Do you have a DrumDial? What do you think of it? Does this change how you would use it?

Finding the fundamental note of a drum and tuning the heads to that sounds like a good idea but it would've been useful to actually hear the drum being played through the mics before and after tuning.

I’ve never turn lugs anecdotally in my life. I don’t even know what that means. I think he means arbitrarily. But, I usually tune my drums allegorically.

I've been using the D.D. for years now and have watched numerous videos on how to tune your drums with it. Thought I was using it properly but never really achieving that drum sound that I so much wanted, until today. Thanks for explaining it in a way that I, and I'm sure many others, have a better understanding of how to utilize the D.D. My Tama's have never sounded better.

Cool video! I learned a lot! I have a birch star classic and a few of my lugs are weirdly sensitive and irregular compared to the group- making a significant impact on neighboring pressure points when tuning.

Learned something new from this video. I've long used 'shell tapping' as a baseline for tuning drums: tap the shell lightly with a drumstick then tune both heads roughly to the same pitch as the shell itself as a starting point. This I've used for wood shell snare drums and toms and metal shell snare drums. However using an electronic tuner or a tuning app on a computer to give a more accurate pitch value is a great idea. Putting a cymbal felt on the drumstick makes sense too thereby eliminating the sound of the stick itself. Recently used a Drumdial to tune up two pipe band snare drums to get them consistent with each other (consistency counts in drum corps drums) and I got compliments from the band on how good the drums sounded. I wrote the Drumdial reading on the heads to keep as a reference point.

I use a digital Drum Dial on my Ludwig kit and on the various Timpani we use in the Community Orchestra I play in. It's a good tool for helping to clear the heads (assuming they are mounted correctly), and then I use my ears to fine tune. The Cleartune app on an iPhone is very useful as well. Thanks for your suggestions.

Wow, now you've made sense of it to me too. Thank you very much :). I currently have severe snare issues, I'm going to try this way instead.

Thanks for a great video! Very useful information and a new spin on how to use a Drum Dial. On the subject of Steve, I recently sent both my Drum Dials (one original that I have owned forever, and a recently-purchased digital model) in for calibration because they weren’t giving the same values when placed at the same spot on the same drum. Steve was a pleasure to talk with on the phone and had me fixed up in no time with a warranted adjustment to the digital unit. I am totally happy with both of my DDs, and my experience with Steve and his Customer Service was top notch. I personally, have always used the chart provided with the DD as a rough guide or starting point when tuning my drums. Those numbers get me close, but I always experiment with each different kit and whatever heads I am using at the time and eventually find the sweet spot for each drum. As shown in this video, there are different ways to use a DD. It is a tool, and there are always different ways to use any tool. Thanks again for the great video.

Excellent! I've been wondering how to find the note of a shell. I can't wait to tune up my kit this way. I have a Tune Bot, so I hope that will tell me the shell note. Thank you for the amazing information that I have been wondering about for several years now! Have a wonderful day!

I didn’t know that Steve Fischer is president of DrumDial, and my name is Steve. So when he said “that means you too, Steve” at beginning of video, I got scared and thought he knew I was watching. 😂

One of the only other people I've seen do this. I'm in the middle of tuning my Starcalssic Maples with my drum dial, and the first thing I did was pull the heads, and find the note. I Instead opted to hold the shell on a fingertip or two, and play notes on the piano until i felt the shell resonate due to sympathetic resonance. It NEVER occurred to me to strike the shell and listen for the note. I'm tearing down a rack tom tomorrow to start on it, so I'll give this a whirl. Thanks for the HAck!

Wow.. Never have seen this technique of tuning off the actual drum tone. Am going to try this! Thx!

Thank you … been battling with my Gretch kit trying to get it right this is what I needed

I sometimes tune using this method when time permits. What I have found is that the shell fundamental shifts a bit with changes in humidity, temperature, and.... the type of head and tension it is under. Just an observation.

Ive used the tension watch for 30 years . . Love it

Something you forgot to mention is type/thickness of heads. I notice you use different heads on the top and bottom. If you are not using the same type head the DD is going to give you a different number for the same pitch because the head thickness will drastically change the tension reading.

Big brain tuning! Will test it soon for the recording.

Thanks for this really helpful video, I appreciate it. I agree with matching the pitch of the heads to the shell, and what I am curious about is, what if the pitches of the entire drum set don't work or make sense together? If each individual drum sounds awesome because it is in tune with itself but that ultimately creates a dissonant sounding kit, what is the best solution? Thanks Jerrid. Again, I enjoyed learning from you.

Was wondering if I took the heads off a drum and used the tune--bot then tap the shell would that give the drums timbre note? Any thoughts on this? I don't want to go through the expense of a computer and a program of a tuner, I'm pretty sure not all people can afford that.

Thanks for the video. So how far off wer your final numbers when finished to the actual recommended drum dial setting numbers?

