Anyone ever try calf heads on a modern drum

Anyone ever try calf heads on a modern drum? I happened across Earthtone who makes calf heads meant to fit like modern drumheads, for use on modern drums. Naturally their marketing material claims they sound like the best thing since sliced bread. Tempted to give them a try on a snare...

I don't think a calf's head would sound good on your drum. I mean you keep hitting his head and he's mooing really loud and kicking your drums and stuff.


...........What? Oh, I see. Thank you!


He's talking about calf "skin" drum heads!!

Never mind.

A discussion about these comes up every couple of months. Use the search function and see what you can find, I know I've heard great things from my teachers on his Bearing Edge kit with wood hoops as shown here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrbXzD5BpGA and there's actually a comparison video on YouTube or two. I'd get them if I had money.

The problem with any real skin head is keeping them in tune as atmospheric changes occur. they still have an awesome sound on timpani, but usually they are kept in a temperature/humidity controlled enviroment.

ive tried kangaroo skin head (made by this fellow: https://www.facebook.com/kentvilledrums) on an evetts 14x6.5 tasmanian blackwood snare.... it has such an amazing tuning range! the head itself when its not a drum sounded a little dead, but as soon as theres a bit of tension it sings at pretty much any tuning, low, medium or high - i never pushed it to stupidly high though (somewhere were you'd probably tune a piccolo is what im talking), i was afraid the skin might not be able to take the tension, and especially since it wasn't MY drum head or even drum i didnt want to risk breaking anything

mandrew said:

The problem with any real skin head is keeping them in tune as atmospheric changes occur. they still have an awesome sound on timpani, but usually they are kept in a temperature/humidity controlled enviroment.

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Here in Canada Earthtone Calf heads are at least 40% more that Evans Calftone or Remo Fibreskyn. And except for southern British Columbia ..
Vancouver area.. natural skins can be a real challenge both in transporting and venues when winter temps hit minus 20 and well beyond. I’m sure that the newer versions of natural were better than those in the 50s as they had to be thoroughly warm before being played or they would sound terrible and were subject to splitting.
Having used both the Evans and Remo synthetic products and noticing very little difference between them and
naturals, and knowing weather will not have a severe adverse effect I go with them. Cost wise if your only looking to replace a snare head then an extra $20 for natural isn’t much but if your doing your whole kit then your into some serious coin. Kick heads in Earthtone are well into $150 Can and up where as syns are about $80.

For my smallest concert snare - a Pearl Philharmonic 13x4” maple - I use the Kentville kangaroo head that develops a wicked crack that can cut through the string orchestra I play with, even during some of the really soft sections that need super articulation. (“The Little Drummer Boy” during the Holiday Concert for example.) I also have two 14-inch heads for my larger concert snare but they are not mounted yet and brand new.

If I couldn’t source a natural skin head the Remo Diplomat Renaissance is my first choice but those paper-thin heads don’t last long. I don’t know how much longer we will have the natural skins as the cost is close to $80 now. But they do last a long time and between concerts I will loosen the head up between practice sessions. With the Tune Bot it’s easy and fast to get the head back in tune.

I will probably use one of the 14-inch kangaroo heads on the Premier XPK chrome snare I am working on. I love the sound of a natural head on a snare but they are getting harder and harder to find.