EVANS BLACK CHROME DRUM HEADS

112
| JANUARY 2013 WWW.RHYTHMMAGAZINE.CO.UK
GEAR REVIEW
W
ay, way back in 1956, pro
drummer Marion Chick’
Evans created the rst ever
synthetic drum head. This
paved the way for the millions of drummers
worldwide to benefi t from his great invention
we now take for granted. Evans, (under the
wing of music giant D’Addario), has continued
the tradition of innovative designs including
the fat oil-dampened Hydraulic, the warm and
punchy EC2 – with its unique ‘Edge Control’
ring and now these brand new Black Chrome
models, aimed specifi cally at heavy hitters.
Build
For review I have a selection of ‘seriously
deepBlack Chrome heads, covering shell
sizes 8" to 16". Each example is constructed
from two plies the top is a 7-mil (1-mil =
1/1000th of an inch) slice of ‘optically clear’
material, while the lower (fi nished in a matte
black), is slightly thicker at 7.5-mil. It is the
shiny top layer which gives the heads their
mirror-like chromed nish, reminiscent of
a still, dark watery pool.
The head extremities are drilled around
the circumference and shaped using a
water-cooled moulding process.
This creates an incredibly rigid
collar with a crimped’ effect
much like a metal crown
cork’ bottle top found
on beer bottles. Once
trimmed, the drilled
edge is placed into a
channel within an
aluminium hoop and
glued with an epoxy
resin. This ows into
the channel and the
drilled holes, locking it
tightly into the hoop.
Hands On
The rigid collar seems to create
some pre-tensioning, giving the head
an element of musicality before going
anywhere near the shells. Once in position,
they are nger-tightened and pitched fairly
closely at each lug point. With only a couple of
turns of the key, any hint of a crease at the
edges has long gone and they are suffi ciently
tight to begin to play. Immediately they give
out a warm and punchy sound, without
making them slack or heavily damped in
order to achieve this.
Even with the heads cranked up, there is
still an underlying low fundamental, but the
ease at which these have an apparent ‘near
perfect’ tuning is purely down to the head and
not the person turning the drum key! The
toms have the perfect balance of resonance
and dampening to be able to handle live
situations or to record without fear of clouding
the mix. As Evans suggests, they are incredibly
dark sounding, but not at the expense of
being dull and lifeless.
From £16.49 A set of cool-looking heads designed to warm-up your sound
EVANS BLACK
CHROME DRUM HEADS
WORDS: DAVE HOLMES
VERDICT: While these Evans heads
appear slightly more expensive than
others on the market, they are incredibly
durable, sound amazing, are easy to
tune, look stunning – what more can I
say, what more can you want?
BUILD QUALITY
PLAYABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY
RATING
PRICES
8", £16.49; 10", £16.99; 12",
£17.99; 14", £19.99; 16",
£22.49
REVIEW SIZES
8", 10", 12", 14", 16"
SIZES AVAILABLE
6" to 20"
HEAD
CONSTRUCTION
Dual-ply polyester – 7-mil
top layer, 7.5-mil
secondary layer
IN-BUILT
DAMPENING
None
FINISHES
AVAILABLE
As pictured
CONTACT
D’Addario
0191 300 3000
www.evansdrumheads.com
Essential spec
BLACK CHROME
The Black Chrome
heads are aimed
specifi cally at
heavy-hitters
THICKNESS
Each of the heads is constructed
from two plies – the top is a 7-mil
slice of ‘optically clear’ material; the
lower slightly thicker at 7.5-mil
RHY211.gear_evans.indd 112 11/21/12 4:18 PM

Summary of content (1 pages)