Don't waste your time with calf heads especially if you are hitting a big 2-4 in a bar band...go with Evans, Remo, Aquarian etc. and enjoy your snare drum.

Mike Curotto

I just re suited my drum kit with some vintage Remo Coated heads and wanted something a little different (guess i'm bored) have you tried out the "Fiberskyn" good idea? bad idea?

I would recommend Remo Renaissance heads, if your looking for warm tone. They don't get much attention, but they're the closest I've found to that old-school vintage sound.

I would have to agree with Mike - 'don't waste your time with calfhide heads' in you case. If you want to play around with natural heads at home it's lots of fun. I play at home and thoroughly enjoy my calfhide headed drums. I don't think I'd want to gig with them though - you do have to tune them regularly.

...and...in a bar setting you need modern day heads! IMHO though...

Mike Curotto

Mike and Kona are right: calf heads and bar gigs are probably not a good mix. But I'd suggest buying an old calf batter head from a forum member and putting it on a snare that you don't gig with. Spend practice time on it inside your house and get used to the feel of the stick hitting calf. Then when you are comfortable with it take the drum outside and experience how the temp and humidity effect it.

The old greats that would "beat the hell" out of their drums had a different technique than most drummers today: they would accept the rebound of the stick off the head. They developed an extremely efficient way of playing and managed to keep the heads from breaking. That same technique is worth learning today. A guy taught me and he used to study with Jim Chapin. I'm by no means any Moeller expert, but the exercises to learn to accept the rebound were worth every penny. I have calf heads on my Radio Kings and have even gigged with them outdoors but now just use calf for recording.

I agree...love the Renaissance heads.

I have calf on the reso sides of my Slingerland set...replaced the batters with the Remos.

I never know what the drums will be like from day to day with just the calfs on the bottom...sometimes they're tight, sometimes very loose.

They do sound great though.

Yeah, if hitting the snare hard they will break, I broke two that way! If your playing with brushes and a light touch then they can't be beat? And the weather plays a huge part if your playing outside, if it's wet then you will tighten that head twice a song!!

I do a lot of calfskin heads (more than 600 so far this year) because there is a big call for it here in the Northeast with the Fife & Drum community. I put thin heads on 16" and 17" rope tension snares that are played with sticks that would make a Vic Firth 3S look like a tooth pick and the guys playing them are doing 40 - 60 parades a year. Under those playing conditions I have seen heads last 3 or 4 seasons comfortably. What truly effects the heads (skins) is the humidity and moisture. Many F&D corps have two sets of drums, one set with calfskin and one set with mylar or kevlar heads for inclimate weather. If you live in a hot and dry or cold and dry climate the heads will be fine once they have adjusted to the room that you are playing in. When calf skin heads are played out in the sun they are going to tighten up from the heat but will only tighten up just so much and stop and will perform similarly in a cold room. When it gets humid or wet from the rain then the heads start to go slack and get sloppy to play on and that is when you will start putting heads through them. The great thing about playing bar gigs now as opposed to playing them in the 1940's - 50's is that we play in rooms that are climate controlled and have air conditioning so in many cases, even if the room gets hot it is still relatively dry.

As for the heads mthemselves, the heads do eventualy dry out and don't have the same bounce that you would get out of new calfskin and in a lot of cases, picking up a vintage calfskin head and putting iit on a drum is like playing on construction paper. It will sound different than a plastic head but will also sound different than a new calfskin head and you run a much higher risk of putting a stick through it because it is dry.

Hope this helps.