Drum Dial- worth it?

eddiehimself

Platinum Member
Hi guys i was thinking is getting a drum dial worth the money? Basically i seem to have problems tuning my drums so they're exactly the same tension all the way round. The problem is that you can't really seem to tell the actual head tension just from the tension in the screw because they all seem to feel different. i'm just thinking if i'm doing recording i'll want my drums to sound perfect as much as they can. Of course it IS £60. So do you think i should get one or just learn to tune more effectively?
 
What about a Evans torque key? Its quite cheap?
 
What about a Evans torque key? Its quite cheap?

The torque measures how much pressure it takes to turn the lug doesn't it? Those types of tools a very inaccurate because lube/lack of lube etc impact the reading as much as the tension of the head.

The Drum Dial measures deflection of the head. Assuming uniform thickness of the head they can be reasonably accurate. I usually have to fine tune a little by ear after. THe advantage of the drum dial for me is repeatability
 
I own a drum dial (actually a Tama Tension Watch, same thing). I LOVE it.
There is a certain stigma attached to using a drum dial, but it's total bs. You can tune your drums perfectly every time. Once you find that perfect tension for your drum, you can write down the settings and dial it in everytime you change heads.

You should know HOW to tune drums manually, but once you do the Drum Dial will be your best friend. A solid investment.
 
The torque key can only work well if every tension rod/lug insert has precisely the same amount of friction. I've never run into a drum like that.

I have a DD, now gathering dust.

Thing is, it gets you close, but that's it. I've never heard a drum tuned "to perfection" with the DD that didn't need lug-to-lug fine-tuning by ear. I have also seen drums that sound perfect to the ear but show varying readings on the DD.

So: if you need your ear to get a drum really in tune anyway, why not start with your ear?

IMO, most folks who have some trouble tuning (and thus want a drum dial) would be far better off taking the $60 and getting a couple of lessons from a drummer who can tune.
 
There are many threads already discussing the drum dial.

I use one because my drums are very difficult to tune. The Drum Dial will get you about 80 percent of the way. You need to finish up with your ears to get it just right, but the dial will save lots of time.

I use a torque key as well . It doesn't work as well as the drum dial but it's more convenient if you need to tune between songs.
 
Sure, I agree with you, but you made the statement you should be able to tune or fine tune by ear, then its a much better bet to get the torque key, because its much cheaper than the drum dial. It will save you time by getting it nearly tuned(just like the drum dial) and then you can fine tune it by ear.
 
try importing from the USA - I got my drum dial for £35 including postage from a US ebay seller
 
It's worth it. I can't tune drums very well, so I got a professional to tune my kit, I used the drum dial to see what to set it to next time it needed to be tuned, and used that setting ever since.
 
try importing from the USA - I got my drum dial for £35 including postage from a US ebay seller

ahh but was this before or after the £ crashed? Okay well maybe i'll get one some time, i'm sure you do have to tune by ear afterwards but that's not really too much of a problem because i can do the fine tuning, i just need to get the actual tension right in the first place if you see what i mean.
 
I don't think you will benefit from the Drum Dial. Like others have said, it will get you 80% of the way there, but with enough practice you should be able to get yourself 80% there with a normal set of drums within a minute and the rest of the time is fine-tuning. It's just practice. The best way to learn is to use thin heads (I'm an Ambassador man myself) and it is all about feel. I can feel when I'm getting there. Just practice.
 
I wholeheartedly endorse the DD. Repeatability is it's strongpoint.
 
I don't think you will benefit from the Drum Dial. Like others have said, it will get you 80% of the way there, but with enough practice you should be able to get yourself 80% there with a normal set of drums within a minute and the rest of the time is fine-tuning. It's just practice. The best way to learn is to use thin heads (I'm an Ambassador man myself) and it is all about feel. I can feel when I'm getting there. Just practice.


