Aquarian has become my drumhead of choice

The Aquarian Force is highly underrated. Great bass drum head, much livelier than the popular SK, that I personally don’t like, too dead, too hard. The Force has a wider ring than the Powerstroke, great feel.
I have yet to try the Force, I’ve always been a SK fan but I’ll have to give the coated Force a shot soon
 
Well…let’s see. The design is basically the same as the Powerstroke 3 but there are differences between the two:

From the Remo website:

The Powerstroke® 3 Clear features focused mid and low tones with well-defined attack. Constructed 1-ply 10-mil Clear film with a 3-mil inlay ring for Toms and Snares and a 10-mil inlay ring for Bass drumheads, Powerstroke® 3 Clear provides a perfect balance of response and tone control. Available in sizes 6" - 36".

From the Aquarian website:

The Full Force™ single ply, medium weight bass drumhead feature an acoustically “vented” muffling ring tucked into the hoop on the underneath side of the head. The muffling ring helps control overtones and features vent holes along its perimeter that allow the ring and head to move as one. This 10mil head has a powerful attack with outstanding projection with just the right amount of tone control. A free Kick Pad™ is included with every Full Force head.


Aquarian doesn’t mention the thickness of the inlay ring on their Force product, but it feels thicker to me and there is a bit more material on the inlay ring itself, as if it is larger. (Or…goes into the head further.) For some unknown reason, I get a fuller, more complete tone with the Force I batter head than I do with the Powerstroke 3 head. Same drum, same tuning, but enough of a difference for me to prefer the Aquarian over the PS3 most times.

Probably doesn’t help, but there you go.
Thanks ,good info !
 
The Aquarian Force is highly underrated. Great bass drum head, much livelier than the popular SK, that I personally don’t like, too dead, too hard. The Force has a wider ring than the Powerstroke, great feel.
Thanks Tam, i agree ,i tried the aquarian SK and did not like it for the same reasons, it made the BD sound hard and boxey . I will have to give the Force head a try.
 
I tried them. I even went to the factory and picked out what I wanted and met the family - really nice folks. But the shallower collar made my rims higher and it took me a while to get used to that. With the same height of collars between Remo and Evans, I can go back and forth or mix them up in an emergency. With Aquarian I can’t do that. But they make great stuff - I’ve never seen a coating last as long.
 
They always felt thick and a bit stiff the last I tried them which has been quite a few years- they are impressive how long coated last.
 
I had clear super 2s on my rack toms and performance 2s on my fl. toms of a Yamaha BCAN kit that I had and they were great. I have clear super 2s on my 80s power tour custom Yamahas and not so good at least the 13 anyway. The 12 and 16 sound great now that I think about it. I need to check out the 13. I've always been a fan of SK1 heads. The 2 kits that I gig with have Evans EC2s on rack toms and EMAD 1s on the kicks. They sound great. I should try super 2s on my gigging kits. I don't like a plasticky sound so I don't think I got that from the super 2s I used in the past and I'm sure I'm not getting it currently with the Evans heads.
 
well.. i went from SK2 to SK1 and seems that might be why i'm not happy with my kick.. sounds fine all eq'd but like a box in person.. might try a force clear instead..

Either that or the falam pad? guess i will find out :)
 
I've used a fair amount of Aquarian heads.

Toms
Performance 2s clears, over classic clears ( on all combos). A little dead for my taste.
Response 2 coated and clear , Not a bad head, Similar to most popular 2 ply heads.
Studio X. Way too thuddy.
Super 2s clear. I liked those the best of their 2 ply heads. Decent tone and a lot of attack.

Snares,
New Orleans Special, Similar to Studio X,
Jack DeJohnette. I liked those OK.
Triple Threat, Way too heavy. Took it off in less than a day.
Reflector. Too heavy, Used it for a few days
Classic Coated, Nice head.

Kick
All the claer Super kicks paired with Regulators. A little too thuddy
Force series. Those were OK.

Probably a few other I've forgotten about.
 
Here are my impressions of what I've tried...

Super 2 clear (7+5-mil) - very clear and open for a 2-ply head. These seem to work really well on smaller toms, where a thicker head might choke or sound dull, these sing a little better.
Response 2 clear (7+7-mil) - Nice tone, good feel. Your standard 2-ply head.
Performance 2 clear (7+7-mil) - two-ply with a sealed edge, like a Pinstripe. Solid, with a little more control than the Response 2. I liked these a lot on my birch tom toms, and I think they're great if you like to tune on the lower side.
Force 10 clear (10+10-mil) - I've only used this head on my lowest floor tom, and it works surprisingly well for getting a low, centered pitch without any need for additional muffling to control overtones. I'm only guessing but this would probably be overkill on anything smaller than (maybe) a 14" tom in my opinion.

