Can't tune my damn drums!!! grrr!

shamonemofo

Hi Lads,

If i'm on the wrong section please point me elsewhere!
I recently bought a new Pearl Masters Maple Custom kit and i am having a real issue with tuning the drums... don't know if it's my technique or the skins i am using for the shells..

I am using some Pinstripe Skins on all the toms except the kick drum which is a gmad Evans.

I can't seem to get a nice sound and deep tuning with out this over spring of resonance! now i am using some drum dampning rings and they work a little, but i'm losing the voice of the actual drum!

Which sucks considering i am going to be gigging this kit in venues that i won't be miccing up the kit...!
Any suggestions drumming comrades?????!!!

Shamonemofo!

vs1824

You'll get all the advice you need here

http://www.drummingireland.com

Malice

vs1824 wrote: »

You'll get all the advice you need here

http://www.drummingireland.com

No need to go off to another forum. I've moved this to Playing & Techniques & Theory.

DerKaiser

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu4h3C8TkZM

This is fairly useful

Drummerboy08

You need to spend some time playing around with your drums to get the sound you want. It took me hours of tuning and detuning to get what I wanted.

I suppose the first question is do you actually know how to tune a drum properly? I'd suggest looking it up - there's plently of very good posts on the Pearl drummers website to point you in the right direction. Make sure the heads are all evenly tensioned and there is no slack any where on the heads either.

The second question is what kind of room have you been playing it in? Have you experienced not being able to tune in different rooms or has the kit been in the same room the whole time? Different rooms will resonate differently, causing your kit to change tones/volume.

Why have you picked Pinstripes as heads (not that there's anything wrong with them, I just find a drum harder to tune with them for some reason)? I've found that Remo Ambassador Coated heads seem to be the easiest to tune on my kit (Pearl Session Custom Birch) for some reason. It varies from kit to kit, but that's what does it for me. I think Coated heads in general seem to be easier to tune.

As I said before, play around, try different heads, look up a few videos/tutorials on how to tune a drum, and see. Practice is the only way you'll get it. I'd also take a look of on Drumming Ireland too, there's lots of good advice over there.

Hope this helps.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

if you are not miking the kit , then you NEED the resonance to fill out the overall drum sound and presence.
and you may have to tune ot the room abit , smaller rooms like lower tunings
larger ones , higher tunings

the pitch falls off alot as you move away from the stage , as more bass harmonics take over
and you dont hear the ring at all.
just nice tone.

you and the rest of the place wont hear the ring once the band starts.

its this ring that project the kit unmiked.

you may want to consider miking the kick drum in a gig though if the pa can take it
even just a little , as it gets lost easily .

if you were miking , then I would suggest thicker heads and lower tunings
to let the mic do the work without exceessive hum and ring

john bonahm played big drums tuned pretty tight , loads of ring and resonance.

what style of music do you prefer to play ?

Nick Dolan

This guy Bob Gatzen has an excellent DVD you should track down.This is one of the sections on you tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ9Unab1OzU&feature=related

I wish i still had the DVD but it opens yours ears overnight.Plus theres some fantasticly cheesey infomercial dialogue with some other dude during a drum duet
("hey man! i feel like drumming!"
"yeah! gotta play!")

shamonemofo

Thanks guys, your suggestions have been more than helpful!
I'm not entirely sure why i went for Pinstripe skins... when i went to a particular music shop and sked the guys advise, he practically shoved them down my neck as soon as i said they kit was maple wood.

he said that i was wating my time putting anything else on the kit except for pinstripe skins..!

The kit itself has been kept in the same room for the moment... the tuning just seems to be overly resonant.. i get what your saying though with regard to the sound needing to have a bit of resonance at a gig for it to travel.. I have tried Dampners+Dampning Rings but it's just one contrast to the other..

As a guy who has always had a budget kit, i was under the illusion that if you buy and expensive kit, you shouldn't have to kill urself to get a good tuning...

fobster

shamonemofo wrote: »

I'm not entirely sure why i went for Pinstripe skins... when i went to a particular music shop and sked the guys advise, he practically shoved them down my neck as soon as i said they kit was maple wood.

he said that i was wating my time putting anything else on the kit except for pinstripe skins..!

Beware the over-zealous shop assistant...

DeBunny

shamonemofo wrote: »

As a guy who has always had a budget kit, i was under the illusion that if you buy and expensive kit, you shouldn't have to kill urself to get a good tuning...

I did the opposite. I went for an expensive kit and cheap cymbals. If I was to do again I'd go for a budget kit, which you can can always get a good sound out of, if you put the effort in. Cheap cymbals are always going to sound bad.

A good tip I learned for tuning drums is to train your ear musically. Practice tuning a guitar by ear, with a keyboard or piano. Learn a couple of songs and be able to sing them with out listening along to the original. With a good ear you'll find it a lot easier to hear which parts of the skin are a higher or lower pitch than others as well as expanding your drumming abilities.
You could also use a digital tuner to tune the kit to a certain key. This will allow you to get a consistent sound from your kit each time you re-tune it.
It sounds great with melodic songs.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

for the toms

start with you 16 inch tom , put heads on finger tight
tune the bottom head first , give it 1.5 turns of the key to each lug
then sit on the head and bounce up a down lightly to seat it and break any glue if its remo
then tune it up 2 turns each lug .

tap the head about 1 inch from each lug , lightly with a biro or a pencil find the one that sounds highest in pitch , and tune the rest up to it , using very small touches of the key per lug .

repeat the above process for the top head
but bring her up about 1.5 turns instead of 2 the second time .


now put your 16 upside down beside the 14 and do the 14 heads
do the bottom head , and tune it up as you did with the 16 .

now you know the tune HERE COMES the bride ?
( THE FIRST LINE OF THE SONG ONLY )

well the note HERE and the note COMES are a musical 4th apart ( same as the strings on a bass ) tune the 14 bottom so that if the 16 bottom is HERE then the 14 bottom is COMES

then do the 14 top head and adjust so the the 16 top and 14 top also play the HERE COMES thing .

then

TAKE THE 14 and do the 12
then take the 12 and do the 10


FOR THE 13

you need to sit it between the 14 and 12 so tune the bottom head so it fits in between
( should be a musical 3rd )

so that it sound like you are going down from 12 to 13 to 14 .

and do same with top heads .


some guys tune the toms to the bass guitar as close as possbile ( EADG 16.14.12.10 )


see if this helps .

dezdrums

Figuring out how to tune a drum set is a real pain, I like some of the videos online, I learn better by seeing what's happening. There's a nice how to tune drums page that gave me some pointers too, but the vids are best.

Malice

dezdrums: Welcome to Boards. Please note that it's generally frowned upon to respond to old threads and this thread's last post was January 2010.