How do you guys tune your drums?

Everybody

Everybody

Hail Santa
Just wanted to hear from some other people how yall tuned your drums.

When describing let me (and others) know what style you play, and why you tune them that way. Also if you want tell us what kind of heads (not necessarily brand type) you use and why.

Cant wait to hear from you guys!:)
 
I play classic rock - esque drums (think Ian Paice and Mitch Mitchell, yet much sloppier).

My snare, the batter head is tuned medium-tight, with the snareside tuned medium at a lower pitch. The tom batters are tuned medium-low, with the reso heads tuned 3-4 half steps higher. The bass I really can't remember, I haven't touched it in a couple of years. Really need new heads for that sucker.
 
Haha

Those are two great drummers to sound like! even if it is a tad sloppy hahaha:p

...extremely sad about Mitch though..:(

Sounds like your tuning setup is pretty great for your style, I might have to try it out sometime when im jamming to some classics, and want to get a booming sound.

Haha, well as long as your bass drum sounds good...I wouldnt change a thing!
 
My drummer

I know my drummer uses remo pinstripe batter heads on his toms and he always tunes the batter medium low and then the reso head 1 step higher and we play like classic rock and folk rock. It gives some really deep thick toms which sound great.
 
Hard Bop Jazz and traditional Blues mostly

I like to tune my snare and kick drum to the same note, but octaves apart. I play a six piece kit and I use a Remo coated Ambassadore on my 14" snare and an Evans on my 20" kick.
I have 10", 12" small toms and 14" and 16" floor toms. I use Remo black pinstripe on my toms (I know, kind of thuddy and old school rock for a jazz drummer, but I like them).
I tune my snare and kick to a G natural. You'll notice that there are 2" difference in the diameter of my toms and that is so I can tune them a full step apart. If I had 1" difference I'd tune them a half step apart. I tune the resonators about a step down on all my drums.
I know, I'm a nutcase, but this is how I do it.
 
Cool

snellular sounds like u got a drummer who knows what hes doing, gotta love the sound of deep full toms..haha especially with classic rock

wow rimshot hahaha, you ARE a nutcase. i didnt know anyone really could or did tune their drums to notes, except terry bozio. but thats great, do you use a piano or pitch key or something? any reason for the certain pitches you picked?
 
What Evans do you use for your kick? I've got my big ass MLX 22" using EMAD, but I've got a Mapex with an 18" bass drum, I'd love to get a real singing note out of it for Jazz/Acoustic stuff, but I have no idea how :rolleyes:
 
Elton Bear said:
What Evans do you use for your kick? I've got my big ass MLX 22" using EMAD, but I've got a Mapex with an 18" bass drum, I'd love to get a real singing note out of it for Jazz/Acoustic stuff, but I have no idea how :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Yeah, I use the EMAD with that little foam ring (bit I've found that I have to tape it in place with some gaff tape cause it can slip.)

Oh, I use a little electric keyboard to tune my drums and on the road or at a gig, I tune against the bass player.
 
Rimshot said:
I know, I'm a nutcase, but this is how I do it.
Click to expand...

What we really want to know is what you tune your sumbati to. :p

Tuning to specific notes with toms, at least, is something I was introduced to 20 years ago. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. my 16" floor usually sits well in D, and then I tune the 13" a fourth up from that.
I got rid of all the other toms a long time ago, as I discovered when playing with one or more hand drummers, there's no need for them... I do use more cymbals of all sizes to make up for it tho.

googling "tuning jazz drums" came up with this and lots of other info. YMMV tho! http://www.mikejamesjazz.com/drum_tuning.html
 
Here's a pretty good resource on tuning kit drums:
http://home.earthlink.net/~prof.sound/id15.html

Isfahani asked:
"What we really want to know is what you tune your sumbati to"

I won't tell that! I'm just going to let others figure it out so that I can laugh at them behind their backs for having such poorly tuned drums.......... It's that Texas crowd that's the worst y'know. :p :D
 
I tend to tune my kit to whatever sounds good to me, of course making sure that my toms don't sound the same. I then dampen them with aquarian o-rings.
My kit has pinstripes on top and ambassadors (i think) on bottom. I'm currently using my dads new kit, a mapex voyager (i think) which has an 18" kick and a 10" rack and 12" floor tom. These all have the stock heads on them because he was too cheap to change them, and I am too broke. They all sound good though, so if it ain't broke, I guess you don't fix it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top