Of the three, this head was definitely the most interesting and challenging to make. Rick's target kit was a vintage 1965 Gretsch done in a champagne sparkle finish. Sparkle heads are hard enough to replicate, but vintage finishes age differently and are especially difficult. Rick and I actually started talking about these heads at Winter NAMM '07, and we started doing research and testing around then.
Rick had a small piece of the finish wrap he was able to send us to work from. Wrap material is generally very thick and hard (think laminate for countertops), so you couldn't even think about applying something like that to a drum head. It would literally turn the kick drum into something that sounds more like a cardborard box than a drum.
While we can't disclose our proprietary method for sparkle matching, suffice it to say that it's a very labor-intensive, very custom process. Even though it looks so similar to the original hard, thick wrap, the base material for these heads is very thin and flexible so it has very little effect on the sound of the drum. Extrordinary!
