Emad on the batter side/coated white Ambassador on reso. Follow Bob Gatzen's instructions.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga8Q12mKYxI[/ame]

Fine-tune or muffle to taste.

John

Ditto on what Purdie said.

I use an emad with no muffling rings on the batter side,and an original Slingy

ambassador with a felt strip and no port on the reso.

The drum sounds great, to my ears anyway. :2Cents:

Stevo.

I have a coated emperor on the batter and a coated ambassador on the reso.Muffled with felt strip on the reso. Same for my 20". Sounds great!

Well after many head swaps both batter and reso and a variety of muffling scenarios here is where I am.

Remo PS3 on batter tuned about half turn above wrinkle, Yamaha reso with no port tuned a bit higher than batter and for muffling I had a piece of foam about 1 inch thick laying in the drum just touching both heads.

Drum has a nice low tone and a good combination of punch and resonance. I had to stop, I was driving myself and my wife nuts http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/images/smilies/Chair.gif

> I had to stop, I was driving myself and my wife nuts

Brother man, you don't know how many times I've thought to myself that drum keys should come with a mental health warning... 'Tuning drums can make you bat-$hit crazy! Hazardous to your cool!' Mind Blowi

John

I am running a Remo ps3 on the back coated. and emperor smooth white on the front with one moongel pad seen in the pic. this combo gives me the warmth that I want with the attack I need also to take on my Guitar players Marshall Slp 100 watt amp and Bass players Ampeg SVt. Moongel is killer. but it takes a learning curve to use, you don't just place where ever and think that's it. you have to experiment with the placement to it to find where the best sound for that drum is. I have a lot of kits and play many different ones, so moongel is my to go to damping method. Also the correct angle of your bass drum is important also as to have the beater striking the head flat so the entire beater is striking the head.

This is close to what I have done with my D-20 Yamaha 20" bass.

I used the coated emperor batter and the original coated (ambassador weight I think- original Remo made head) on the resonant side. I had to cut a hole since this head did duty as a batter for a while... I would not cut any hole otherwise.

Anyway, I went to the fabric store and got change back from a $5 to get two 36" long X 3" wide strips of wool blend felt cut for me. A lot of felt these days has little to no wool. I think I got a 50% wool/poly blend.

On the reso side I placed the felt behind the logo, so about 1/3 into the head. With a hole cut, it is easy to get a 'papery' sound but this works just fine to avoid that.

On the batter I run the felt very high, just barely on the head. At first it was the same as the front, but the volume of the drum fell way below the toms, so I needed a volume adjustment, and moved it up. Now, I can get either a 'tone-rich' sound (a touch of resonance) by bouncing the beater off the head, or a solid 'THUD by burying the beater in the head, just the way I like it.

If you want the vintage sound, I suggest you stay away from the hi-tech modern heads, but that's my opinion and why I chose the heads I did for my drum. I think Fiberskin heads can sound good on the older, originally calf headed drums too, but otherwise I avoid them.

Set up is important too. The beater should hit the center of the drum, and the beater shaft should be perpendicular to the floor. You may have to raise the front of the drum well off the floor to do this. If this is not an option, get a replacement beater (don't mangle the vintage one!) and bend it forward, so the pedal linkage is perpendicular where the beater strikes.

On my 20" drum, to hit center of the head (which is also key to a good sound with little overtones- just like hitting dead center of your snare vs. the edges) I have the beater on my DW 5000 pedal way low. This had an odd feel to it, but I added the beater shaft weight to the off side of the shaft (below the pivot, opposite the beater) and it feels AWESOME now. This makes the beater feel almost weightless, and you can of course move the weight around as you dial in the beater feel, but this thing as I have it is FAST.

Good luck and let us know how you make out!

LoLoLoLo But so very true. If the drum doesn't sound good the way I like I'm not happy till it does. I've spent days tuning certain drums till I get the sound I like. And with me there's always one problem child drum that breaks my balls. Coffee Break2

2B - If you are still having tuning issues and can't get the drum to do what you want then you may want to take a close look at your bearing edges and see if they are smooth and even. In many cases with these old drums the bearing edges left the factory and were not completely smooth and even and some just get a little funky over time. Some of these drums do require the bearing edges to be re-cut if they are bad but in a lot of these cases you can do the edges yourself by hand with sand papers of varying grits. Uneven bearing edges can cause tuning problems that won't be fixed by changing heads because the heads don't sit evenly all the way around the drum.