How to Tune Your Drums
So by now you’ve read the Nevada guide on ‘How to Replace Drum Heads’ and you’ve got the new heads on all your drums with the lugs hand-tightened, right? Great! But before we go on, you're also going to need a drum key! Our best selling drum keys include the Stagg Budget Drum Key and the Evans Flip Key...
Cross-lug Tuning
Each drum requires different tuning to get that killer tone. To make this easier, we can use a technique called Cross-Lug Tuning. Instead of going around the drum in a circle, the aim is to create a balanced tension across the drum by tightening the most distant lugs in turn. For example, on an 8-lug drum you would tighten the lugs in the following sequence:
Kick Drum
To really bring out the pulse of the music, we want to get the fattest possible sound from the Kick Drum. In order to do this, we need to aim for lowest pitch from both heads.
1. Tension both heads until there are no wrinkles
2. Play the bass drum pedal while tensioning each lug gradually until you have a full, resonant tone rather than a slack, flappy sound
3. Repeat for the Resonant Head (front skin)
Snare Drum
The tone of your Snare drum is essential and most drummers spend more time tuning (and re-tuning) it than any other drum! There are hundreds of techniques for various sounds and everyone has their own personal preference, but here’s a quick guide that will get you a decent basic sound.
1. Tension both heads until there are no wrinkles and then flip the snare to tune the Resonant Head (bottom skin) first
2. Lightly hit the centre of the drum head, whilst tightening the lugs a quarter-turn at a time. Stop when the pitch is ‘A’ (this is much easier with pitch pipes or a tuning fork!)
3. Lightly tap the head just next to each lug and fine-tune each lug until they are all at the same pitch (make sure it’s still ‘A’).
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for the Batter Head (top skin), but this time aim for just above A.
Toms
In most cases, the Toms are the most ‘musical’ drums as they have very distinct pitches. Therefore, we want a musical interval between each drum so that when we play a fill it sounds melodic, rather than the dreaded ‘falling down the stairs’ effect!
One way to do this is to tune your Toms so that you can play a fanfare on them. This is a great trick that will get you a brilliant Tom sound straight away:
1. Sing a fanfare to yourself – each Tom is going to provide one of the notes, so match each note to a drum
2. Lightly hit the centre of the drum head whilst tightening the lugs a quarter-turn at a time. Stop when the head is at the correct pitch.
3. Lightly tap the head just next to each lug and fine-tune each lug until they are all at the same pitch.
4. Follow the same steps for the resonant head, aiming for an identical pitch
5. Once you have done this for each Tom, play the Fanfare melody on them and fine-tune to get it right on the money!
There we have it, one fully-tuned drum kit! This should get you to a basic starting point on any Drum Kit, but as you might expect, the Heads you choose will have a big part to play in the sound you achieve. Here at Nevada Music we recommend Evans drum heads for best results!