Please Help! -Ear Training for Tuning Drums

Hello everybody, I'm new to the forum and new to drumming as well. I'll try to make this short.

So... I rented a drum set about 3 weeks ago because I've always wanted to try it, and now, I'm hooked for life. 100%.

So on this rented kit... After a week of messing around and learning rudiments, I noticed some very unpleasant harmonics coming from the snare, and when I would hit the hi-tom when no other drums were resonating, I was also hearing an unpleasant resonance from the mid-tom reacting to the hi-tom. I tried to make some adjustments myself, and just ended up making it worse.

Now these drums are completely unplayable, my cat even came downstairs and started meowing at me! (that's not normal from him, it was definitely the overtones)

In the last couple of weeks, I've looked up a lot of videos online about tuning, and I'm looking for more technical advice on the subject.
" finger tighten and then eighth/quarter turn around" didn't help me, so I'm looking to have a few questions answered.

1 - Can this be done without knowing exactly what a "C" or "D" pitch is? because I do not know how to do that without a tuner. My ears are not trained.

2 - How do you tune the drums as a whole, and when do you know when the intervals are correct with each other?

3 - If you're tuning the entire kit, do you have to remove the drum and tune it away from the others?

4 - How do you know when the drum is tuned to it's optimal pitch?



Anything helps, the more technical, the better.

Thanks for your time.

If the bearing edges are good and the shells are in round, then it's not that hard. The method you mentioned will work fine--"finger-tight plus a quarter or half-turn." The worse the edges and shells, the better your ear has to be to get them right. I don't know of a good shortcut to being able to get crappy drums in tune, you just need time practicing at it.

Push pull stroke said:

If the bearing edges are good and the shells are in round, then it's not that hard. The method you mentioned will work fine--"finger-tight plus a quarter or half-turn." The worse the edges and shells, the better your ear has to be to get them right. I don't know of a good shortcut to being able to get crappy drums in tune, you just need time practicing at it.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. Since I started paying attention to tuning, I haven't been able to really play or listen to well tuned drums yet. So I really have nothing to compare it to.
I just know that the tuning is wrong... It's like nails on a chalkboard, and the intervals aren't pleasing.

I don't know if I'll be able to help much here, but a couple of good online resources are Bob Gatzen's videos and the Drum Tuning Bible.

Tuning drums can be enormously frustrating if you're new to it, especially if you have no one around to work with you. Listen CAREFULLY to all the different harmonics each head is producing, at each and every lug. Lots of basic tuning problems happen because the head is not evenly tensioned. Tap lightly at each lug, with opposite head damped or sitting on a carpeted surface.

The resources I mentioned will talk in depth about intervals. There are tons of variables, so soak up all the info you can. There are intervals between drums, and intervals between the two heads of each drum, and there are no set rules about what either should be. Sorry. :/

As for finding pitches, you can download a simple tuning fork app on your smartphone to get you rolling.

Welcome to the drumming world!

The method I use involves both uniform rod tension and fine-tuning by ear, and it is very simple to use.

I start with a slack head under the hoop, with all the tension rods loose. I finger-tighten them all until I feel them start to take up tension. I then turn them just enough so that the tension rod head is parallel to the drum hoop. In other words, if you're looking down on top of the tension rod, the flat side of the square is against the hoop, not a corner.

Then I tune the head in the cross method - 12 o'clock, then 6 o'clock, then continue clockwise to the next, back across the head, etc. I use the same number of turns per rod. It's easy to count with the rods all at the exact same angle from the hoop. Typically I use one to two complete turns for tom batters and resos, three to four turns on a snare batter, and four to six turns on the snare reso.



From there, I check the harmonic of each lug. Oooh, big scary term! The best way to do this is to gently push on the center of the drum head with your thumb or the butt of a stick, and then tap the drumhead about an inch from the rim adjacent to every lug. You should hear a high-pitched "boing" sound. Because you're stretching the drumhead out and muffling it a scoche, you should hear differences in pitch much more clearly than if you do it without the pressure in the center. If you hear one lug lower in pitch than the others, adjust with 1/4 turns on that lug (and possibly also the lug opposite it on the drum). There is no need to achieve a certain note; you're looking for uniformity in tension across the head.

