Personally I wouldn't put calf on any of those drums and an Earthtone would be even worse...in my humble opinion of course.

Mike Curotto

Wow... That's an endorsement and a half... You have to try it out... and my choice would be on the 6.5" Ludwig... Not like it's forever.. Be interested to know what you think...

Cheers

John

I agree with Mike !

Thanks for the replies, so far. What's the reason to not use it on any of these drums? What's your experience with Earthtone heads on a snare?

I do have a Gretsch 14x10 field snare.

-Tim

I'd try the 6.5 first too - I get the feeling the head would be a little mellower than usual and so would put it on the 6.5 for a nice deep tone. Longjohn's right it's not forever...:)

Mitch

I had been dying to use calf heads but bottled out due to them supposedly going out of tune due to the weather. I've been using the simulated ones on my 60s slingerland snare, I've been using an Evans strata, and now have a remo fiberskin on there, they do sound wonderful they give me a very authentic jazz sound- I suppose in a medium tone or medium/high tone range. It's kind of weird though, as to me they ' hide a multitude of sins' i.e. Smoothing out any perceived rough edges that I rightly or wrongly think are in the snares sound , BUT I suppose that's just how it will sound to me from very close up, and hearing them in a room in a house. When used in a band situation surely the sound 'all kind of narrows down' anyway. The thing is though because of the nature of these type of heads I'm getting paranoid that they are choking up and maybe not projecting when the band gets loud or in a certain room. Believe me I realy WANT them to work!! By the way I wouldnt use any of these type of heads with a heavily amplified live UNMIKED band. Miked up I definately WOULD use them. Someone PLEASE tell me they do still project and Father Christmas is real! I still think you should use your earth tone head on whatever you wish I'd like to hear how you like it.

I wouldn't use calf heads on metal shelled drums, wood shells, ok. It really is a matter of personal taste and playing style. Jazz guys will love calf heads for the warmth and for brushes, Rock/Blues guys need modern plastic to really nail back-beats and be able to project, so it depends on many variables whether calf is a good choice, or not. If you like the sound, use it.

My pick would be the 6.5 as well...

John

I'd better mention that I might have slightly over tightened the skyntone head on a solid maple shell so that could choke it a bit, I hope I haven't high jacked the the thread but these should be similar in sound? I would love to hear the real thing though.

I used calf for a couple of years. Earthtone heads are quite thick and have a comparatively spongey texture/feel. More expensive,well made calf heads are much more sensitive than ET heads and thus more suitable for snare drums. ETs work ok on toms, but I found I didn't like them at all compared to "real" calf.

In the end I decided to go all plastic. Plastic heads are much less hassle than calf, affordable, and actually can be made to sound at least as good as calf. For jazz I use Fiberskyn or Skyntone batters for toms and some snare drums. They are a good approximation of calf characteristics and produce much fewer overtones than say an Ambassador. On the other hand, my Dynasonic snare drum sounds fantastic with Ambassador coated and I haven't felt the need to try it with a Skyntone head.

Those are my thoughts, nothing else.

/Magnus