can't tune for my life, somebody help please

tomek123

Member
Honestly I love and enjoy drumming. I want to have a great sounding kit but it seems like its impossible for me. After playing a soundpercusion for 3 years I though it would be great to upgrade. I got a pdp x7 all maple set and remo pinstripes on top and ambassadors on bottom and an Axis longboard double pedals it took me 8 months to save up for this so far set looking to getting better cymbals soon. For both sides for the 7 piece the heads were about 200 bucks and the set is about 800. I feel like I spend a 1000 dollars to play on trash cans. For the past week I spend at the very least 20 hours trying to tune my 10 inch and 12 inch tom but as you can see no success. There isn't a warm sound instead I get echos, boing and all that jazz and it doesn't sound like a drum at all, it is so frustrating that sometimes I stop and have to walk away because no matter what I do it won't work. When tune I finger tighten the lugs and go 2 times around the drum in a star pattern doing 1/4 turns. After that I match up the tensions using a drum dial(doesn't really help that much but it does to some extent) I want to play and practice with a nice sounding set so I can enjoy it and not hear "BOING" when I hit my toms which makes me want to vomit. please help on any tips


p.s I used my sisters guitar tuner and it said that my batter head and reso head were an A note, 470 Hz and the drumdial setting are 75 on reso and 76 on batter

(bought the set with my own money earning $7.50/hour so you can see that I am pissed off that my hard earned money is being wasted)

The music style that I prefer is all types of metal, trash metal, death metal, metalcore and deathcore

Thank you for your help
 
first of all A should be 440. But this just brings me to the point of why I don't drum tuners and wish all could learn by ear. How does this drum sound that is showing 470 on both heads. Don't worry about notes but the sound in reference to the other drums. Get one drum where you want it and tune the others up or down accordingly.
Once you get the drums tuned, use the drum dial to find the settings for your next head change and for tweaking. You will be much happier in the end.
 
You may be expecting too much. Real drums, especially from the driver's seat, do not sound like what you hear on CDs. All of that stuff is pretty heavily processed.

That said, tuning drums is very hard, and takes a lot of practice (just like playing them does). Watch all the youtube videos, you can (like the Gatzen ones). Read all the tuning threads here and articles on on other sites you can, and practice.

And, even though most people here are against it, you may want to try some light muffling. If you're just practicing by yourself in your basement it doesn't really matter what the drums sound like at a distance, just to you... And muffling helps the drums sound better from the drivers seat.

And wear good hearing protection... Aside from the obvious benefits, they also block a lot of the noise and overtones that only you, in the drivers seat hear, that make the drums sound bad.
 
you CAN tune for your life or otherwise. it just takes some time, and as noted above you may be being too fussy about the 'boings' (overtones) you hear, compared to the drums on recorded music. Have you ever recorded your kit out front? How does it sound? I bet a better than behind it in the drivers seat. Teh overtones go away at a distance, to some degree.

Google the 'drum tuning bible' read it get a drum out and spend a couple hours learning what's going on, one drum at a time. Start with reso and batter at the same pitch to your ear. Vary them up or down, take your time. Then get your drums in a relative sequence of pitches that sound good, say to the tune " three blind mice " etc.

The drum dial is a short cut that doesn't allow your ear to learn what's going on. It surely speeds things up later, but you have to train your ear first.
 
I have an X7 kit, and I have EC2's on mine, which shouldn't be too far off from Pinstripes, so I might be able to help. Try a DrumDial setting of 75 (batter) over 72 (reso). Aim for a pitch spread of a minor 3rd (the batter at a pitch a minor 3rd higher than the reso). On my 8" tom, the batter is an F, and the reso an A flat. (Use a free online keyboard to help find pitches if you don't have a pitch pipe.) On my 10" tom, it's a C over a E flat. On the 12", a G sharp over B. (Truth be known, though, I have a lot of trouble getting a good sound out of my 12" tom. Try the 8" and 10" toms first.) Start with those, and let me know if it helps. We can move to the floor toms next if you want.

BTW, are you having trouble with your bass drum and snare too? Or just toms?
 
Tuning drums is not that difficult. All it takes is practice and being able to hear and differentiate between closely placed pitches. Most novices will try to work too quickly before they actually learn what to listen for and how to achieve it. Here's where a pro drum instructor can be an advantage. There is nothing like personal one on one instructions to learn something and the more you do it, the easier it becomes. There are a lot of drummers that are intimidated at picking up a drum key in fear that they'll do more harm than good when it comes to tuning their drums. Drums will not stay perfectly in tune for any length of time and they have to be tweaked. It's very seldom that I start playing before I tweak my kit and it only takes a matter of a minute or two to do it.

Learn how to tune your kit, you wanted to play drums and tuning is a very important part of the process. If they sound good, it will have a definite impact on your playing ability.

Dennis
 
you CAN tune for your life or otherwise. it just takes some time, and as noted above you may be being too fussy about the 'boings' (overtones) you hear, compared to the drums on recorded music. Have you ever recorded your kit out front? How does it sound? I bet a better than behind it in the drivers seat. Teh overtones go away at a distance, to some degree.

Well, I think that is part of the problem newbies (like myself) have when it comes to tuning and what to expect behind the kit. Like you said, most everything you hear comes from the top/front of the kit, where it sounds different. And then it is processed afterwards as well. So with all that, you never really get to hear what a drum set sounds like from the drummer's POV While in theory we know drums will have all sorts of overtones and other squeaks and whatnot, we don't know WHAT a normal overtone or ring is, and what isn't. And while we all talk about overtones this, and boings there, and some other sound related euphemisms, it isn't an accurate way to gauge a "sound". I think that is a big part of the confusion and issues newbies have when they start tuning on their own. For the longest time, I didn't realize that my Acrolite with tube lugs was supposed to have all those overtones. I thought there was something wrong with it. But now after hearing it recorded, it sounds rather pleasant :eek:)
 
Go to the Evans drum head website and watch the video about tuning by Will Kennedy. It is a quick and easy method for tuning toms. Peace and goodwill.
 
I saw a video on youtube and if I can find the link I will post it. This guy tuned to just above wrinkle on both batter and reso head. I thought that I would give it a try and so I did. EDIT:(It's the Rob Brown video posted below).

BTW, I'm using Evans G2. and I no longer need to use moongel.

It totally changed the sound of my kit and I like it. Liking the sound is an important part of the drum tuning process as I understand at this point. I ask every drummer that I meet about tuning and each one gives a different answer. The only consistent answer that I get is that the reso head should be tighter.

My Gretsch kit went from sounding like I was tapping on plastic cups to firing off cannons. My 16in floor tom is a beast now. This works for me alhough, like one of the previous guys said there is a difference in the sound from behind the kit and out front. Not big difference but I can tell that there is.
 
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I'm a newb at tuning so all I can tell you is what I've learned from my mistakes. The most consistent mistake I made was tuning the toms too high and choking them out. Once I learned to ease off on the tension of the toms they started sounding much better.
 
Go to the Evans drum head website and watch the video about tuning by Will Kennedy. It is a quick and easy method for tuning toms. Peace and goodwill.



DO THIS! You will be happy that you did.
 
I'm also not to great at tuning, i usually just go for getting a consistent tone out of the drum, if all the lugs are at the same tension you get an even tone. so even if they don't sound great they sound god and get a nice tone, once you have a decent tone you can play around a little bit. to be honest they sound pretty bad, but when I'm playing with headphones they sound good.
 
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