piccolo snare. best heads

I am looking to get a piccolo snare that can produce a clear pitch. I found one that is 13"X4" and from videos it seems that it can produce stable pitch, but was wondering what the best drum heads for that purpose would be. I have not been playing long, but am using evans coated g2 on my regular snare, and it seems to produce a good fundamental, but was wondering if there is anything better.

Perhaps "fundamental" is the wrong word, as I get much more clear pitch from hitting the rims, so I would tune the lugs to the tonic note. So I guess I am looking for the best drum heads that produce the clearest lug tone. I have seen those heads with the dot in the middle, and I have read that muting the center can produce a clearer pitch at the rims. Is that what the dot is for?

Re: piccolo snare/best drum heads for fundamental tone

Hmm. unusual question. The fundamental tone is the tone of the drum you hear when you take the heads off and tap the shell.. so I think you're asking what head will make that tone 'sing' the best; assuming you match the head tuning to the fundamental tone?

If that's the case, then a head that produces a bright sound will open it up.. so single ply coated or uncoated would work eg. Ambassador or Evans G1. But.. it also depends on the shell - is it wood or metal? If metal you might try an Evans Genera Dry (a single ply with a control ring underneath).. it might tame it just enough to take the edge off.
The CS dot you describe is good for a focused rock sound.. I tried the Evans version which is a single ply with a double ply dot in the center. It produces a nice dry sound.. but on a piccolo I find it can sound dead pretty quickly with any kind of muffling or thickness on the heads.

You also want a responsive resonant head and Puresound snare wires. I don't know what David Garibaldi uses on his Piccolo snare but I would check his specs out.. He gets a thundering chop out of his snare.

I believe David Garibaldi uses coated Ambassador all round.
I had a coated Ambassador on my brass piccolo (14 x 3.5) but found it a bit thin and ringy. I tried a Genera dry and it took all the life out of the tone. What made it work was a coated Emperor. Lovely tone.

its hard to give you advice without knowing the shell material.

I have a 3x13 Mapex brass shell piccolo. I always found coated G1s or G2s to be too timid for the drum's overtones. I generally use a straight 3 mil hazy on the reso and an HD Dry up top. You get a solid crack and fundamental tone and it dries off quick.

Re: piccolo snare/best drum heads for fundamental tone

Garibaldi uses a Yamaha piccolo and every Yamaha piccolo sounds great. They can be tuned to mimic a bunch of different snares His live sound is extremely processed so I wouldn't go by that either.

I'm pretty sure he uses a standard Remo Ambassador.

moxman said:

I don't know what David Garibaldi uses on his Piccolo snare but I would check his specs out.. He gets a thundering chop out of his snare.

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