@cold_fashioned – a great project indeed! Forums and YouTube are great places to explore heads and tuning – figure out what kind of sound or style you like and want to achieve (lots of tone or something more dry, vintage vibe, jazz, hip hop, 80s rock etc.) and go from there. Generally speaking, if you want hard-wearing heads, coated ones are the way to go, and 2 ply are more dry whilst clear ones are more resonant.
Tuning gets a lot of different advice… Tuning takes time and experimentation, and some understanding of intervals, but is a satisfying thing to do. I personally like to get the kick tuned first, then tune snare and toms to intervals above that, be it 3rds, 5ths or 8ves. But essentially each drum has a comfortable resonance that it’s happy at, so keeping close to that, or an interval of that is good where possible. If recording a specific track, obviously you can tune the kit to that track. Also, always use a star pattern when tightening heads to avoid uneven stretching – plenty of info on the web about this.
My personal preference on my own kit is:
Kick: Evans EMAD or Aquarian Super Kick on batter side. I’ve got Remo Fiberskyn for the look and for some vintage tone on the reso side, but they’re hard to tune if you like to port for mics as I do! So I’d probably recommend a more standard reso head. I also use a Sonitus Kicker and a felt strip to further tune if / where needed. Both heads are as loose as can be without sounding flappy, and tuned up a touch from there to find a good punchy balance.
Toms: Aquarian Performance II on batter (although I want to try their studio heads!) and Aquarian Classic Clear reso. Moongels to tame any tricky resonances. I tune the bottom head to an interval that’s higher than the top head, for a nice sonorous tone
Snare: Evans Genera HD Dry on batter (these are awesome sounding if you like a dry snare!), Evans Hazy 300 snare side. I tend to tune quite low for my tastes, but varies depending on what it’s being used for. I like to experiment with damping – moongels, or a duster, or a big fat snare pad… Plenty of different sounds to be had.
On live kits where the emphasis is on being hard-wearing with a range of players and styles (if you’ve got young lively kids, this might also apply), it’s a bit more generic:
Kick: EMAD batter, Remo Powerstroke reso (ported for mics), normally a Kicker or pillow inside for damping
Snare: Coated Emperor batter, Hazy snare side
Toms: Coated Emperor batter, Remo Ambassador Clear reso. Any extra tuning of resonances done with strips of gaffer tape!
It was a super fun project.
If you get chance to mess around with an acoustic kit, go down the rabbit hole… Learn about different heads, how to properly tune a kit, take it all apart and re-build it. Great fun.
)