I'm a guitar player and I've always been. I've had drums accessible to me for over 10 years and throughout that period I learned how to play them. I've recently purchased a 5 piece and I am having trouble finding the "right sound". Anyone got any advise? Today I figured out for myself that a tight batter head combined with a loose resonate head produces the lower tone I'm looking for. From what I understand, every drummer has their own way of tuning their drums. To all RttP drummers, what is your technique? I've got a 10" & 12" mounted tom and a 16" floor tom. I want them to be high enough to hear the tone but also low enough to sound br00tal.

Delete your system32 folder.

Killer dawg, will do. Thanks for the advise.

menstrual_sweatpants_disco said:

bahahaha!

Come on now, so far I've got 2 ridiculously good drummers at my disposal. Give a brotha (...urrrgh a know nothing, to say the least) some advise.

The best technique for tuning drums is to shove the drum key up your ass and twist it so hard that your asshole clenches shut and all the food you eat gets backed up into your digestive system and causes you to die! Not like you'll care because I said the word "asshole" in my post in reference to the body part so I guess that makes me gay!

Geessh. Lamp is always about fags and/or any activity that involves putting things in your ass. He must be a taker.

Dude, you just said the word fags in your post and alluded to homosexual activities twice! Aren't you aware that makes you gay? I thought it would be appropriate to inform you since you're so concerned with these things and an expert in the field and all, it wouldn't help matters to make you look bad.

You seem to know an awful lot about what it is to be gay.

Fag.

Classic example of "I have nothing to say to this post but I'm going to reply anyway so hopefully having the last word makes me look more intimidating, if not more intelligent, that way people will know not to fuck with me in the future because I'm a badass". Thanks for all but outright admitting you're a moron!

Isn't that what you just did?

Anyways....

This thread was about drum tuning.

If you want to talk about your homosexual tenancies and what makes a fag a "real fag"...start a thread of your own.

You caught me in a good mood, so I decided to stand up for myself. If you want to make baseless accusations about me, that's fine, just as long as you don't mind getting pwned.

Hai gais. ITT: Fags.

Lamp said:

...you need not say anything else, you have just proven your supreme level of homosexuality.

your drums will be out of tune forever! and your message board peers will be gay for all time.

no but seriously i dont have a technique i just make it sound good to my ear.

sxealex said:

Thanks. I was just wondering (even though I've read that every drummer has their own technique) if there was some sort of interweb-communicable means of tuning drums to a style comparable to the sound I hear from drummers who post here. I read somewhere that some people tune all their drums to c#. Is that something you've ever heard of and/or heard something that works?

just google it... im sure some pompous asshole was paid tons of money by some big name drum company to talk about their amazing new tuning technique. too bad they are not me .

Trust me. I have Googled it.

Too bad they weren't you , 'cause someone like myself highly looks up to someone who drums like yourself...that's why I came here.

Are all drums, regardless of size, supposed to be tuned to the same pitch?

Advice is the term you meant to use in your first post, not advise.

http://home.earthlink.net/~prof.sound/site.../sitebuilderfiles/PSound_DTB_V2.pdf

There you go, that's everything you need to know about drum tuning.

What kind of heads do you have on the drums? Heads make a big difference.

IS DIS TEH GAY SEXXORZ THRAED?

Hung, since you are a guitarist, here's a little musical trick that I usually use to tune my drums.

I have only three toms, so I tune the floor tom to whatever note the low string of the guitars use, I tune my mid tom to the forth, and the high rack tom to the 8th, or octave, same note as the floor tom.\\

So we gots Do-Fa-Do

that just sounds good to my ear!

I've got the cheapo Tama heads that came with the set.

Murph: I was wondering if tuning the drum pitch to a guitar was something that people did. I thought of it the other day but haven't given it a stab yet.

No, Really, read that link I posted. I have it printed out in a 3 ring binder, and used to keep a copy in the studio next to my drumkit. Tuning/heads/etc... is all covered in there.

Hungtableed said:

I'd replace those ASAP as the first step. No matter how good of a set you have, the factory heads are always crap. You should check out the thread somebody just made a few days ago about drum heads. Lots of info in there. More than I could provide, alone.

Heads are 2nd on my lists. I need to get a serious array of cymbals first. I'm going to have to print that bible out there's so much in there.

Heads should be first. It'll be about 120 bucks to re-head everything. You can get away with leaving the factory batter heads for a little bit, but you gotta change em pretty soon.
A good set of cymbals will run you $500 at least, depending on what you're looking for, so it's a much bigger investment.
As far as tuning, you pretty much seem to already grasp it. There's no magic formula. I would google it too look for some techniques. Some people swear by different tuning devices, like tension keys and weighted tuners and whatnot. Its all pretty much a matter of preference.

that evans ratchet thing is a piece of trash

This might sound like a stupid question, but can you cut a hole in your bass drum's resonate head if it doesn't have one already or is that just asking for trouble?

Murph is exactly right. This is what pro drummers do.

Also, make sure that after tightening one nut by a half turn, tighten the nut on the opposite side by a half turn. The drum will keep its tuning longer this way.

Well, there is a nother school of drumming which believes that each drum has a note at which it is best suited to be tuned to, based on its shell-thickness, type of wood, size, timbre, etc.

I too believe this is true, and for sets that are matched well and kept in constant climate conditions, this would probably be a good thing to try, as the sound would probably be phenomenal.

For a drummer like me, however, whose kit is in constant use and different weather, tuning to certain notes keep a constant. I also tend to keep my high tom a little brighter small taping) and my mid tom a little more dampened (I roll up a piece of electric tape a few times, and attach it close to the rim with another piece of tape) which allows my kit to have a bit more attack and control major overtones (which some people like for the resonance value, but annoy the balls out of me).

Hungtableed said:

i've seen really really bone headed sound men demand that drummers put holes in their reso head because they just flat out don't know what the fuck they're doing.
you can but there really isn't any need.
edit: you can just pull the front hoop and head off entirely and achieve the same effect without ruining an expensive head.

t2daeek said:

Yes, you definitely can cut a hole. Just use a sharp razor and some sort of template.
It is definitely beneficial to have the hole. It gives the sound guy better control and more options as far as mic placement. Usually, it's not the sound guys fault, but a drummer that doesn't know how to tune their kick drum. An engineer can only work with what he's given.

I heard that cutting a hole was a no-go. But, then again, if I do decide to do it I would obviously use a template (i.e. a cup or something of the such) and a sharp razor to make it perfect. I just get this impression while watching my brother play my set that the kick would sound much better with a hole for some air to escape.

I'm fucking itching to record some drums real soon for a project I've been putting together over the past few months. I want to get my sound just right before I even attempt at hackin' the drum tracks.

Get some rings that go around the hole after you cut it so the cuts don't tear.

ah-ha...I figured out what my original problem was. I guess I really didn't have much trouble tuning the drums to the appropriate pitch but to get the "right sound" I was looking for I need some mufflers. BMR use to practice at my house and I've got a bunch of old drum head layin' around. I used them to make some rings to use as mufflers and bam! Done.