As far as acoustic drums are concerned, mesh heads are used to reduce the volume of the drums while retaining playability and feel. A good set of mesh drum heads will be more fun to play than acoustic drums with drum mutes.
Mesh Drum Heads Are Easy to Install
It’s easy to swap a set of mesh drum heads onto an acoustic drum kit. You simply replace the heads much like any other drum head replacement. You can use a drill to make the head replacement process a little faster, but it’s not necessary. When installing, you don’t need to worry about tuning them really, since mesh drum heads don’t provide tone like mylar heads do. But you can adjust the tension to get the preferred feel and rebound from each head around the kit.
Recommended Mesh Drum Heads for Acoustic Drums
We’ve tested out a few different types of mesh heads and here’s what we recommend for drummers who want to outfit their acoustic drum kit with mesh drum heads.
Remo Silentstroke Mesh Drum Heads
The Remo Silentstroke mesh heads are going to be one of the more quiet options. They are a single ply mesh drum head with a clean look and design. They almost look like a typical coated drum head until you look at them up close, so they can help give your kit a more natural look, even though it’s outfitted with mesh heads.
They play very nicely with good rebound and feel. These are recommended since they can be easy to find at drum shops that stock Remo heads and they also available in a wide range of sizes. They cost about the same as a typical mylar drum head.
They can be found at Amazon, Guitar Center and other drum shops out there.
Evans dB One Mesh Drum Heads
The Evans dB One mesh heads are designed with more features, but at their core they are mesh drum heads as well. They employ a patch in the center of the head to add a little bit of attack to the sound and to reduce the bouncy feel that mesh heads can sometimes have. They also have a foam ring on the bottom side of the head to dampen resonance of the drums around the kit. These features combine to offer a nice sounding low volume drum head that is quiet but still slightly resonant.
We recommend these because of their feel and their sound. They play very nicely and they get a little bit more resonant tone from your drums vs a plain single ply mesh head.
These heads can be found at Amazon, Guitar Center and other drum shops that stock Evans gear.
RTOM LV Mesh Drum Heads
The RTOM LV drum heads are designed to be more of a lower-volume mesh drum head rather than a completely silent drum head. They employ a patch in the center of the head to provide some attack and resonance, but they don’t have a foam ring like the Evans dB one heads do. This makes them a little more resonant than the dB One heads while also still reducing the volume by a decent amount.
We recommend these heads since they can be found in packs with 10, 12, 14, 16 and 22 inch head sizes for a pretty good price. The sets are cheaper than the Remo or Evans options and they play very nicely.
These are little harder to find in the wild, but they can be found at Amazon and Guitar Center.
These three styles of mesh drum heads are our favorites to recommend. There’s also some other options out there, but they can be harder to find a full set depending on what size your drums are. If you have a local drum shop that specializes in specific brands of drum gear or drum heads, they might also have some options that are similar to the heads we’ve discussed here but from different brands.
