I went mediums top & bottom of my 60's RB kit. However on my kit standard bass drum heads fit so I went SK1 on batter, Force II on front/ resonant.

Thins would probably be fine on the bottoms but IMO too thin for batters.

I have the opposite: standard heads must be forced on to the bass drum, but standard sizes fit snugly on my toms. Go figure.

Anybody else?

thx

I found the Aquarian American Vintage heads a little too bright for my tastes on my late 50's RB kit (20/12/14). I had them on the batter side only with coated Ambassadors on the reso heads.

I ended up tucking calfhide on all the drums except the bass drum batter which has an Evans EMAD (calfhide reso). I tried calfhide, Fiberskyn, Coated Am on the bass drum batter. The EMAD was what I ended up using = a nice round thud - great punch.....as in Blues and Rock. There are other nice bd batters out there...and Aquarian makes some....but I've not tried them.

I initially went with the American Vintage because of the tight-head fitting (14" wrapped) floor tom. Again, I got around that with tucking my own custom fitted calfhide heads.

"Standard" heads (ie: Remo Coated Ambassadors) fit easily on my toms. The bass drum needs a bit of forcing...

Aquarian put that set up w/mediums on a house kit I play regularly. The kit is played 5 night a week by many of the jazz players in town and the MV's are holding up amazingly well, including the coating on the snare.

I'm not a hard hitter and could have got thins on the toms for a more vibrant sound but under the conditions mediums were a safer bet.

I dig thin tom heads but if your hittin' hard I'd go mediums all 'around.