Actually, this helps out a lot Drum. I'm pretty okay with the sound on my snare and bass, it is the toms that I'm just not happy with. I think I have them now to where they are way to deep...but can't seem to get the sound I want. I'm probably leaning towards giving something a try, I'll have to go and check some out and see what's out there and what I can afford.
Thanks everyone!
Here's how I tune...took me almost 20 years to learn to do this by ear and feel!
Put the batter head on with all of the lugs just finger tight, then take a drum key in each hand and tighten the lugs in pairs 1/4 turn each, then again another 1/4 turn each in pairs. Now press your finger into the center of the head (fairly hard, you want to put tension on the head) and look for any wrinkles. Tighten the nearest lug if you see a wrinkle. Go up in pairs another turn and then tap the head lightly with a stick at each lug. You don't have to get each lug exactly in tune with the one next to it, just listen for any that are way higher or lower pitch, and adjust them so that they are all about the same pitch..
Now flip the drum over and do the same thing with the resonant head, get it 2 to 3 1/4 turns past finger tight and make sure that the lugs are roughly in tune all the way around. Flip the drum back over and (this is important!) put it back onto any mounting hardware (stand or floor tom legs or rack tom mount). There's no sense tuning a drum and then mounting it back to your kit and the mounting hardware changing the resonance of the drum!
Tap the batter head and adjust the
resonant head until you get the pitch you are looking for and the drum starts to sing out. Make major adjustments to the resonant head and minor adjustments to the batter head to get the batter in relative tune with the bottom (slightly higher or lower, depending on how you like it to sound). This gives me a good fundamental note and a resonant sound.
The other thing is to listen to how your drum really sounds, and don't try to get a dead, compressed, heavily EQ-ed "recorded" sound out of an acoustic drum. Microphones pick up different sounds 1" away from the tom than your ears will pick up 2' from the drum, or a listener will 10' away.