Tuning Diary – Day 2

Day 2.

Not much progress, initially felt like I could hear the different pitches at each lug better, but my ears quickly were worn out. Still working on 1st & floor tom (had to re-skin floor as put the skins on the wrong ends, however gave me time to lube up the lugs, which I think helps with tensions).

Also have started to put pressure in the centre of the drum and eliminate the crinkles around each lug, as in the end striving for the head to be evening pulled across the drum, over the bearing edge is the main goal. Also I have found tuning the bottom head lower closer to the top head in pitch is starting to create a sound I like (…ish, still unsure tho). Still loads of work to do, this is not easy, and I haven’t even started on kick and snare yet!!

In all a rather depressing day in the world of tuning, don’t feel I have made much progress. Evening session was tough, found it difficult to hear pitches, spent half a lesson today fitting new heads on a students snare drum, sounded ok, but the snare always sounds a bit ringy, and the snares always seem to rattle, snare drum is gonna be hard!

Another problem is whether I find the highest pitch on the drum and tune the other lugs up to it, or find the lowest pitch and tune the others down. Not sure what’s the best option, at the moment doing a bit of both, which surely definitely doesn’t help (tuning up I think is best, but whatever just need to decide and go with it!)

However I think I may have a few more dull days of this before I become a master, maybe let’s say, 200 million of em.

3 Replies to “Tuning Diary – Day 2”

  1. Another good read.

    Regarding your question as to tune up or down. You should always tune up to keep the head evenly tight across the bearing edge picking the highest pitch and go with that, Tuning down to a pitch causes it to be pulled out of position and can stop the head seating itself correctly. Once you have it tuned and pitch matched but think it’s to high you can always tune down slightly from there.

    Hope this helps.

  2. O and meant to say the snare will rattle if it is tuned to close or near the same note as the high toms. Tuning both Batter and Resonant head on the Snare to a C note and maybe take the Reso head to a C# this will normally give a good tone. But keep the toms away from the same note and you will be fine. This will eliminate your snare buzz.

    Hope all this stuff helps you to find your sound.

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