I'm less enthusiastic than in the past, but I still feel it's a valuable tool, especially as a training aid for somebody like the OP. The ability to generate a consistent tension reading helped me diagnose a bad edge on my tom, that I would have otherwised assumed was just not a really good sounding drum. With a properly cut set of edges, my toms sing, and I have no urge to go drum shopping.

I have always fine-tuned after drum-dialing, but the dial gets you much farther than 80%, probably over 95%, and for a newb, trying to tune by ear from scratch will get you to a point that you can't tell what's wrong, and you'll just keep aking it worse by guessing wrong.

Also, the repeatability is great. I can go to the studio, record a drum, go back a year later with a fresh head, and duplicate the sound in a minute. That's pretty sweet. Also,you can tune to 95%/good enough in silence, or in a place where background noise would make pitch tuning extremely difficult.

That said, I rarely use it, and couldeasily live without it. I definitely got my money's worth, and don't mind having it around.
 
I owned a Drum Dial for almost a week and had to return it. I have a lot of drums to keep in tune, so I bought a Drum Dial thinking it would be a better mouse trap, it wasn't. It took me almost 20 minutes longer to re-head the batters on one of my kits using the Drum Dial. I asked my girl friend to try it on another kit and I didn't know she knew the words that were coming out of her mouth, just kidding. But it took her much longer also to get the heads in tune with themselves. We both been tuning drums for many years using the old fashion way, our ears, stick and a key.

If you're not experienced with tuning drums, maybe the Drum Dial will get you where you want to be, but I would advise you to practice just using your ears. The Drum Dial cannot hear and in my experience with it, wasn't very reliable with getting repeated tension readings either.

Someone mentioned the Evans Torque Key. This is again not the way to go for reasons already mentioned. I do own a Torque Key and use it only as a tool to get the tension rods to seat at the top of my Yamaha drum's rims since I cannot get my fingers around the tension rods to finger tighten them. I just have it set at a very low tension and after it accomplishes this task it's all ears again.

Just my experience with both.
Dennis
 
I will tell you I wholeheartedly Endorse a DD. Thing is I got one from my wife for christmas a couple of years back. I looked at said cool and it sat on the shelf for a year. Then One day I said I'm gonna try that son of a beech out. I think it's an excellent tool to have in your bag of tricks. Anyone who has to change heads in a bar knows it can be quite noisy trying to fine tune a head can be tricky, But if you've written down the tension setting for the tom/head your changing it can be a great help. I will say I usually will do the final twist or too on the tension rod by hand/ear. Overall for me it's become a way to have my heads tuned consistenly and evenly everytime.
 
Anyone who has to change heads in a bar knows it can be quite noisy trying to fine tune a head can be tricky

This is actually the best reason to own one: tuning in noisy environments. Can't think of the last time I had to do that, though, I don't break heads.

I bought a Drum Dial thinking it would be a better mouse trap, it wasn't. It took me almost 20 minutes longer to re-head the batters on one of my kits using the Drum Dial. I asked my girl friend to try it on another kit and I didn't know she knew the words that were coming out of her mouth, just kidding. But it took her much longer also to get the heads in tune with themselves. We both been tuning drums for many years using the old fashion way, our ears, stick and a key.

Same here. Takes longer and doesn't do as good a job.

Also, the repeatability is great. I can go to the studio, record a drum, go back a year later with a fresh head, and duplicate the sound in a minute. That's pretty sweet.

I get repeatability with a $15 pitch pipe. And it fits in your pocket!

The bottom line, to me, is: it's your instrument, you ought to learn to tune it. If that takes a lesson or two, then it's worth it--you'll be able to tune for the rest of your life.
 
I'll second DTD. I've never used one. I learned to tune my drums 40 years ago, by ear. So I think I'll save £60 and use my ears for the next 40. After that, I probably won't care.
 
Why do guitar players use tuners then?

Because in music you need exactly the same pitch and tuning for the melodic instruments - otherwise it sounds just wrong.

With drums you have under normal conditions much more freedom to tune ...some like it higher, some lower...it's individual.

Bernhard
 
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