Gretsch was good enough for Remo.

Okay, I was not alive in '55. Are those calf skin heads, or were synthetic heads available then?
 
Have a look at this article: nice picture of Belli playing a Gretsch kit in 1947 as well as interesting infos about the first plastic drumhead, that was not a Remo! https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/...per-of-the-synthetic-drumhead-dies-at-88.html

Reading on the Remo website. A bit of a tough read because of its word build-up/story line, but an interesting time it was back then.

Interestingly enough, Remo had seen this dry crimped design before Bill Ludwig Sr. from Oscar Bauer in Switzerland, who was making 14” high tension heads for basel drums. Oscar never filed a patent for his design and after watching Oscar make heads Bill came back to the States and filed a patent on the design.

Sounds like stealing an idea to me, then to pride with it too :unsure:

 
Taken from Remo's own website: "In late 1956, Marion I. “Chick” Evans completed a Mylar version drumhead that consisted of a drilled outer hoop that tacked a Mylar head to a smaller, inner hoop."

Prior to this, for about 2-3 years, remo was hand folding polyester sheets around the fleshhoop of a calf head. So, while remo did technically play with the initial idea of a synthetic head... Evans actually created the process of large scale manufacturing of synthetic heads, were the first to use mylar, and were the first to use a metal hoop. This in addition to the smaller changes/advancements like sandwiching the head material between two hoops vs wrapped around a cord style hoop.

To this day Evans continues to lead the pack. Remo may have thought of it but Evans made it work. One of Remo's best selling heads of all time (the powerstroke 3 bass drum head) was taken directly from Evans' eq4 system which was released before the P3 system.

Y'all can keep your Remo's... More Evans heads for me! Haha
 
Taken from Remo's own website: "In late 1956, Marion I. “Chick” Evans completed a Mylar version drumhead that consisted of a drilled outer hoop that tacked a Mylar head to a smaller, inner hoop."

Prior to this, for about 2-3 years, remo was hand folding polyester sheets around the fleshhoop of a calf head. So, while remo did technically play with the initial idea of a synthetic head... Evans actually created the process of large scale manufacturing of synthetic heads, were the first to use mylar, and were the first to use a metal hoop. This in addition to the smaller changes/advancements like sandwiching the head material between two hoops vs wrapped around a cord style hoop.

To this day Evans continues to lead the pack. Remo may have thought of it but Evans made it work. One of Remo's best selling heads of all time (the powerstroke 3 bass drum head) was taken directly from Evans' eq4 system which was released before the P3 system.

Y'all can keep your Remo's... More Evans heads for me! Haha
It was a combined efford of all to find out what worked (and obviously who would be first with a proper product).

“Bill Ludwig: “Both Grolimund and Evans sent us the first Mylar heads we had ever seen tacked…yes, stapled to OUR wood hoops.”

And it was Remo with Muchick who invented the steel (alu) ring because wood, didn’t work:

“Remo met a chemist named Sam Muchnick and together they developed an aluminum channel design filled with resin to anchor the Mylar.”

And Bauer in Switzerland invented the dry cimp technique.
 
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