Remo Has A Quality Control Problem With Drum Heads Just Ask Robert Smith

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Producer/engineer Steve Evetts and I started to notice it in 2004. We were working on The Cure’s S/T record and would find that two out of three of the Remo heads we would put on the drums would be defective. They were either warped or completely devoid of any note being reproduced. This bothered singer Robert Smith so much that he penned the note to the left and had one of the assitants send it to Remo. It reads:

“To Remo, This is a bad head, Two in Three of these Artists Heads are rubbish, and it is taking up a lot of studio time taking off and putting on… Why is this? Robert, The Cure”

Unfortunately, it is not just the Artist Heads that are constantly defective. Steve and I, along with a few other producer/engineers we know, constantly have the problem of Remo’s quality control with their heads. Over the last 5 years, I have had to toss or return dozens of heads from their inability to be tuned properly. The evidence that this happens right at the factory is when you tap the head right out of the box, some of the heads won’t even produce anything aside from cardboard like resonance. Steve put it well:

“I am just sick and tired of the inconsistent quality of Remo heads now. With Evans heads – I don’t have to throw away/return 5 or 6 out of 10 heads anymore. Makes more sense to me.”

Despite both of us preferring the tone of Remo, the company has given us no other choice but to switch so we can get back countless hours of lost time. Subsequently since switching, we have no problem with Evans. This leads me to ask, have you had a problem with Remo too? If so, lets put some pressure on Remo to get their act together!

  • Art_Vandelay

    maybe someone should check robert smith’s lyrical quality control for the last few albums… yikes.

  • Anonymous

    maybe you can come up with better lyrics yourself?

  • Anonymous

    the lyrics aren’t the problem in the past few records, just the music.
    lose the schecters too while youre at it robert, they sound like ****.
    bring back the vintage fenders

  • Anonymous

    No. The drums are making a difference. A lot of people have ripped on Jason. His drumming is fine…but the quality of the drum head makes a big difference. As for lyrics, I can’t think of one song where Robert hasn’t chosen every word for a reason…either for effect or for how it melds with the music. He’s a lyrical genius…even if it is easy to get stuck in a “why can’t ever song sound like something from The Top” mentality.

  • Anonymous

    Yep, the lyrics are still great as well as the vocal delivery.
    The drum heads is what makes jason sound like he’s beating on cardboard boxes??

  • Anonymous

    Please don’t say f**** stupid things! Robert is a genius, his lyrics are amazing, he and the cure are great musicians!!! THE CURE FOREVER!!!

  • Peter-o

    It is funny how Robert blames Remo for the very well know critisized drum sound of his drummer…

  • Jesse Cannon

    Peter-o you dont get it, this has nothing to do with jasons sound it has to do with defective heads that us the engineers would realize are defective before jason ever sat down. This is not a drummers problem its a product problem.

  • Anonymous

    “The evidence that this happens right at the factory is when you tap the head right out of the box, some of the heads won’t even produce anything aside from cardboard like resonance.”
    I read somewhere that drumheads are like guitar strings: they are not meant to produce any tone until you tune them.
    I think it was a response to the publicity campaing put by Aquarian drumheads where they stated that their heads were better because you could hear an actual tone by tapping them just out of the box.
    “…some of the heads won’t even produce anything aside from cardboard like resonance.”
    well, it seems Jason produce that cardboard box sound even with non-defective drumheads. Please, help him to improve/fix that horrible sound. Please!

  • Anonymous

    I read somewhere that drumheads are like guitar strings: they are not meant to produce any tone until you tune them. >>>
    Well here would be the evidence against that, why if you tap the drum head beforehand and it sounds like a dead fish does it also sound terrible on the drum. Whereas if you tap the ones with some resonance to them and put them on a drum they sound great? Why if I do this to an evans head does it always make a resonant tone and then I put it on the drum and they sound right?

  • John

    Sorry but expecting a Remo head to sing out of the box,with no tension, is way out of line. The only heads that ever profused to do this were/are Aquarian heads. Evans head don’t sing either. So the entire premise is really off here. Bozzio’s line of Attack heads are the ones they used to compare with a guitar string…slack before tensioning and no predetermined nodal point from heating when the head is made. I am not saying at all there is no possibility of defective heads from ANY company becuase it happens….but this “flat sound out of a box” is really what is …well “rubbish” in this story. Sorry man it just is not a realistic expectation.

  • Jesse Cannon

    Hey John, stand by we have some video coming on this subject that may make you eat your words, give us 7 days and we will keep you updated.

  • John

    Hey …I am waiting for it….been playing drums and percussion over 25 years….on all types of heads….and have yet to really see a head right out of the box that “sings” to a true note (some hand percussion)…..I stand by what I stated. Bad heads happen…but all heads that sound “flat out of the box” are not neccesarily “rubbish”. Having someone who knows how to tune though …does help.You guys might want to look up Bob Gatzen….he tunes plenty of drums with Remo heads and others.

  • Anonymous

    Actually John, Bob Gatzen has made this claim (that a head out of the box will produce resonance unless it’s a bad head). And, he made a video demonstration of it. I just saw it on Youtube this week.

  • John

    Yep I know Bob does stuff for EVANS now…and has some great ideas regarding tuning. Still my real point in this is…you simply cannot judge head by whether or not it sings ou tof a box. Unlike Timbre matching (which DW does) tuning is not a ‘fixed pitch’ thing.A shell prodcues a note…and that is the note it has- say an A#… With heads…you can vary pitch…you might be able to tune a variety of pitches that “sound good”…once the head is on the drum if it tunes up well -then great…if not- ok then you may a have a defective head. However not all heads are set up to be tapped right out of a box…in fact some don’t even like the Aquarian system because to them it sounds too “perfect”.

  • Jesse Cannon

    No one claimed they should be at a fixed pitch, just making a sound other then a cardboard thud. Some of these heads make a thud and nothing while others make the note. Video being filmed tomorrow!

  • John

    I am not sayin gthe heads should be at a fixed pitch either…I was using that for illustration…not all heads should be expected to have any sound really until they are tensioned on the drum itself. So in other words unless a company is making the claim (for their product) that you should be able to tap them right out of the box…you should not judge them that way.