Thanks a lot. Im about to buy a drum dial and you popped up 🎼🥁🎼🥁

Is this applicable on the kick and snare as well? Any tips on tuning a metal snare? Trying to learn how to better dial in a 14x6.5 bronze snare

I really wish you would've actually played the drum in the video...

After finding this channel, I definitely wont "touch that dial!"

What kind of interval did you end up with on your toms? Seems like this method is basing the tuning on a random occurrence of what note the shell happens to produce rather than logical intervals.

Thanks for the tip on shell note.

Nice explanation - agree!!! But we did not get to hear the final result of the "D" tune drum.

You know how most tuners like tune bot give you two readings(HZ) in the middle and on the lugs. So for example if Im reading 100HZ in the middle, if I check each lug individually they end up being higher, like 170HZ or something. So Im abit confused, with drum dial does it just give you the one reading? Because I noticed you said in the middle it was 73HZ, but then you said you were gunna dial in each lug to 73HZ. So shouldnt it give you different/higher readings on the lugs vs the middle?

Hello, what program do you use for the chromatic tuner on your pc, and what interface?

What you’re missing is a bigger picture to doing it like this. Think of you shells pitch and both heads being at a tuning sounding out a chord rather than a singular note.

Excellent getting one based on your review

What apps did you use sir? Can guitar tunner do the job to tune the drum?

That reminds me, I need more hand soap...

If you tune all the tension rods to the center of the drum, won’t that raise the tension of the center of the drum?

Great content! Thanks a lot for sharing. Any news from ur good friend Steve drom DrumDial?

Good video ,great tip .

Look at this handsome man!)

What a great video

Awesome video, keep it up!

One thing, we never heard the finished sound.

A great video 👍🏻🇬🇧

what tuner app was that?

You're so talented and Clever you should go to Yale.

I think you made tuning a drum more complicated

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

no calib

To determine the fundamental pitch, you need to tap the interior of the shell. The actual wood from the shell. I would recommend using your normal sticks as that is your fundamental tone. Not something that mutes overtones and will have a different attack. Let the shell resonate fully. It won't harm anything. Don't hit the shell hard and only do it long enough to determine what the tonic is. If it's an issue, then just knock on the middle part of the interior with your knuckles. That should yield similar results. Striking the drum wrap exterior with the lugs installed and with a homemade mallet (the cymbal felt is a great idea!) is not the fundamental pitch. You could also check the exterior shell's pitch , but just for reference. Either way, I have never found the fundamental pitch to be the best metric for tuning drums. It doesn't translate to the drumset. The pitch you get from the shell is without any tension on the head. Plus people do not know how to tune and just rely on drum dampeners and gunk and claim they have good tone. All that other stuff about grain and the cut is just marketing BS from DW from the 90's when they first came on the scene. This is similar to the guitar tone wood debate, which I am not interested in arguing.

A Surface Tensiometer….I own one…wanna but it? Tuning shouldn’t be a root canal and neither rocket science. Actually, Buddy Rich called it “ TENSIONING.” Buddy said to tension top to feel and “tune” from rezo side. You will know when it starts to sing. That being said, finger tighten, tap to balance, screw gun bit to torque tension one, star pattern, bring it up to desired pitch a click at a time. Set Resonant head a couple of clicks higher. Tweak pitch with a piano or TuneBot. Good video all the same.

Great job ?😊

Your video is very informative however, I would rather hear the sound of the drums rather than back ground music. That's the only downside.

I think you owe Steve an apology. First of all, the pitch of the shell could be a small factor in the overall sound, but tuning the heads to match the shell is pointless. The relative pitch of a tuned drum is decided by a combination of head pitches. A drum with a 3rd octave G over A# will produce a 2nd octave A, NO MATTER WHAT THE PITCH OF THE SHELL IS. If you tune your heads to D# over D#, the resulting relative pitch is not going to be a D#. You would need to tune the heads to a C to end up with a D#. You may actually be creating dissonance by tuning your way. Since the tuned drums were never played, we don’t know the results. But the individual head that we did hear did not sound exceptionally good.

I wanted to hear the tom ??

All that time tuning and we didn't even get to hear it 🤦🏻‍♂️

Thank god John Good isn't a violin builder. Imagine him trying to tell people: "This is the pitch of the violin corpus if you tap it. Tune every string to that note." FACEPALM

No ones going to do this...😂😂😂

I will never understand as long as I live how anyone can sit in a freakin room and make a video or watch tv or do ANYTHING with a single bare overhead lightbulb as a light source !!..Buy a gd lamp ! how can you stand that ??!! Its horrible

Good idea but why the awful backing music? Don’t need it! 😠

I'm not going to tell you that I hate your video and I'm not going to say that you know certain other things that I got to bite my tongue on I just don't like how you downgrade people that create devices just because they tune one way does it mean that you can I just don't like it when you downgrade people or other drummers