Evans G2 coated vs Pinstripes

PorkPieGuy

Platinum Member
I've been using Pinstripes for a couple of years now, but I'm wanting to "warm up" my drums a little. My drums sounded great mic'ed in our church, but I'm going to be bringing them home. Acousically, they sound a little "plastic-y" to me. I'm thinking about a set of G2 coated heads to try to warm them up a little, and I'll be playing these in more low-volume situations. I guess I have a couple of questions.

Overall, I'm looking for a quieter and warmer drum sound, and doing this with Keller maple shells. I know it's all in the hands, but I'm sure appropriate heads will help! So here are my questions:

1. What will be the sound differences between a Remo Pinstripe and an Evans G2?

2. Would putting a G2 on the batter head and then some sort of single-ply coated totally kill the sound? (I understand this will be an educated guess, but I appreciate your opinions.) When I bought my Pork Pie USA kit, it came with an Evan Genera Dry on the reso side of the 14" floor tom. Sounded horrible, but I'm not a fan of Genera Dry heads anyways. I'm thinking something without a control ring in it.

Thanks!
 
Although they're both 2-ply heads, the Pinstripe has a (glued) ring around the edge, where the G2 is wide open. The Pinstripe is a bit more muted (read: punchy) where the G2 is more open (read: sings.)

For a warmer sound, coated will better than clear. And a coated 1-ply reso is fine if it's not too heavy, especially on smaller toms. 7 mil on13" and under, 10 mil on 14" and above is a good rule of thumb.

As for making the drums quieter, most of that will come from your stick weight, and your touch. But a coated head will reduce the attack (perceived volume) so that's a good start.

Bermuda
 
You may like Remo's Renaissance heads.

Or Evans Calf tone.
 
. . . Pinstripes . . . sound a little "plastic-y" to me . . . .

To me, too. In fact, when played lightly, all clear heads sound "plastic-y" to my ears. Coating seems to eliminate that characteristic.

However - 1)Nobody in the audience ever hears that - only the guy behind the drum set is allowed that pleasure, and 2) nothing can match the initial impact of a clear head.

So it makes sense to switch over to coated heads in your situation. I play coated no matter where I play, but the sound of clear Pinstripes on my Recording Custom toms will always live in my memory as likely the best live sound I ever achieved - miked or not.

GeeDeeEmm
 
Thanks everyone.

Another thing I'm looking into as well is switching to wood-tipped sticks. I used to hate them because I used to be a heavy hitter. Over time, when playing really heavy, the wood tips would "sharpen" without my knowing and knock dents in my heads. My style of playing has changed quite a bit, so I may go with wood tips to see if it makes a difference as well.

Thanks again! I'll be going for the G2's when the time comes. I'm wanting to tune to some pretty low pitches.
 
I haved used G2, G1, Hydraiulics, and Pinstripes and still go back to G2 over G1 on my Gretsch Renowns
 
I use coated G2 over coated G1 on my Saturn Pro kit. On my Saturn V kit I use clear G2 over clear G1. Peace and goodwill.
 
I recently went to G14s on my tom batters after years playing G2s. I love them. They're as thick as G2s but only one ply, so they feel less "tubby". I play coateds, so they're still very warm compared to the clears.
 
I use G2 clear batters w Genera resos on all toms. I have a PDP concept maple kit and wanted more attack so I use clears. But the G2 coated sound great too. The coating does watm it up a tad. Compared to pin stripes, I think G2 sound better. Pin stripes, IMO, tend to kill a little sustain bc of the built in ring.
 
I should point out that various heads will work great on certain drums and not so well on other drums. I'm a school music teacher. In the classroom I've got an early 2000's Yamaha Rydeen. I reskinned with Evans UV1 on top including the 13" snare. Evans Reso7 on the bottoms. Sounds sensational! Big, fat and warm. The best part is after nearly a year of high school kids beating the crap out of them they still look new. Now my son's Pearl ELX (no not EXL) at home has pinstripes (ambassadors on bottom) Sounds really good but I thought I'd take the UV1's and Reso7's to try on the Pearl. Sounded not so good. Very papery.

I also have a no name kit in the classroom that was donated. I put G2's on top and made it sound great so I borrowed the G2's to try on the Pearl kit. Horrible! I put the pinstripes back on and sounded great again.

I do suggest giving the UV1's a try. Made the cheap Yamaha kit sound studio ready.
 
You can put a moongel on g2's to give em less overtones.. you cant remove the ring from a pinstripe to get more. So I always error on the side of a more open drum.

Evens EC2's are similar to the pinstripe but I prefer them a bit more.

G2's is a good place to start, plus it isn't permanent.

