These days, Gilly, you can get synthetic heads whose tone is very close to real hide, so you get the tone without the frequent re-tensioning.

Of course, a real hide head will settle down, given time, but I've been a vegan all my life and so a real skin head...well, it wasn't (isn't) an option for me.

But boy, yes, a North Star with a 12-inch head, sure can shout :)

Fred