Remo Powerstroke 3 Black Dot

A lot of the time when people think about drums, we talk about woods, construction, different brands, different players and historical sounds that were captured on certain recordings. As a recording engineer and a producer, I personally have seen many expensive kits sound worse than a cheap one that was tuned well with a great set of skins. First there was the Remo Powerstroke 3 – I know it sounds like some type of crazy lawnmower, but the original Powerstroke 3 was a well-designed, well thought out bass drum skin, featuring a thin underlay around the edge of the head to subtly reduce high frequency overtones. This resulted in an almost perfect balance of colour and response, yet still drummers still needed more attack and strength from the skin finding it desirable to throw on a patch, which ended up killing tone and put the focus on the click created.

Remo recognised this and decided to add a black dot to the Powerstroke 3 in order to still get enough attack without sacrificing low end, dynamic strokes and durability. Inspiration came from drumming legend Steve Smith, who realised that the black dot created a lower fundamental note among all different bass drum sizes and shell types, and according to Smith the coated version, his personal favourite, provides even more low end than the clear head. Vinnie Colaiuta, John Tempesta, Eric Hernandez, and Alex Rudinger are among Remo's artists that have found their sound with the new Powerstroke 3 Black Dot bass heads, and the single ply of 10mm film, with a 10mm inlay ring and 5mm dot for 14” to 32” drums, makes them ideal for marching bands.