An adventure in tom tuning by our very own Will Andrews. Will takes you through the thought process behind how we tune toms, highlights some of our favorite tips, and points out a few pitfalls.
Disclaimers -
We've been asked more than a few times to demonstrate how we tune our tom toms, so here is our response. While we believe there are no set in stone rules to how you tune drums, there are some basics that will help you on your way to better sounds.
We also believe that tuning is 100% subjective and to always find your own path to great sounding drums. Experimentation is how you learn for yourself, and it doesn't need to be a big, scary undertaking.
"One size fits all" tuning rules should be abolished. The subjective nature of drum sound, microphones, rooms, recording/mixing/live sound engineers and audience all have different opinions. Another thing to add is mods (gel, tape, tampering with snares etc.) are suggested to be used after the drum sounds great.
TuneBots and Drum Dials work to help guide you to get even tension around drum heads if you can't do it with your ears, and they're perfectly OK to use. What's also great about them is they provide a numeric value the tension at a particular point in the drum head. These values can be recorded and then utilized as needed to allow for consistent tuning at any time, for example having the same tone take to take in the studio. Tuning drums to actual pitches is a mostly futile and confusing mess unless you absolutely have to, which rarely occurs if you're a drum set player. Tuning devices do not replace tuning knowledge and experimentation. Understanding how drum tuning works without them will benefit your experience with them.
Feel free to post any additional questions in the comments and we'll do our best to answer. We hope this helps and thanks for checking it out.
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