You said warmer, not more resonant. Removing the pinstrime will add resonance and let the sing as bermuda said. so instead of thud, they ring out longer. It will still have plenty of attack. And I find tuning matters a bit more on an open head.

Coated heads will make it warmer cutting some of the initial wack of the stick.

Stick tips matter more on cymbals than heads. I have shattered nylon tips before so I play wood tips.. exact opposite haha.

i have played other kits with coated top and bottom, or dual ply on the bottom, general rule is single clears on the bottom for resonance. adjust the tops as needed... If you have a dual ply coated on the top and still want less resonance I'd start going that route. Until you have explored every batter head I wouldn't start messing with this.

Genera dry is DRY. even on a snare batter haha, don't put that on your toms.
 
Currently, out of all the heads I've used and tried for my toms, are Pinstripes and Evans Coated G2s.

I've tried a lot of heads. I figure the only way you can really know is to get them and put them on your kit to see how they do. Even in the worst cases, I've managed to get them to sound decent until they were played out.

I've never felt that Pinstripes sounded dead - in fact, on my drums (maple Pearl SMX Session) they are very round and resonant sounding, but fairly bright.

Coated G2s, on the other hand, are warmer, but in my experience they were punchier than Pinstripes - they sounded great on the board feed recordings I used to get from the churches where I played.

I'm currently running clear Pins, but I'm contemplating going back to coated G2s.

On a side note, I tune my drums with a Tune Bot and I tune my drums for maximum resonance, but I use dampening rings on the toms - this doesn't deaden the drums too much at all, and in fact, I get tons of compliments on how my drums sound, no matter what heads I have on them at the time.
 
Update: I ended up buying G2's for my USA Pork Pie kit. They really warmed them up as compared with the Pinstripes. I really like them.

Thanks!
 
Update: I ended up buying G2's for my USA Pork Pie kit. They really warmed them up as compared with the Pinstripes. I really like them.

Thanks!
Nice! Thanks for the update! I'll probably go with coated G2s once I've played out my current set of Pinstripes, which actually might be pretty soon.
 
Update: I ended up buying G2's for my USA Pork Pie kit. They really warmed them up as compared with the Pinstripes. I really like them.

Thanks!

I had much the same experience when I switched from Pinstripes to G2s. I wouldn't go back to Pinstripes for much of anything now.
 
I've gone back and forth with this exact topic. I have always been a Coated head drummer but since I got my DW Collector's I just had to experiment with many different heads to see how many different tones I could get. I wanted to try some clear heads to give the drums a bit more tone and take away some of the warmth.

The Pinstripes were not as "dead" as I feared they might be, but maybe that is because my DW's are very resonant. I actually liked them on my DW's but didn't love them, but they were alright.

I compared the Pinstripes to EC2's, which I absolutely cannot stand, however, upon playback, the EC2's seemed to resonant more than the Pinstripes. The EC2's were very plastic sounding upon playback. I still like the tone of the Pinstripes better though. I'd rather play Pinstripes than EC2's though.

Throughout my time with my DW's, I went through a bunch of heads.

I first went back to the DW Coated/Clear heads, and thought the G2's were too thick for the DW's and killed the sustain, but when I experimented with the Coated/Clear heads again, I realized they were not good heads and they are too "cold" sounding. I had better recordings & sounds with Evans or Remo. I don't think I'll ever use the Coated/Clear heads from DW again.

In the end, the G2 Coated heads won out. The G2 Coated heads have the warmth I am looking for along with the tone that I have always loved.

Acoustically speaking, my DW's don't seem to like Clear heads at much, so maybe it's just the drums or the room. However, on play-back, some of the Clear heads sound okay, but to me, the G2 Coated sounds the best & bring out the best in my DW's.

I have listened to my drums with and without EQ and I always prefer G2 Coated. Pinstripes were a close second though!!!
 
You may like Remo's Renaissance heads.

Or Evans Calf tone.
Hey
Somebody suggested that Evan UV1 was great for brushes and super, super durable so last week of Dec I bought one. I am old and don’t hit hard ( never broken in my life ! ? and play a lot of brushes. So here wer are about to go into last week of January and the surface is coming off the UV1 and brushes grabbing. I also have Calftones on 10 and 14 in toms and the 10 is bubbling. I bought it in Nov 2019 so it was out of warranty. I contacted Evans and they are replacing it n.c.
The UV1 is still under warranty so Dealer will replace I’m hoping. But hey, what’s with Evans quality control ?
Attached is pic of UV1.
 

Attachments

  • 7A9CCE9E-4A26-47B0-9AAD-6FC3534672F9.jpeg
    7A9CCE9E-4A26-47B0-9AAD-6FC3534672F9.jpeg
    17.8 KB · Views: 10
Back
Top