Seating drumhead, culling, standing on, etc!!

Modern heads are easy to seat. All I do is press with my hand in the centre of the head after the initial tuning. As long as you have tighten the tension rods evenly this pressure will take out any slight alignment issues and takes up any slack. Then tune again to your preferred tension.
 
Same. I tune, pressing firmly with the palm of my hand on the center of the head a few times like you're giving the drum CPR. The first time you will hear the glue on the hoop cracking and the pitch will drop quite a bit. That is normal. Retune and press a few times. The pitch will drop again but not as much as the first time. Retune. Continue this process 4 or 5 times until the pitch doesn't drop anymore and the pitch stays the same at each lug. Done. Seated.
 
I can't tell you the last time I "seated"a drum head. I have never had a problem with seating, detuning, etc when not doing this.
 
I can't tell you the last time I "seated"a drum head. I have never had a problem with seating, detuning, etc when not doing this.

I haven't had to do this either. I change batter heads approx every three months on my main gigging kits, except for the kick and resos (those are changed once a year), and I have never wished I had "seated" the head.
 
Ditto the above.
I've used Remos and Evans heads of different types, put them on the drum, tuned them and that's been it. No deadness, no detuning, no awkward wrinkles. Is seating something that modern and more consistent manufacture has made redundant?
 
I just tune it up high, press a bit in the middle, done.
 
... The first time you will hear the glue on the hoop cracking and the pitch will drop quite a bit. That is normal. ...

Used to crack remos back in the day, but only remos would crack.

I finger tite the rods evenly, fist the middle of the head, the bigger the diameter of the drum, the deeper i push, star pattern tighten rods just to remove the wrinkles - voila - tuned to its lowest - go up from there if needed.

I have yet to try the Rob Knopper's credit card trick - once initially tuned he measures to distance from head to top of rim at each rod - uses the average to reset each one - takes a few round trips till the distance at each rod is the same all around.
 
I do it a bit with Remos to help the cracking along but Evans don't really crack so I don't bother with those.
 
I don't push on heads at all when first installing them and have had zero issues in the last fifteen years or so. I do tend to tighten them up past where I would normally play them before detuning them to playing tension, but not to any extreme level of tension.
 
I totally forgot that this is a thing people do. I've use Aquarian and the new Evans 360 stuff for a long time, and I've never felt the need to "crack" the glue or whatever.

Really, the only guys I see doing this still are the guys who stick with Remo. They probably know something I don't about remo construction or whatever where it sounds best if they do that.

I do push down a little as I tend to do the "get the wrinkles out" and tune from there.
 
Back in the old days they all crackled when tuning, but I haven't heard any of them crackle lately, not even Remo and I use Remo mostly.

I don't do any of those silly gyrations with the tuning. I put it on and tune by feel and I'm done.
 
I think people confuse "seating the head" with "clearing the drumhead" where you tighten it up evenly so it's in tune with itself. I don't seat them either-I think they last longer. Funny how so many of us have come to the same conclusion of no need to seat or crack them in. The ole Remos would seat and crack but I don't think it's necessary nowadays-Aquarians don't recommend it I don't think.
 
I use Remo. With toms,I will get them just above finger tight and press down fairly hard on the center of the head. Then I evenly tension them,bringing them up higher than I would normally keep them. i prefer to let them sit for a day before I tune.

With snare drums,I will cull the head,the way the second video describes it, and then follow the same steps as for toms. New Remos still snap, crackle, and pop,especially 2-ply heads

For bass drums I follow the same steps as the toms but I don't crank them very high.
 
I don't play Remo for decades, but when I did, I used to push them hard to make them crack.

On my toms, with Evans, what I do to "seat" them, I tune them up quite high and keep them high, let's say a night, and after I detune and tune them to what I want.
I think it's kind of ritual I've learnt, I don't know if it's useful. I don't change my skins that often anyway so it's not a waste of time. I just thought that it was useful for toms and bass since they're tuned juste above wrinkles.
I remember Simon Phillips jumping on his bass drum skin to seat it :) !

PS : Sorry I don't understand the verb you guys use : cull ? ? ? for a drumhead ?
 
Last edited:
In the 43 years that I've been playing, I have yet to seat a drumhead. In fact, I had never even heard of such a practice until I came across it here.

I can't remember the last time I changed a drumhead, which makes me think, could it be drumheads last longer when you don't stress them right from the start?
 
Seating a drum head was something I learned when I first started playing eons ago. Not sure if it's necessary, but I still do it. Kinda like "stretching" guitar strings. You really aren't going to stretch a steel string, but you do seat it better around the tuning pegs so it doesn't go out of tune as quickly.
 
I've never heard a compelling reason for seating heads.
 
Back
Top