Texture Coated and Texture Coated Reverse Dot (10-mil) - Your standard single ply head, both great for snare drums, but they both benefit from having Aquarian's unbreakable coating.
Texture Coated with Studio X ring (10-mil) If you aren't familiar the Studio X heads have a ring of dot material near the edge on the underside of the head. I really like this head on snares if you want a little overtone control but keep the feel of a regular single ply head. I've recently gone through a reverse dotted head phase, but I think I'm about to go back to the coated Studio X on my snares.
New Orleans Special (10-mil) - It's a clear head with a 13" dot on top. It's an...interesting head. It has the stiffness of a dotted head, but it doesn't have the dramatic change in tone you get when you change from playing on the dot to near the dot, since the dot takes up essentially the entire possible playing surface. Whether or not you'd like this head depends a lot on your feelings about the feel of dotted head, and your feelings about high overtones. Since it's just a plain old clear film at the edge there is almost no overtone suppression, making it both a lively and yet thick-feeling head all at once.
Reflector Coated (10+7-mil) - Has a rough dark gray coating for a unique look. I've tried it on a couple of my snares and it seems to work on overly ringy drums best, though if durability is a big concern this is definitely one of those "forever" kinds of heads.

Modern Vintage Medium (10-mil) - 1-ply with thick, rough, yellowish coating. Aquarian's take on faux-calfskin heads. They have boosted mids and feel a little heavier compared to Texture Coated. If you like a standard 1-ply but you want a little something more in the tone department these are great heads. I've played them tuned up bebop tight and Ringo loose and they sound great in any range.
Modern Vintage 2 (7+7-mil) - 2-ply with the vintage coating. If you prefer the feel of a 2-ply head but once again want a different, warmer and darker tone, these are great heads.
Deep Vintage 2 (10+10-mil) - I use these either for snares or the lowest-sounding floor tom. It's a lot of head, but it's surprisingly sensitive on snare drums, and (like the Force 10) leads to a low but controlled sound on big floor toms.
 
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Got my force 1 and really didn't like it at first, but.. changed beaters and kind of love it now. more focused sound and less muddy than the SKs.. i switched from my bomber beater i have used forever to jut the hard beater that came with my pedal and it's so much fuller.
 
Got my force 1 and really didn't like it at first, but.. changed beaters and kind of love it now. more focused sound and less muddy than the SKs.. i switched from my bomber beater i have used forever to jut the hard beater that came with my pedal and it's so much fuller.
Yea man, gonna have to try one now, but I got a Reflector SK on the way first so the Force is next in line.
 
I was an Evans fan in the early 90's but switched to Aquarian heads after some experimentation and never looked back. Currently using Clear Force I for batter on all my bass drums with a Modern Vintage Medium with felt strip as a reso head for great tone. If I need a bit more muffling I'll use a SKI on the bass drum batter for a bit more thud than tone. For toms I'm sold on the Super 2 Clear with Studio X Ring. Snare heads mostly vary between Texture Coated, Texture Coated with Power Dot and Coated Studio X, although in all fairness I still have some snares with Evans and Remo heads.
 
My percussion instructor used all Aquarian on his premier drum set. Sounded huge. Not plastic-y.
 
I'm a pretty big Evans guy but my drum teacher has an Aquarian Hi-Velocity on his practice kit's Mapex snare drum with a high tuning and I LOVE the way that snare sounds. I've been trying to hunt one of those heads down to try it on one of my spare snares to see if I can get my snare to sound like that but everyone seems to be sold out of them.
 
Hopefully my 13" tom will be here in 5 months and starting to feel nostalgic towards my first kit. It was a Pearl Export (10, 12, 13, 16, 22, 14 sn) and at that time i used Aquarian heads on them. Believe i had clear Response 2's on the toms, Texture Coated with powerdot on the snare and a Full Force (maybe FF2) as batter head since i broke my bass head 2 times (because of the hard plastic beater and no kickpad). I had coated Response 2's on the kit after that (and a coated Double Thin on the 8"), but those didn't work on that kit. Didn't use Aquarian again after that and has been more than 15 years since i got one.

So, when my 13" comes in I'll drop my 8" tom and go with the setup my old Export had (and moving my 14" FT to the left). On my recent kits i really liked coated heads on my floor toms, but disliked them on my 8 and 10" toms since i found that coated head needed to tune a tad higher to sound good. Went back to clear heads. Since the 13" is underway and i have so bigger rack tom sizes, i want to try coated heads again and decided to give coated Response 2's a go again. Always loved the sound of coated heads on recordings, but figured they only work for me on bigger sizes.

I still have the ones from 2 decades ago and also the Classic Clears i used, but will get new ones. A little afraid they won't sound that good anymore, but also for aesthetic reasons; the 13 and 16" toms would have the new logo and that would annoy the crap out of me haha.
 
I have played a SKII for years. I think I'm going to try the force 1, and probably put the slim kickpad on it.

I just can't hear the SKII from my throne. I think it's time I went single ply and tried something different for a change
 
I have played a SKII for years. I think I'm going to try the force 1, and probably put the slim kickpad on it.

I just can't hear the SKII from my throne. I think it's time I went single ply and tried something different for a change
I have an SK2 on a Pearl Export 20 x 16, and I have the same complaint. Sounds good when you can hear it. I’m not sure replacing the SK2 is the answer, but I don’t have other 20” heads and don’t think I want to keep it. Maybe if I can weasel one off a friend I’ll try another head ;)
 
I just can't hear the SKII from my throne
I know this is an Aquarian thread, but Evans EMad 1, 2, GMad, or even the Heavyweight. What I like most about the EMad is they sound perfect from the drivers seat as well as FOH. I always found the SKs too dampened to sound good from the throne, although out front they sound great.
 
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