MACHO123 wrote:As for synthetic heads, it depends. Most pros wont use them because of the sound.
Macho 123, I think the trend today is actually the other way around most pros are using synthetic heads.
In some cases the pros carry their own spare synthetic heads when they travel. I know too that many
people don't like the water buffalo heads that come from the factory on conga drums but I have
seen the pros like for example Giovanni Hidalgo time after time play on those heads and sound and play
only like Giovanni can sound and play. But any way it just matter of preference and how much money
you are willing to expend. On some drums specially older drums is not ideal to mount thick heads because
them shells and hardware were not designed to take all the pressure required to tune thick heads specially
thick mule heads. So have to be careful with mounting thick heads, shells and hardware on some drums may
actually fail.
Personally I use synthetic and rawhide heads; for the most part I prefer rawhide heads on my fiberglass drums
but on wood drums I use both types of heads. I hope this helps also.