This site is refered to more often than any other
source available for tuning drums. Why?
First, and most likely because its free! A close
second would be because it works.
You DO NOT have to read this page.
If you think you know the basic concepts of how a drum works, just go to the left and pick a section. the Tuning section is probably why you are here, but I will tell you that even the most seasoned drummer has found the "other" information
very helpful, so I think you'll be back to read this page at some point....at least I hope so?
One last point. The concepts on the Tuning page are
essential. For the Snare drum and Bass/Kick drum, you must go to the sections for the Snare Drum and Kick Drum.
This version of the Drum Tuning Bible is the 3rd
iteration. Time has shown that many want to know more than I tried to explain, which is considerable and maybe overload to
some. SO…..
With this 3rd iteration, it has unfortunately
become lengthy to cover all levels of readers. With every iteration/revision, I try to incorporate more clarity based upon
readers comments, which usually means more text. It took me some 30 years to figure out how to explain it where others could
learn it in a few hours time.
If you have just fumbled through tuning over the
years or are a beginner, it really makes sense to read it page to page top to bottom. It has been arranged to explain what
to expect and why many things react the way they do. Because many have written and asked for it in book form, it is now available
via a PDF document, which is almost a mirror image of this site.
What’s
New?
Within this version you will find a more detailed
definition of what to listen for in tuning. I’ve expanded upon the head
selections, the role of microphones and the electronics. You’ll also find
the definition of some of the terms used to define sound characteristics so we can communicate better and is less difficult
to get an idea across.
We will tackle the construction aspects of the drum
in greater detail by exploring the issue of woods, metals, drum sizing, and how it all translates into sound and cost. And
then I touch on what I consider to be a proper way to pick cymbals and drum sets.
In this age of E-commerce and a constant desire to
pay the cheapest price rather than receive service, I admit it may be difficult for many on a budget to employ these concepts. But I ask you to view them with an open mind because even if you decide to buy over
the Internet, the concept will help sort things out.
It seems the selections in local stores are getting
less abundant and more geared towards the beginner and intermediate player rather than the medium to advanced player. This
too is unfortunate, because it means you may actually have to put more time into your thoughts and selections in the form
of travel if you really want to pick good products that reflect your personality.
What
to Expect/Who Can Tune?
Ask any well respected producer what makes a great
song and most will tell you a good drummer is an essential ingredient. Beginners
should know that it is far more important to tune well and play steady than it is play as many notes as possible, and still
sound bad. Well respected engineers will say that if the drummer can tune and play proficiently, recording a drum sound takes
care of itself. So don’t ever sell yourself short as an important ingredient
in the scheme of things. Drummers need to know a lot about how sound works.
Drummers need to be able to hear the tonal differences
in pitch and timbre to tune. Some people just cannot hear these changes. For those people, I recommend you spend a few dollars and buy what’s called
“Ear Training” software. This is available for your computer and will teach almost everyone how to hear pitch
changes. This guide will not.
The musical ability of
someone playing drums is not synonymous with an ability to technically understand it, nor does it mean you can tune a drum,
or explain how to tune a drum. Having actually shopped for new kits, snare drums, heads, etc., at many local shops in the
Midwest, and having frequented chain stores and various forums on the internet, there is a major stream of misinformation
being transmitted at all age and skill levels. This Drum Tuning Bible is my attempt to give you factual information.
I
cannot emphasize enough that it takes work to tune. This guide does not say, "Put 2 turns on one side and then a few
more on the other side". This goes into great detail about the drum, its construction as well as tuning in an attempt to teach
those who really want to understand what their entire drum set can do, how to go about figuring that out and put it into practice.
It requires time, patience, thinking and work.
You must plan on at least 3 hours,
if not more, on each drum in your kit to truly understand how it responds to tuning and how you respond to tuning.
It will get substantially shorter if you understand
what to expect. And therein is the shortcut to tuning and great sound, knowing what to expect. So if you spend the time to
read the entire "bible", it should also aid you in choosing and tuning a drum set to fulfill your dreams.
