I have played one, but not on a regular basis. Since calf heads are like hounds teeth and virtually irreplaceable, I keep them aside if I want to play that particular drum.

I did once record a couple old blues songs using brushes on one of them. Very little play time, but the guitarist paying for the recordings liked the vintage vibe and the sound it produced.

I actually played calfskin heads on my first set of drums (except for the bass drum) in the late '50s and early '60s when I was a teen. Maybe its just my romantic childhood memory, but to me, mylar heads have never sound as good as calfskin. But the constant tuning as the weather changed was a pain.

I've got a 17/12/14 Wfl/Ludwig kit in maple. It has both calf heads on the bass and reso on the floor tom. Have not been able to find one that will fit on the 12 for some reason. The bass I never have to mess with. The floor tom requires often tuning with the humidity changes.

Mike

I have and don't care for them. Kind of squishy and takes more work to play. Plus it's also kind of gross :)

Played a Radio king Marcher in Junior High with calf heads. Hated it, luckily my band instructor stated I can't even hear you over the other snare drums, Went to plastic heads and way up in volume level.

I've been dying to try one on my old radio king snare, I nearly went ahead and ordered one but the seller just hasn't got back to me, I'm not sure how me and that supplier would have gone about custom making for this slightly oversized vintage drum, so I've just submitted a custom order to remo for ordinary remo heads. I'm imagining that the sound would be really nice with- calf as long as it's not to muted though. An interesting note- just lately when playing with jazz players ive been struggling a bit with the very tight/ stiff feel of the plastic heads in more intricate or quiet bits , it just made me think calfskin heads would be real easy to play meaning instead of the sticks just bouncing back at me all the time with with plastic ( I have the snare head pretty tight) with calf surely you can get a real nice feel- touch thing going where you can play ' into' the head a bit more and not off it. For rock/pop etc it's ok to be playing ' off the head', and no my technique isn't crap! I'm not sure about the moisture/ humidity thing though. I would love to try it but wouldn't be wanting to keep tuning all the time. I wish they could invent some way of treating calf heads so that wouldn't happen. They would make a fortune.

They have..Earth Tone heads out of Florida are pretty nice in my experience.

Yes I've heard of these, but I would like to know these questions : can earthtone custom make the heads slightly oversized to fit an oversized vintage drum? Are these heads calfskin now or something else like goatskin? Do they actually hold up better with the temperature/ tuning issues? If so I would be interested.

Earthtone used to be goatskin but that changed many years ago. The rumor about goatskin persists. It's an internet rumor thing. I settled the question by writing to them and checking. And that was itself some years ago. Their website is now crystal clear: calfskin. [img]http://www.black.net.nz/misc/ani-cow.gif[/img]

I have very early ones (yes goatskin) on my 18" bass. I like them and on a bass they aren't that sensitive to changes in humidity. I've thought about trying them on my snare and toms but never got around to it. Tuning and sensitivity to changes in humidity isn't a big problem in my experience and I live in a coastal environment (in fact on an island in the South Pacific) where the humidity changes dramatically. It's just a 2-3 minute job to tune them up or down (and best to tune them down between playing sessions). My personal experience is it's not the big issue people seem to make it out to be.

I play mostly African drums so I've got many drums with various species of animal skins (grown up cow as well as calf, goat, African antelope). So maybe I'm just used to dealing with animal skins.

[img]http://www.black.net.nz/cym2010/afrodrum.jpg[/img]

You should contact Earthtone and ask them about slightly oversized drums. I haven't heard that they do special orders, but then with my drum kit I don't need them. It's a 1969 Ludwig Jazzette, but not oversized.

Contact: http://www.earthtonedrumheads.com/