I suggest you go through with your plan as is and hopefully you'll be amazed. If they sound different, is it the 35+ years aging or the mileage in the 80s or a difference in manufacture?

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with Remo's new Powerstroke 3 black dot clear and coated bass drum heads, and should give them a try.. I had one and it sounded great. The only reason i got rid of it was because my musical situation at the time called for a slightly more resonant kick drumhead (i'm now using the powerstroke 3 clear).

Essentially the black dots are just emperors with a dot in the middle for a more focused and controlled sound,

hence the "control sound black dot" name.;)

Thank you. I believe it was Remo Black Dot that I went to about 1976, and really liked them. Additionally I never punched through a black dot drum head if a stick shattered into a sharp point, which only takes a few strokes to do it before I even realized what happened.

Controlled Sound clear black dots are pretty much the same head they were back then, a clear 10mil ambassador with a 5mil black dot on top of the head. If you want to resume from the sound you had back then I'd go with the CS black dots on top of toms and clear ambassadors on the bottom. Try a powerstroke black dot head on the bass drum batter (as previously suggested) and I'd go for a smooth white or ebony ambassador resonant head. Try it without a port and see how that goes, then if that's not right (or you're going to be playing clubs/bars and it'll be mic'd from inside) cut a 5" or thereabouts port off to the side. I'd avoid the big centre port, ita basically the same as having no front head at all. A small port towards the edge of the head will retain more tone and mid/lows, albeit much less than a solid front head.

Good luck!

Good suggestions. I previously had a large hole in the bass drum reso head, because that was the sound most band mates were looking for at the time. I owned a used set of 1970 Rogers gray pearl and used 1966 Ludwig white pearl at the time. The Rogers all had the mirror top heads, which I said "had to go". At the time the music stores were a bit more hands on, and I was shown the black dot heads which had a great sound when doing live recordings. I had 4 mic's on the drums, a unidirectional on the bass, condenser mic on the snare, and 2 Omni directional condenser mic's located overhead at front and side of the kit to get the 2 floor toms mic'd.

I agree with the others: if you liked the sound you had, get the same heads. Demo has been fairly true over time. They add new stuff but generally don't mess with the old stuff.

If you want to change the bass drum sound you had, there are a lot of great bass heads out there these days. I have a coated emperor on my 20 with a big hole coated ambassador out front. My 18 is a fiberskin of some description front and back and my 22 is a powerstroke 3 with an Evans eq3 out front.

If you mention a current player who's sound you like/want we can probably steer you to the right heads.

Jim, Thank you for your insights. I have been mostly playing on a furnished set of Roland electronic drums. However for usage and possible resale of my acoustic drums someday I will remove my original heads and install "player" heads on the drums. As for the sound that I prefer, its the same as always since folks take notice to the "different" style I play (other than Ringo style). It has been a blend of Danny Seraphine (Chicago), Mitch Mitchell (Hendrix), and John Guerin (Joni Mitchell & LA Express), a little bit of Steve Gadd but not quite as light.

Well it seems to me you should stick with "your" sound and get CS dots.

For the bass, I guess you need to narrow down a tone you are after. Do you want the Mitch Mitchell jazzy bass sound? Gadd with a more "thud" sound? Maybe go full circle with a wide open bass drum with two solid heads like Keith Carlock has made "cool" again.

I actually prefer the Steve Gadd thuddy sound. This is simply a matter of what type of filler is put into the bass drum. Although a cheap shot, just a pillow curled around at the bottom of the bass drum was always good, then smaller throw pillows can be added for more muffling inserted through the hole in the reso head. I was able to derive the Steve Gdd sound when Steely Dan's Aja album was released in 77'. As for Mitch Mitchell, he exhibited a variety of tones between the first 2 albums, and then Electric Ladyland and onward.

I have noticed that most recording studios prefer the traditional white batter heads, that they always have overly taped and muffled. The black dots gave just the right "bounce" to the sound for me, so it appears that I will defer the $ to get the entire set done, and then clear heads on the bass.