Once you've tuned the drum, you can quickly see whether or not any lugs have detuned simply by seeing if all the rod heads are still parallel to the hoop; if you see a corner pointing at the hoop, tighten it up and then recheck your harmonics.

As with anything to do with the drums, practice makes perfect. Cheers!

I like that method, Al. That should be ideal for a beginner to get going.

I wanted to come back and answer some of the OP's questions directly - sorry I missed them first time around.

1 - Can this be done without knowing exactly what a "C" or "D" pitch is? because I do not know how to do that without a tuner. My ears are not trained.
Absolutely. Drums are an indeterminate pitch instrument. Some folks tune to pitches, but there's no reason for you to try to tune a drum to any note other than where it sounds good.

2 - How do you tune the drums as a whole, and when do you know when the intervals are correct with each other?
I tend to tune the kick and snare to themselves, regardless of the toms. Bass drum tuning also usually involves a lot of muffling, and so we could start a dozen other threads on that topic. As far as the toms, I tend to loosely tune the toms together so that if there were four of them, you could play the "Charge!" bugle call notes on them (ba duh da DAH duh dah!) Generally speaking, each tom favors a certain tuning; any higher and it sounds papery and choked, any lower and it sounds flappy and dead. If you tune each tom to where it gets a full, clean note in and of itself, you should have decent interval between them. The only caveat to that is if you have two toms with very close diameters, such as a 12" and a 13" - you may have to tune the 12" a little high or the 13" a little low to get any separation.

3 - If you're tuning the entire kit, do you have to remove the drum and tune it away from the others? Not necessarily. When I'm putting new heads on drums, I do tend to dismount them and do it on a table or carpet. But to tune drums on a set, I tend to keep them mounted. If you are getting too much sympathetic resonance from other drums, throw a towel on the offenders while you tune.

4 - How do you know when the drum is tuned to it's optimal pitch? As I said before, there is a sweet spot where the drum will ring through a pure, throaty, punchy note. Too loose and it's going to sound "flappy". Too high, and it'll sound tinny and without projection. If you tune the top and bottom heads similarly (about 1 to 2 full turns), or the bottom head a half-turn to a full turn higher than the batter head, you should hear that familiar "booooooosh" sound that sounds like a tom.

This was the exact answer that I was looking for. Thanks for taking the time to write those. I apprecate all of the advice that I've received since I posted this.

One thing I should have mentioned... (This one is from the noobie side) These drums are setup about 3 feet away from a wall, I can't turn them around, I would have to move them to another room... Could that be causing these harmonics to interfere even more with each other? maybe enhancing the issue?

alparrott said:

I wanted to come back and answer some of the OP's questions directly - sorry I missed them first time around.

1 - Can this be done without knowing exactly what a "C" or "D" pitch is? because I do not know how to do that without a tuner. My ears are not trained.
Absolutely. Drums are an indeterminate pitch instrument. Some folks tune to pitches, but there's no reason for you to try to tune a drum to any note other than where it sounds good.

2 - How do you tune the drums as a whole, and when do you know when the intervals are correct with each other?
I tend to tune the kick and snare to themselves, regardless of the toms. Bass drum tuning also usually involves a lot of muffling, and so we could start a dozen other threads on that topic. As far as the toms, I tend to loosely tune the toms together so that if there were four of them, you could play the "Charge!" bugle call notes on them (ba duh da DAH duh dah!) Generally speaking, each tom favors a certain tuning; any higher and it sounds papery and choked, any lower and it sounds flappy and dead. If you tune each tom to where it gets a full, clean note in and of itself, you should have decent interval between them. The only caveat to that is if you have two toms with very close diameters, such as a 12" and a 13" - you may have to tune the 12" a little high or the 13" a little low to get any separation.