These
are the Essential Concepts:
1. The interval between drums is more important than many realize and the size of both the diameter and the depth
are key to getting even resonance and the desired incremental notes between drums. Diameter determines the note of
the drum, depth influences articulation and resonance. See "Shell Depth versus Diameter"
2. The tiniest of movements on the tuning lug "will" make huge differences in pitch and resonance of the drum, more
so with a rigid hoop, such as cast. Tweaks of the lugs on the resonant side are more prone to raising pitch than are ones
on the batter side. One simple rule to remember (assuming the drum is well tuned to begin with) is “Batter for feel,
resonant for pitch”. See “Zones”
3. Tuning that works for a small venue will not likely work as well for a large venue. You have to consider what
component of your sound will carry through to the audience. What does the audience hear? Is it the batter side via
a microphone, or is it the resonant side via an acoustic set? Which leads too…
4. All drums sound different at 0, 15, 50, 150 foot or differing distances. It’s a sound wave/reflection thing.
So what sounds good to the drummer while playing may be terrible to the audience, in whatever forms the audience takes. It’s
important to go out and listen to what your kit sounds like while the other instruments are playing. Move around and
make head selections and tunings accordingly. A higher pitch enables the drum to carry more, lower pitches less so.
5. Head selection for microphones will likely be different than without. In large venues under close micing
techniques, its typical for drummers to use 2-ply heads because the sound is more muffled or controlled. You get a shorter
burst of energy, which by virtue of the hall or venue, reverberates or becomes delayed to the audience. Much the same as large
venues require a more selective or simplistic placement of notes and fills because the audience does not hear the detail.
6. A highly resonant kit may be your sound tech's worst nightmare. While the drummer can be inspired by this
tone, a large venue or recording may result in a very muddy sound due to the overtones and lingering decay of the drum mixed
with other instruments or acoustics that occupy the same frequency bandwidth in the mix.
7. Get to know microphones well if you're going to use them, even slight alterations in placement make a
huge difference. For example, placing a mic near the outside edge of a drum can bring out the high-pitched overtones. But
move it in just a ½" and those diminish dramatically.
8. The sound heard from a CD at home is not what a drum really sounds like but on few occasions. What you hear is
usually an altered version recorded according to what the producer and the artist want it to sound like through electronic
alterations and is designed to fit the recording. An electronic device called a “compressor” used on a drum can
accentuate the attack of the stick or kick drum beater giving it that un-natural edge. It can also bring out the very deep
bottom end of a kick drum or floor tom to very un-natural levels. Triggers are devices which turn the acoustic energy of the
stick hitting the drum into electronic voltage that will cause an electronic drum module, loaded with sampled sounds to emit
the tone of your choice. This can be any sound at all from a hand clap, to a
door slam, a guitar sting being plucked every time the stick/beater hits the head. Developing unique sounds by mixing electronically
processed sounds with acoustic tones is a very common practice. For this reason, sometimes you just cannot duplicate your
“drum god’s” sound without the knowledge and use of electronics.
9. Less expensive does not mean inferior, in some cases, it may be far superior to achieve the desired end-result.
See “Construction” for the real issues here.
10. The air
hole or vent in the shell is to allow the shell to breathe when two heads are used and atmospheric changes occur, thereby
helping to eliminate moisture build-up. This is a typical problem moving from cold to hot environments much the same as glass
windows can sweat in your house. The single 1 or 2 vents in the shell have little effect on tone. However, multiple large
vents or holes in the shell can make a drum extremely loud and bright sounding.
11. Stretch the
heads – This is a concept that is controversial, and in my opinion, is often taken out of context. I’m of the
belief you should stretch heads (within reason) on all drums; "seating" is the most important and often most overlooked
step in getting quality sound and consistency out of a drum. The heads may
not last as long, but they will stay in tune longer. On the flip side is the argument, that if you do stretch them, they do
not last as long, and do not tune as low. It seems logical, that both concepts are true with some exceptions. So you will
have to weigh out what is important in your case. Because I come from a school that states it is wise to create as few problems
for yourself and others as possible, this bible will hold true to the concept that you need to seat the heads via stretching
them up front.
The
Drum Sound
The batter head controls
attack and ring associated with the stick attack. The resonant head produces "resonance" associated with the stick attack
and aids in sustain, it has a major effect in the overtones and enhances the timbre of the drum.
Timbre and note/pitch are not the same. The
term “Timbre” refers to the overall character of the drum, the distinct quality of the sound given by its overtones.
