TUNING DRUMS

" How do you get a great drum sound?" -- "Get a good drummer!" Like every other instrument, drums must be properly tuned and good drummers know how to tune their drums. They also know how to hit them consistently on the right spot so their sound is true. You can tell a good drummer by looking at the skins. If they are worn in a small circle in the middle - they are good - whereas if there are stickmarks all over the shop they're not consistent.

The kick, toms and the snare are all tuned the same way. I recommend you take the drums off the kit to tune them.

Note: When you start with new skins it is a good idea to stretch the skin once it is on the drum. A drummer suggested to me that he stands on the drum (especially kick drums) and lets his weight stretch the skin!! He swears by it.

First, make sure the bottom skin is nice and tight. The bottom skin is usually tuned higher than the top - about a fourth up - every drummer has his own tuning, the main thing is to make sure that it is even. To tune a skin evenly you must put your finger in the centre of the skin and tap the outer part near each tuning point.

You will notice that each point produces a slightly different note so you go round tuning each point so that they all produce the same note. I usually work on the pins opposite each other because as you tighten one the opposite pin is effected. You do this procedure for both top and bottom skins. You must also tune each drum relative to the other drum so that the high toms progress down to the low toms.
Once you've tuned each drum mount them back onto the kit. Now if you hit each tom a pure note will sound. If you now take one of the lower tuning pegs (the one closest to you) and start to lower (unscrew) it as you keep hitting the drum you will find a point where the skin hangs out and even appears to drop in pitch. A straight tom sounds like doom whereas one with one pin detuned sounds like dooommmmmmmm with the mmmmmmm dropping in pitch and the whole note lasts longer. That's how you get the t-tooo t- tooo t-tooooo fill sound because the toooos drop in pitch. (Still with me??)

The snare is the same except that you don't want to detune one of the pins. Consistency of pitch at all the tuning points is essential on both top and bottom skins.

Damping: I try and avoid dampening toms. The old system of a piece of Gaffa Tape all over the toms doesn't produce a very good sound. If you need to dampen the toms or the snare I suggest a piece of dacron (polyester wool) with a piece of gaffa stretched over from rim to rim but with the gaffa not touching the skin, only the wool.

This way the skin is not choked too much and you can apply small amounts of dampening. The toms are going to ring - but so what. You can always gate them out later or better still automate them out of the mix with fader/mute automation. If you dampen them down so they don't ring they will sound like cardboard boxes like Ringo used to play. There are now available small squares of some kind of synthetic rubber that feels like a jelly baby which you place on the skin. They work very well for dampening because like the dacron they don't choke the skin.

You can also dampen Cymbals by sticking a small strip of gaffa tape to the underside of the cymbal. This is only necessary when the cymbal (usually the ride) is too ringy and lacks definition.

Kick drums are another story. There are three ways a kick drum can be setup depending on whether the drummer uses one or two skins or has two skins with a hole in the front skin. Some drummers actually line the inside of their kick drum with a layer of foam that acts as a permanent dampener.

This is the traditional kick drum setup. Having tuned the drum using the previously suggested method you must next determine whether it needs dampening. If you feel it does (typically) you can use a pillow or a blanket pressed up against the front skin and held in place with a sand bag, brick, mike stand base, or anything with weight lying around the studio.

Both skins but with a hole in the front skin

In this situation you have access through the hole to place dampening inside the drum. Once again a blanket or pillow is placed on the base of the drum and held in place with a sand bag or weight.

Beater skin on only.

Here the front skin has been removed allowing dampening to be placed in the drum as in the previous example. This is the most typical system yet I notice nowadays that there are a lot of drummers opting for the more traditional sound of using both skins and going for a more "natural" kick sound as opposed to the clicky percussive sound used throughout the last few decades.

Additional Option

Now that the kick drum has been dampened to your likening may I suggest you can dampen the whole drum by placing a blanket (or better still a sleeping bag) over the whole kick drum. This helps gain isolation of the microphone in the drum from the rest of the kit. ( a sort of acoustic gate) Additionally a weight (sand bag) can be placed on the kick drum to make it rigid and dampen the shell vibrations.