
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