The fact that one drum is "brighter" vs. "warm" is the timbre. The “fundamental”
note, which is the point at which the drum is likely to be most "open" or "resonant" in tone quality, it’s the sweet
spot for that particular drum shell. The shell design is the governing factor in what the fundamental note of the drum can
be. “Pitch” is the highness or lowness of the sound, it can be raised or lowered in reference to say a note on
the piano, and it is the act of tuning. But the shell sweet spot or fundamental note at which it resonates doesn't change.
So a 12" drum of a given material, diameter and depth may produce a note of G up to say a D-sharp ("pitch"), but it may really
stand out around an A-flat ("fundamental"), or the note of shell. The fact that it becomes bass heavy (“warm”)
or very treble heavy (“bright”) is the timbre.
While the many drummers focus on the sound coming
from the batter side, an audience hears something completely different. Often, either the drummer or the audience can hear
a sound that is inferior or superior, it depends upon your perspective? Some drummers like a very dead sound and wonder why
the drum doesn’t cut through to the audience? Sound Techs that place mics close in on the drum love dead sounding drums
because of how mics pick them up. Other drummers like a very live sound because it inspires them and when they close mic the
drum kit, the audience hears a very muddy tone and the sound tech goes nuts and gets out gaffers or duct tape and wants to
slap it on everything. You need to tune for the audience. You just need to understand
what the term “audience” means. The reality is, mic technique can play a huge role on how the kit sounds in the
venue and to the audience and there are as many different ways to correct the problem with simple mic choice and placement
as there are tuning and head choices.
The mindset you have to have is that the term “audience”
can take the form of a pair of headphones, speakers, someone sitting 10 feet away, 50 feet away or in a church or stadium.
It also encompasses the method by which you will be heard (i.e. Microphone or ears). In other words, the “audience”
is the end result of your efforts to be heard. So tune accordingly and understand
the effect each variable has on the sound. One tuning does not work for everything.
If using microphones, you need to understand microphones
and how their choice and placement will effect the tone of the drum because every mic has a sound of its own and the use of
them can result in a dramatic tonal difference. See “Microphones”.
If you do not have multiple mics to choose from, then understand how to pick a head (i.e. Coated, muffled, coated,
clear, single ply, 2-ply, thin, etc.) based upon the mic available and the other variables you will encounter.
Every drum has a sweet spot in the center of the
head. As drums get smaller, the sweet spot gets smaller. If you routinely hit outside of the sweet spot, the drum develops
more complex overtones and tuning along with head choice becomes more critical. It is the phase relationship between the two
heads that cause a drum to work. This is the essential reason for going through the exercise of tuning as I have outlined
it below. It is to teach you these relationships. But to effectively employ it, you must understand what you are hearing,
and why?
When the drum is hit, the ear hears mostly the attack
and the fundamental pitch of the drum, the sound of the stick tip hitting the head can be accentuated by the resonant head
and we refer to these as overtones. Overtones are washed out at a distance, but up close, they can be very strong. Overtones
are also an essential component to making the drum sound carry through other instruments and to the audience. The power put
into the stroke is essential to gaining the best tone/overtones from the resonant head. Consider that if you play soft on
deep shelled drums, they will be more difficult to get tuned well because exciting the lower resonant head becomes more difficult
with the limited power you put into the stroke. If the stroke is light, a uniform
tone is easier to achieve on a shallow shelled drum. How a drummer hits may be the most essential component of the sound.
“Power” comes in the form of the column
of air that causes the resonant head to vibrate. So just apply some logic. The longer the column of air, the more power required
to cause the other head to vibrate. It also means that the duration of time from the time the stick hits the head, to the
time the resonant head vibrates, is longer. This results in a “fatter” tone, a tone that takes up more space in
time whereas shallow drums become more “articulate” and take up a shorter space in time.
You can isolate the ability to hear whether a drum
head is in tune with itself or not by placing it upon a soft surface, such as carpet. When tapped very lightly with even pressure
and at the exact same distance towards center away from the hoop (about 1” inside of each lug), it allows you to hear whether the drum head is in tune with itself or not. When repeated at each lug, again
and in keeping with a uniform pressure and distance, each tone should be identical. Note I said the tone should be
identical, this does not always correspond to even tension as felt by the tuning key. When they are all even in tone and the
phase relationship between heads is correct, the overall tone you get becomes clear. This is all explained more fully step
by step under “How To Tune”. When you do this with the drum held up in the air, or mounted, hearing these subtle
tones become more difficult.