3 - If you're tuning the entire kit, do you have to remove the drum and tune it away from the others? Not necessarily. When I'm putting new heads on drums, I do tend to dismount them and do it on a table or carpet. But to tune drums on a set, I tend to keep them mounted. If you are getting too much sympathetic resonance from other drums, throw a towel on the offenders while you tune.

4 - How do you know when the drum is tuned to it's optimal pitch? As I said before, there is a sweet spot where the drum will ring through a pure, throaty, punchy note. Too loose and it's going to sound "flappy". Too high, and it'll sound tinny and without projection. If you tune the top and bottom heads similarly (about 1 to 2 full turns), or the bottom head a half-turn to a full turn higher than the batter head, you should hear that familiar "booooooosh" sound that sounds like a tom.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. That is pretty much the method that I've been using and I will definitely check out those resources. Much appreciated

IDDrummer said:

I don't know if I'll be able to help much here, but a couple of good online resources are Bob Gatzen's videos and the Drum Tuning Bible.

Tuning drums can be enormously frustrating if you're new to it, especially if you have no one around to work with you. Listen CAREFULLY to all the different harmonics each head is producing, at each and every lug. Lots of basic tuning problems happen because the head is not evenly tensioned. Tap lightly at each lug, with opposite head damped or sitting on a carpeted surface.

The resources I mentioned will talk in depth about intervals. There are tons of variables, so soak up all the info you can. There are intervals between drums, and intervals between the two heads of each drum, and there are no set rules about what either should be. Sorry. :/

As for finding pitches, you can download a simple tuning fork app on your smartphone to get you rolling.

Welcome to the drumming world!

Click to expand...

Thanks for this response as well.

alparrott said:

The method I use involves both uniform rod tension and fine-tuning by ear, and it is very simple to use.

I start with a slack head under the hoop, with all the tension rods loose. I finger-tighten them all until I feel them start to take up tension. I then turn them just enough so that the tension rod head is parallel to the drum hoop. In other words, if you're looking down on top of the tension rod, the flat side of the square is against the hoop, not a corner.

Then I tune the head in the cross method - 12 o'clock, then 6 o'clock, then continue clockwise to the next, back across the head, etc. I use the same number of turns per rod. It's easy to count with the rods all at the exact same angle from the hoop. Typically I use one to two complete turns for tom batters and resos, three to four turns on a snare batter, and four to six turns on the snare reso.

From there, I check the harmonic of each lug. Oooh, big scary term! The best way to do this is to gently push on the center of the drum head with your thumb or the butt of a stick, and then tap the drumhead about an inch from the rim adjacent to every lug. You should hear a high-pitched "boing" sound. Because you're stretching the drumhead out and muffling it a scoche, you should hear differences in pitch much more clearly than if you do it without the pressure in the center. If you hear one lug lower in pitch than the others, adjust with 1/4 turns on that lug (and possibly also the lug opposite it on the drum). There is no need to achieve a certain note; you're looking for uniformity in tension across the head.

Once you've tuned the drum, you can quickly see whether or not any lugs have detuned simply by seeing if all the rod heads are still parallel to the hoop; if you see a corner pointing at the hoop, tighten it up and then recheck your harmonics.

As with anything to do with the drums, practice makes perfect. Cheers!

Click to expand...

Here's a tip that you may or may not know about. There is a drum tuning aid on the market called the drum dial. It measures the tension on the drumhead by exerting pressure and measuring the deflection of the head to determine it's tension.

I think that you might find it curious that no matter what size drum I have, I tune all the batter heads to 75 and all the reso heads to 83 (excluding the snare and bass drum)

I'm not encouraging you or discouraging you to use a drum dial. They are a whole big learning curve. I just wanted to point out the fact that all my drums have roughly the same tension on the respective heads, 75 batter, 83 reso. With the same tension on the heads....the size of the drums will give you the intervals you want. I found that interesting when I discovered it.

Drums are IMO THE hardest instrument to tune. I probably spent at least 200 hours over the years learning to tune by trial and error. I actually think that number is way low. It's been so long now.

