Lucas Aldridge takes a look at and plays a new product from Remo that utilizes a felt strip integrated with the head for muffling. Available at http://remo.com/products/product/powerstroke-p3-felt-tone-hazy/
Lucas Aldridge and I finally got our hands on some Felt Tone Heads from Remo and they are the bomb. We put the FiberSkyn on the batter side and the hazy on the front, and used matching regular heads for comparison. Felts have been attached/glued to heads before. The difference here is that the felt is NOT adhered to the head but adhered to the plastic strip which holds it against the head. This plastic strip also continues on around the circumference of the head acting as a very narrow "zero Ring" similar to the Power Stroke heads. The felt strip does not come between the head and the drum's bearing edge at any point. The sound: much punchier than the same type head using the traditional felt placement, but with just as much tone and resonance. Muffling with felt strips has been associated mostly with jazz drums and jazz drummers. This new head would work well for rock, pop and funk because it is more controlled, more consistent in pressure against the head, and it has a punchier sound. I'm going to go with these on my personal kits at some point because there is no need for a pillow and it will get a little more volume and response from the shell, but I never break bass drum heads! :-) We give Felt Tone a big thumbs up. Well thought out, guys and gals at Remo.
(disclaimer: that noise? Rain on the tin roof. :-) Also pardon the inconsistent talking volume levels and that we did not tune the comparisons to the same note. DOH! We had to crank this one out quickly. Perhaps we will redo it later). More video reviews to come.