Evans Torque Key?

I was looking into the Drum Dial and I found it was too expensive for my liking, however I did find the Torque Key, saw this YouTube and was pretty convinced it was decent enough. However my only issue is that if one of my lugs are rusty it could completley ruin the tuning.

Heres the link for anyone who wants to see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rDSa1eDnlc&feature=related

If anyone have some wisdom to share about this product I'd really appreciate it. Is it useful for the average drummer?

The problem is that it does not "measure" the tension of the skin, instead it measures the tension of the lugs, as you said, if a lug is not that good it wont work as good as it should.

The drum dial cauculates the skin tension, instead of lug tension... "For me" its two difrent equipments, "no comparisions.."

I do like the hard tunning, because when i do it, i do it with time, its a relaxing activity for me (for others the hell of a trubble)

I guess its pretty usefull for those who needs to tune it quicky, because its easier, helps acurracy...

Hope it helped a little

Spend the money on a lesson from a drummer who can tune. Then you'll never need the gadgets.

haha thanks for the tips guys. My parents would rather not have me get lessons for drums I'll look into it though

McShmoopy said:

haha thanks for the tips guys. My parents would rather not have me get lessons for drums I'll look into it though

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Just get a lesson or two from an experienced drum instructor that knows how to tune a set of drums. It's done all the time, just be straight up with the instructor and let him know that's what you're there for. They can show you one on one and let you hear exactly what will affect what. When you finally get onto tuning your kit you'll enjoy them so much more and then later you might want to get drum lessons.

There's not much more intimidating than being afraid to turn the drum key on a tension rod and then being afraid of not getting them back to at least where they sounded OK.

Dennis

McShmoopy said:

I was looking into the Drum Dial and I found it was too expensive for my liking, however I did find the Torque Key, saw this YouTube and was pretty convinced it was decent enough. However my only issue is that if one of my lugs are rusty it could completley ruin the tuning.

Heres the link for anyone who wants to see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rDSa1eDnlc&feature=related

If anyone have some wisdom to share about this product I'd really appreciate it. Is it useful for the average drummer?

Click to expand...

I use both of these and you get what you pay for. Nothing compares to the drum dial for speed and accuracy. I keep an Evans Torque key in my gig bag because I don't like to take the Drum Dial out. The Drum Dial just cuts out a lot of the tedium of tuning. It gets you about 90 percent there and you still have to do final tweaking by ear.

Yes, I could spend lots and lots of time tuning by ear but would rather tune less and play more. Dense woods and thick shells are also more fussy to tune. I spent 15 minutes tuning my set with the help of the Drum Dial this weekend. Get one if you are able to.

I'm in agreement with DMC in this. I use the Evans torque key primarily to get myself in the ball park of where I know I want the drum head. From there it's back to traditional tuning around each lug. I would not recommend the use of either product as the only method of tuning, but used to augment tuning by ear they can be a great time saver.

Hmm I think I will purchase a Torque key, and Ill go to my local Drum Centre and see if they do some lessons. Thanks for the advice guys and when I start working part time I'll look into the Drum Dial.

The best tuning device in the entire world is you and a simple drumkey. You just need to practice doing it like you would practice making sounds from any instrument. The more you do it, the better you will get.

CLICK HERE to see some AWESOME free instructional videos on drum tuning by Bob Gatzen who is probably the most knowledgeable drum guy on earth.

Subscribe to his youtube channel because he shares so many amazing and helpful ideas! He is a fabulous player too!

Oh, the evans torque key will work fine, but your drums must have excellent bearing edges, healthy heads and smoothly operating lugs. If you have excellent bearing edges, healthy heads and smoothly operating lugs, then your drums should tune very easily without that torque key so you do not need to buy it.

Thats actually a pretty good guide, Ive only seen one or two of his videos. Subscribed

I have both and the drum dial is much better and faster than the torque key. But as others have said get someone to show you how to tune. I done just that and even though i'm still not a perfect tuner the fact that i can sit down and tune my instrument by ear makes me feel like a more accomplished drummer. Any drummer will tell you that there is no better feeling than someone to tell you how great your kit sounds, and knowing that i tuned them to sound like that makes it so much sweeter.

My advice is to get someone to help you tune. If you need one of the tuneing tools to help you for now, i would most definately spend the extra money on the drum dial.

Just to mention, I found the drum dial to be much slower for me than doing it by ear. I think it's all what you're used to.

drumtechdad said:

Just to mention, I found the drum dial to be much slower for me than doing it by ear. I think it's all what you're used to.

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I completely agree, that's why I only owned one for one week. The same thing goes with my girlfriend. It took her almost twice as long using the DrumDial than it does using a stick, key and her ears. It takes very little personal instruction to teach someone to be able to tune drums without the use of auxiliary equipment that really isn't accurate enough to tune a musical instrument anyway. I never saw any drummer or drum tech enter any studio I worked in toting a DrumDial or Tension Watch.

Dennis

I have the Evans Torque Key, but I bought it just to have a magnetic key with a larger grip. I find using the torque feature time consuming and not very accurate. As has already been mentioned any inconsistency in the amount of friction of any given tension rod renders the amount of lug torque meaningless and you're right back to square one in needing to use your ears and intuition to get the drum sounding good.

I'll second Crazy8's endorsement of Bob Gatzen's tuning videos. He presents so many great ideas that focus on the sound and the feel of the drum heads, not gadgets and drum voodoo, and his methods are very clear and easy to understand.

There is no "magic bullet" that allows you to get great drum sounds without knowing how to tune, but at the same time there's no reason why anyone can't learn the necessary skills to become a good drum tuner.

Really learning how to tune drums well takes patience and requires focus, just like any other aspect of your drumming. Realize the time you spend learning to tune well will not only make subsequent tuning easier, but as you gain facility and confidence you will find yourself more willing (and able) to use tuning to get a wider variety of sounds out of your drums..