Also, drums have overtones. They are loaded with them. You have to tune so they help your sound not detract from it. You want those overtones....when they are working for you. It's best to learn how to tune out the clashing overtones then to muffle them away. Muffling detracts from the drums volume and quality of tone. Talking unmiced only.

Resign yourself to the fact that you have a tough row to hoe trying to learn how to tune drums, and know it's not easy. So learn to not get frustrated, if you can.

Tuning by ear takes a while. Some rooms are really hard, as well.

If everything is working correctly and the heads are ok, just start over. Loosen everything, finger tighten so it's even and then just tighten each lug the same amount. Check for evennessas soon as it gives a tone, then you should be able to keep it even regardless of pitch if you tighten or loosen each lug about the same.

If it's generally ok, you just look for the problem lug. Don't be finnicky. Loosen and bring it back up until you find the right lug.

If you want some aid, there a device called a tune bot. There's a new simpler version just out.

I know my pitches, so I often often use an app called iDrumtune just to get the pitches quickly. It's a bit of a pain for detailed lug tuning, but for finding pitch and saving time when changing heads it's nice.

Thanks Larry, I really like this message because I understand what you're saying, and it kind of backs up the things that I already had inside of my head

I just spent 4 hours downstairs - I took all of the drums completely apart, and cleaned them as I put them back together.
Using the methods that I've learned over the past 2 weeks, along with the advice from this thread, I was able to get fantastic results. Since I took them all apart and re-assembled everything, they are much, much more enjoyable to play on.

Since I started with drums 3 weeks ago, I have spent about 40 hours researching & practicing tuning (nearly as much time as playing the drums), and the overtones are what have been giving me such a hard time, it feels like the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack.

larryace said:

Here's a tip that you may or may not know about. There is a drum tuning aid on the market called the drum dial. It measures the tension on the drumhead by exerting pressure and measuring the deflection of the head to determine it's tension.

I think that you might find it curious that no matter what size drum I have, I tune all the batter heads to 75 and all the reso heads to 83 (excluding the snare and bass drum)

I'm not encouraging you or discouraging you to use a drum dial. They are a whole big learning curve. I just wanted to point out the fact that all my drums have roughly the same tension on the respective heads, 75 batter, 83 reso. With the same tension on the heads....the size of the drums will give you the intervals you want. I found that interesting when I discovered it.

Drums are IMO THE hardest instrument to tune. I probably spent at least 200 hours over the years learning to tune by trial and error. I actually think that number is way low. It's been so long now.

Also, drums have overtones. They are loaded with them. You have to tune so they help your sound not detract from it. You want those overtones....when they are working for you. It's best to learn how to tune out the clashing overtones then to muffle them away. Muffling detracts from the drums volume and quality of tone. Talking unmiced only.

Resign yourself to the fact that you have a tough row to hoe trying to learn how to tune drums, and know it's not easy. So learn to not get frustrated, if you can.

Click to expand...

Hey Arne! - that's pretty much what I did, I took everything completely apart, put a nice soft surface down on a table and re-assembled all of the drums. They turned out great. I will definitely look into that app too. I downloaded a free one, but it's not very good. - Thanks
PS: I like the quote in your signature, true words.

Odd-Arne Oseberg said:

Tuning by ear takes a while. Some rooms are really hard, as well.

If everything is working correctly and the heads are ok, just start over. Loosen everything, finger tighten so it's even and then just tighten each lug the same amount. Check for evennessas soon as it gives a tone, then you should be able to keep it even regardless of pitch if you tighten or loosen each lug about the same.

If it's generally ok, you just look for the problem lug. Don't be finnicky. Loosen and bring it back up until you find the right lug.

If you want some aid, there a device called a tune bot. There's a new simpler version just out.

I know my pitches, so I often often use an app called iDrumtune just to get the pitches quickly. It's a bit of a pain for detailed lug tuning, but for finding pitch and saving time when changing heads it's nice.

Click to expand...