JimmyM
Diamond Member
Short version…Rob says to loosen the rods up all the way and finger tighten, then press down in the middle of the head with constant force, and tighten each rod till the wrinkles around the lug go away, then repeat for all other lugs in any order you want.
Turns out to be a pretty cool way to do it with some caveats…it will be close but you will probably need to fine tune. Also the more you press down, the more wrinkles you get, and if you press too hard you will go straight into jazzland. Likewise, if you don’t press enough, the heads will be floppy. So it took me a couple times to get it right. I think I went too high with my tones tuned to D and the G a fifth below. Going to try to get used to it after seeing Josh Freeze playing higher tuned drums than I thought, but I suspect I’ll end wanting to split the difference between that and rock thud.
Which leads me to another question…I used to work with a guy who said that as your heads get played in, the only way to make them work without changing them is to tighten them up higher and higher. he would tune them way high, and after a while, he couldn’t take it anymore and had to buy a new set. I thought he tuned them too high anyway.
Is that stretching/higher tuning thing on the real or was he just ill informed? I thought it was BS till my floor tom would get a little weird and throw out odd vibration sounds if the head’s tuned where I like it…big and deep. So now I don’t know. They’re Ambs that have been on there close to a year, but not like I’m doing 4 sets 4 times a week or anything.