is there any toms that can keep a pitch well?

C

Cheese

Guest
Hi,

I heard that concert toms (not rototoms) can keep pitch better than toms on a drumkit with two heads, ive used electric drums for this but they are not as playable and natural as acoustic toms.

The more lugs and tuning pins the better I suppose but the bottom head may not be needed or maybe there is some sort of tom already out there.
 
Hi,

I heard that concert toms (not rototoms) can keep pitch better than toms on a drumkit with two heads, ive used electric drums for this but they are not as playable and natural as acoustic toms.

The more lugs and tuning pins the better I suppose but the bottom head may not be needed or maybe there is some sort of tom already out there.

First let me say???????????.The more lugs the better is just not true.There is a point where too many lugs choke the drum,and dampen the resonance of the shell.

Concert toms and double headed toms sound different and each has it's place.Double headed toms have a different and more popular resonant sound.I don't understand the second portion of your sentence about "some sort of tom"..

There is no such thing a tuning pins,they are called tension rods.

Where you "heard" that information from is in error to say the least.

Steve B
 
concert toms sound fine and I meant toms with a head on the tom and bottom.

if you have more lugs you can stretch the drum head in more places therefore there would be less places for it to loosen up and lose pitch but yes it would effect the resonance unless some change was made to fix that.
 
If there are more places to stretch the head then there are more places for the head to loosen.
 
Anyone else wanna fess up to not having a clue what this thread is about? Or am I the only idiot in the room.......again??

Dunno how to break this to you ... :)

Cheese - yes, single headed toms are easier to tune because you only have to consider the tone of one head, as opposed to getting two heads evenly tuned in a way that gives pleasing overtones. Try some Bob Gatzen tuning videos.

All well tuned decent quality drums will stay in tune unless you're beating them to death with rimshots. Doesn't matter if they're single headed concert toms or normal toms (with top and bottom heads).

After each use of the tuning key you should press in the middle of the head to stabilise the way the head sits on the bearing edges. Might be good to get a teacher to help out.
 
But if you tuned it well it would still go out of tune with in a new seconds of playing on a normal tom on a drumkit

That depends on the lugs ability to stay still. There are situations where wear and tear of the lugs can cause them to come lose, an so on. On a new drum, if it passes quality control, it should last for a long period of time depending on how much that head it hit.
 
Cheese where did you hear this and why do you need to know. My kit rarely needs a re tune until the heads are getting end of life
 
I think it's safe to say that a quality tom will hold it's pitch, even after playing.

There's a product called tightscrews that eliminate loosening of tuning rods. Virtually any tom will hold it's pitch with those. But you don't need them. Most toms stay in tune just fine. I don't know why you think otherwise. Maybe you tune too low and there's so little tension on the heads that the rods vibrate out. Drums need a certain tension to get your shell involved, that's what you want, your shell to contribute to the tone.
 
Most any drum will hold a pitch with the right tension (evenly applied). You should be tuning the toms on your drumkit to musical intervals anyway...
 
When you play a two head acoustic drum you are, "Bending A Note"
By this I mean that the harder you hit the batter head the more the resonant head will react.
I like to tune my tom resonant head slightly higher in pitch than my batter head,
This allows a harmony between the heads to coexist when the drum is struck.
My toms hold tune for a long time. I check them often and I fine tune if needed.

Some drummers like to tune the heads to equal pitch, and some tune the batter head higher than the resonant head,
Some like to tune their heads loose, and some like to tune tight.
It is all just personal preference.

As long as the tension rods don't loosen up then the drum will stay in the tune that it was set to.

~The harder a drum is hit, the louder and deeper in pitch it will sound.~
 
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Anyone else wanna fess up to not having a clue what this thread is about? Or am I the only idiot in the room.......again??

this cat has started threads and posted in many others and every one has made little to no sense at all to me

but I didn't want to be the first to say
 
But if you tuned it well it would still go out of tune with in a new seconds of playing on a normal tom on a drumkit

A well made drum that is played well will hold its tuning for quite a while. Look, you give the drum what it wants resonant-frequency-wise. Tension the heads to where the drum is working at its maximum capacity.
 
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I rarely sit behind any of my kits without first touching up on the tuning of the drums. It's what I have to do to get the pitch and sound exactly the way I want to hear it. It only takes a couple of minutes to do it. This is with any kit from the least expensive to pro grade. If more people would learn how to tune rather than be intimidated by the process, they would be much happier and better off with their new found knowledge.

Dennis
 
this cat has started threads and posted in many others and every one has made little to no sense at all to me

but I didn't want to be the first to say

+1..I agree that there just may be a slight "clueless" element at work here.I addressed what portion of it I could decyfer.However my Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen decoder ring is in the shop with my 20 lug 10" concert tom .I'm having more lugs and tuning pins installed,so that puppy will NEVER go out of tune again. You really don't need a bottom head ...because then there are two heads to tune...and that's just SOOOOOOOOOO much work.(sarcasm turned up to warp factor 11)

That makes perfect sense ...right......ohhhh look a chicken.:)

Steve B
 
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