DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

I changed to Aquarian drum heads about five years ago, after growing up with Remo. I was swayed by Aquarian’s geek-appeal advertising, which explains how the hoops are constructed and why Aquarian’s approach is superior. I’ve had great success with these heads.

Recently I was re-heading my entire kit. As an experiment I installed the Performance II model, which is designed to be tuned low, but I had an unexpected difficulty — one of the new heads refused to tune up. This is an incredibly frustrating problem; it goes like this: tighten each lug evenly, moving around the head in the prescribed pattern. At a medium tension level, tap the head near each lug to listen for gross differences in pitch. Locale a high spot. Loosen the nearest tension rod to drop the pitch. Oops, the tension rod comes completely free, but the head is still higher in pitch at that spot.

How the heck can the head be tightest at the spot where there’s no tension?

This could be caused by out-of-round shells, trashed bearing edges, or defective heads. I’d just had my shells’ bearing edges reground, so I was confident the shells were not at fault. Against all odds, the problem must have been the head.

I took the head off completely, rotated it about 30°, and tried again. Same results.

Ultimately I was able to get an even tuning out of the head, by cranking it down tight, resulting in a usable but lifeless tone. So I sent an email to Aquarian asking if the head could have been defective. The response I got was a surprise: an email back from Roy Burns, drummer extraordinaire, founder and president of the company.

I called him with some hesitation. Surely he has better things to do than handle customer complaints. “Oh, I handle all the complaints,” he assured me. And then he offered to replace the defective head. On my say-so, he’d ship me a new one.

After a moment’s thought, I declined. I explained that I’d managed to make the head work, but decided that I didn’t like the Performance II model. Roy asked about my band and my playing style, recommended a lighter, livelier head (the Response 2), and asked what sizes of toms I play. I told him, wondering why it mattered. He surprised me a third time: He offered to send me a whole set of new heads.

My band has a gig in the town square in a couple weeks. I am so tempted to hang a sign reading “Endorsed by Aquarian Drumheads!” But I’m afraid Roy wouldn’t appreciate it. Deep down, though, I know it’s true, even if only for this one show.