Get A Head

Drum Tuning and Head Selection

Ask a novice or intermediate drummer what they find the most difficult thing to do on a drum kit and many won’t talk about some complex rhythm or beat but about how difficult they find tuning their kit.

The trick to proper tuning is equal tension on every lug. This sounds like a simple concept, but it can drive even the most seasoned professional completely nuts. There is not a day go by in a busy drum shop that some frustrated drummer arrives with a drum that just will not tune to his or her satisfaction.

Let’s tackle this problem right from the beginning. Begin on the resonant head (bottom). Begin by removing both the hoops and the old skins from the drum. Clean the bearing edges with a soft cloth and tip the drum over and ensure any loose dust and wood chips are dumped out. You don’t want this clutter between the bearing edge and the new skin.

Fit the new head over the bearing edge on the reso side. Does it sit evenly all the way around making complete contact with the bearing edge? Or does it seem too small with one side resting on the bearing edge and the other hovering suspended over the bearing edge, but not touching. There is nothing wrong; it is just that your new head needs to be seated onto your drum.

Carefully balance the new head so that it does not fully touch either side of the bearing edge. Gingerly place the metal hoop over your new head and let the weight pull the skin a bit closer to the bearing edge. Insert 4 tension rods… gently. One at 12 o’ clock, one at 6, one at 3 and one at the 9 o’ clock position. Gently screw in the ones at the top and bottom of your drum using both hands to turn the tension rod down until it has pulled the skin evenly towards the hoop. Do the same for the two remaining tension rods. What is happening here is the skin is forming to the bearing head evenly around the drum forming a new crease that is specific to your drum.

Make sure these four tension rods are finger tight. Now working across the drum install tension rods at the remaining positions 2 then 8, 10 and 4, 1 and 7, 11 and 5. Ensure they too are finger tight.

Now, using the fleshy part of your palm, push down firmly in the center of the drum skin. The skin should wrinkle alarmingly and maybe you will even hear a cracking sound. This is only the extra rim glue giving way, nothing to worry about.

Finger tighten each lug again. If one seems really loose you may have not have had the head evenly placed on the drum the first time through. Get them all as tight as you can with your fingers only.

Now get two drum keys. Place one at 12 and the other at 6 and put a half turn to full turn on each lug. Move to the 3 and 9 position and do the same. Work around the remaining lugs until each has a half or one turn on each of them. Did any lug feel particularly loose? If yes, now is the time to fix that by bringing it up to the same finger tension as the rest.

Push with your palm once more.

Now we want to see if we have a tone. Tap the new head about a half inch from each lug and listen. If the drum has no tone and just sounds flabby, add another half turn on each tension rod until you achieve a pure tone. Is the pitch high or low compared to its neighbor? Always tune the lower lug to the higher one. Adding tension is always more precise than loosing tension. These adjustments will be very small, a quarter turn or less on each tuning rod. You are trying to keep the tension on each tension rod the same as you work around the drum. With each cycle of tuning check the sound of the overall drum by picking it up by the rim and playing it. Is it too low? Are there weird overtones?

Too low is an easy fix. Just keep tuning adding a quarter turn on each tension rod working across the drum until you reach a general pitch you like.

Those weird tones? This means one lug (tension rod) is looser than the others and causing this overtone. This can be the most difficult and frustrating part… go slow. Tap at each lug do they sound the same? Higher? Lower? Fine tune as necessary. You will not get the entire ring out and you don’t want too. The ring offers overtones that will cut through the rest of the band and let you be heard. Slight overtones are desirable. If the drum tones at each lug are the same pitch and there is still too much ring, use a square of moon gel to tame them. I always place my moon gel on over the logo on the drum head. But I am a bit compulsive.

Many drummers tune the bottom head (resonant) slightly tighter than the top (batter). This gives the drum a particular descending tone. I like both heads equally tensioned. A simple way to check this is with a “Drum Dial” this tool measures the displacement of the skin or its tension when poked with a small pin. It is highly sensitive but does have some quirks. You need to completely remove the drum dial from contact with the skin each time you want a new reading. If you drag it to the next lug it gives a false reading. I use this tool when I want to be very sure that the tension is even all around the drum.

Specifically on snare drums, the bottom head should be very tight as you want the snares to react to the slightest movement. So crank up those snare bottoms pretty tight. A reading of 85 to 95 on a Drum Dial is not uncommon.

Trying to tune old and pitted heads is setting yourself up for failure. Moving one head from one drum to another can also land you in a world of trouble. Each drum is slightly different and as heads become seated on a drum the soft aluminum ring on each head molds to that drum and can make changing from one drum to another really difficult. I suggest you always start with a new head and save those headaches for when you have years of tuning experience.

Every time you play a drum especially snare drums the lug closest to where you strike the skin or rim will eventually back out and loosen. This is entirely normal. After a particularly wild set, I have noticed that tension rod laying on the ground beneath my snare from the pounding I laid on it. So don’t be afraid of tuning and don’t expect it to be a once a year job. Tuning drums is just like your guitar player tuning his axe, it happens many times an evening usually.

There are bits and bobs that claim to hold lugs tight but I have never used one that did more than delay tuning a song or two.

What will happen once you have tuned a few hundred drums is that you will be able to feel the tension of a lug and match it to the tension of others and become a kind of human “drum dial” able to tune by hand quickly and surely.

Let’s touch on drum head selection too. So many young drummers claim to be a “hard hitter” and thinks that if they buy the thickest head with multiple layers of Mylar and dots on it they will not dent it and damage it. They are missing the point entirely. A single ply head is not for “light players” it is for players who want the most tone out of their drum. A single ply of Mylar resonates freely and picks up all the tone of the wood from your kit. Multiple layers of Mylar mute that tone and more of the overall tone is lost.

Try this for yourself, buy a Remo Ambassador (single ply) and a Remo Emperor (double ply) and install them onto the batter head of your snare drum. Tune them up and see which sound you prefer. The Emperor will sound “Dryer” meaning it will have less overtones and more fundamental thud. Sounds like a good thing right? But have a buddy play your snare with the band and see what happens. The snare needs to be hit harder to produce the same volume and attack. That is because you lost all those overtones that cut through the band and make you easier to hear through the din. So by adding plies you may actually have to hit the drum harder to get the same volume. Kinda defeats the whole idea that double plies will last longer doesn’t it?

Stick damage to a drum skin is inevitable that’s why they can be removed and changed. But it is usually technique or the lack of it that is more responsible for damage to the heads. Top drummers claim that they “pull” the tone out of their drums. This means that rather than burying the stick in the head they hit the drum and quickly pull the stick away letting the tone ring out.

Again try this yourself and be prepared to be amazed. Pulling the sound out of a drum takes practice, but the results are wonderfully resonant drums that sing.

There is a time and place for different kinds of heads and experimentation and rule breaking is encouraged in drummers. I like Evans EC2S heads on some toms and Remo Black dots just look freaking cool. So have fun and try stuff but do it knowing that more is not necessarily better. And remember most of the world’s greatest drummers get their sounds from single ply heads.

Just ask Dave Weckl.