Head
Construction and Concepts
Coated heads are considered "warm" or "mellow" sounding
meaning generally void of the real bright overtone associated with the "clear" version of equal brand and specification. Clear
heads are considered "bright" or "clear" sounding meaning they bring out as much of the high-pitched tones of the stick attack
and resonance of the drum. In between the coated and clear heads in tonal quality is the "ebony" series of heads and is often
described as being a "thicker" or "darker" sound than that of a clear head of equal specification. Ebony colored heads, while
usually chosen due to aesthetics, have the virtue of being both warm in the overtone area, yet bright in the stick attack.
Kevlar heads and Aramid fiber heads (popular among heavy hitters for snare drum) are designed to be extremely durable under
a wide range of considerations. They are marching drum heads and take extreme abuse. They are known for their inherent dry
staccato sound and can be cranked up extremely tight. So much so that often, a normal snare drum will not take the amount
of tension possible without stripping lugs or deforming shells/hoops.
The most resonance is heard by placing a head of
identical specifications on both the batter and resonant side because polymers of equal thickness vibrate reasonably equal
to each other when the tension is equal. It is a common misconception that if you have a heavily muffled head on the batter
side and place a thinner head on the resonant side, that the resulting sound will be more warm, or bass heavy and more resonant. Actually, the thinner resonant head makes the high frequency tone, that most seek
to eliminate come back out of the drum and the bass frequency produced lasts for less of a duration (a good combination for
those who like the single ply sound but hit really hard). On the contrary, thicker
heads, such as coated heads or thin two ply heads have more mass, and mass once set in motion is harder to stop than a thin
head with less mass. For this reason, the thicker resonant head is actually more
resonant in the lower frequencies whereas the thinner heads produce the more hollow or upper midrange resonance for less of
a duration. High carbon content is required to make the ebony heads. This too adds mass while making the head just a hair more brittle. The resulting sound is a little more
focused and slightly void of higher pitched overtones. Pure white, rather than coated white, goes the same direction as ebony
heads.
As you add a glass component to the polymer, it becomes
both heavier in specific gravity and more brittle. So when considering the snare drum sound, it’s actual “snare”
sound is more a reflection of the resonant side than it is the batter side. With the snare, you care about issues like sensitivity
(how easy it is to excite the snare) and how bright versus how warm the tones are? For this reason all snare side heads are
thinner than batter side counterparts. A thin head is easy to excite. It produces
the bright tones, overtones, or in the case of glass content, a dryer but more bright and focused tone. Small air holes have
become popular with some manufacturers and can be seen on the snare drum heads as well as some bass drum heads. These would appear as very small holes ranging from a little less than 1/16th (1.5mm) to ½”
(12.5mm) in diameter. These are not to be confused with the larger holes in kick drums which are discussed below under “Hole
In Your Head”. These smaller holes relieve pressure very quickly and the resulting sound is a very dry tone because
the resonant side is not easily excited. When you combine these elements and properties, you can begin to understand what
the resulting sound of a given head will be even before you mount it to the drum.
As you tune the drum with one side either higher
or lower, you go through "zones" producing one of clear pitch, phase cancellation, no sound or a Doppler effect. "Doppler"
is where the drum when hit, descends in pitch from the point of initial attack to a lower pitch. This also becomes more pronounced
when the head is of a different specification (weight/thickness) and the batter head is higher/lower in pitch than the bottom
head. If the drum is tuned wrong or "seated" incorrectly the first time a head
is mounted, you will likely ruin the head beyond its use or it will never sound its best. This is described in great detail
under “How To Tune”. Seating wrong does not always mean uneven tuning, such as one side tighter than the other.
A poor seating can also be the result of using bent, twisted or distorted hoops and/or poor bearing edges. Even though the
drum has been equally tensioned (such as that of using tension devises which measure lug torque or head tension), inferior
hardware and shell problems cause unequal stretch of the head polymer and/or force the head out of round.
Well, if you made it this far, you really haven’t
been instructed on how to do anything. But you now have a foundation to understand the concepts and information that follows.
You are also much better equipped to sound better than that lazy person who skipped all this stuff. The rest is designed to
give you the knowledge required to exploit, purchase and make a drum sound at its best, which is how “you” want
it to sound.
