hey everyone it's jared here from drumeo
and today i'm going to teach you how to
tune your drums now this is something
that when i first started playing no one
taught me so it's something that i just
learned over time by taking off my drum
heads tuning them up getting new drum
heads tuning them up and just really
trying different things and so that's
kind of what i'm going to say to preface
this video yes you're going to learn a
lot of tips here but there's nothing
better than you just getting in your
practice space and taking off the heads
and trying different things
so why do you want to tune your drums
well you want to remove unwanted
overtones
maybe you're playing a certain style of
music that requires a different tension
on the drums maybe you're in a recording
studio and a producer has asked you to
get a slightly different sound and so
there's many many different reasons but
it's such an important skill to have so
all these drums are tuned up and sound
great let's give them a listen
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a little bit of in the air tonight but
they'll call it so these drums all sound
fantastic but i want to show you how
they sound from nothing from completely
detentioned so i'm going to start by
de-tensioning
all of the batter heads okay so we're
going to get the drill out and we're
gonna speed up the video and take these
drums down a notch
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okay so now the drums are all
de-tensioned and i use a drill and i've
done that many many times what you want
to make sure if you use a drill is on
the high tension drums don't completely
detention one lug
only but go slowly around the entire
snare or do it in a cross pattern okay
on the toms they're tuned relatively low
right now anyway so it's not as big of a
deal but let's hear how they sound
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okay so we're going to start with the
toms i'm actually going to get to the
bass drum but that's me at the end of
the video i'm going to show you exactly
how i do that because we have to kind of
tear everything apart
so with the toms we got them all nice
and loose
and we're going to start by finger
tightening
each lug finger tightening just
basically means
let that tension rod touch the edge of
the rim
all the way around
and this will work on any kit so i know
i'm using a higher end yamaha recording
custom kit that they're
they're built for the recording studio
and and they sound it's almost hard to
get them to sound bad
um
but
it's still really important to get them
in tune
okay there you go there
floor tom
some of the lugs are a little bit tight
you might have to use a
drum key just to make it so it touches
the rim
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so once i've got everything finger
tightened
if you're putting on new heads what you
want to do is you want to press down on
the center of the drum head with your
hand i'm not going to do it here super
hard because it's still on the mount i
would put it on the floor take my palm
push down in the center of the head just
to kind of stretch it out i do that on
each drum these heads have already been
put on they're already stretched out and
they sound great okay once you've done
that you want to just make sure
everything's finger tightened again
because as you stretch the head you'll
find that some things do kind of come
loose a little bit
so even these well just with a little
bit i did
they've kind of settled more
and then you want to bring up the
tension using the cross pattern so on
the 10 inch we're going to start here
we're going to bring out the tension
let's say one full turn
one full turn up here
and go the side this way one full turn
one full turn
and another
full turn
i can't tell you what your desired
tension is or how you like your drums to
sound right i can only tell you how to
get them up to tension evenly so let's
hear how it sounds
a little bit flat right so here i'm just
going to bring it up again another
quarter turn each cross pattern
if you're looking for a tool to help get
it up to tension you can use things like
the drum dial that's what we have here
it's something we can use to get a nice
consistent sound every single time for
me personally
i just do it by ear every single time i
do it by feel i brought that up
basically one half turn and then another
quarter turn and here we go let's see
how it sounds
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right so you get that attack and you
do this is what i'm looking for and i
sound a little bit ridiculous when i say
that
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now let me tell you what i do with the
resonant head so
this drum sounded pretty good when i
tightened it up
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now let's listen to the resonant head
much the exact same pitch if anything i
prefer my resonant head slightly lower
in pitch to the batter side but again
this balance is something that you're
going to have to figure out what works
and it is similar on these higher toms
but it might change more when it gets to
the floor tom so again
sing that
it's notebook
lower than the batter head this is what
gives me that
that nice tone
now one thing i didn't do here one thing
you didn't see me do
is
making sure everything is even in tone
or tension
and i bet you if i just tap around i bet
you it's pretty dang close
it's pretty close this one was a tiny
bit higher but if you listen just use
your ears
it sounds good okay something can sound
great and be slightly
out of tension
okay i know that's ever the internet is
just going crazy now but it is possible
it does not have to be perfectly
tensioned or pitch matched in order for
it to sound good i've played many gigs
where i'll detune one you know one lug
on my snare drum and it just sounds a
little bit better then so
just use your ears follow your ears and
that's where you'll get the best sound
okay let's do the 12 inch tom so we're
gonna do
probably one turn
cross pattern
and this is a little bit of feel because
if not if something has been finger
tightened and you if i tighten this one
it's naturally going to make this one
get a little bit loose right
and that's just the way it is so you
have to do a little bit of feel to make
sure that you're keeping up with the
tension as the hoop goes down and starts
to stretch that drum head so i've done
around one turn on each one
we're getting a little bit of tone
okay let's do a half turn now
so with one turn and a half turn
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it sounds pretty good now a lot of you
are sitting at your pianos and you're
trying to make sure that the notes are
evenly spaced like a third or a fifth or
a fourth i've heard many many different
opinions on how these should be tuned
for me personally i tune
it with how i want it to sound in my
head i have a idea in my head of how i
want to sound and you could sing it
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this is what's going on up here guys and
gals so it is what it is so here if i'm
listening
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to me it sounds almost perfect what i
want what i would do is bring this up
like a tenth
because it's just a little bit too low
for me
boom okay that bottom head
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almost the exact same pitch if anything
it's slightly lower okay so listen again
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boom sounds great
finally we're going to get to this floor
tom now floor tom depending on the music
i'm playing i'll either like it almost
flappy and low which is something i
learned from benny greb because that's
how he tunes his floor tom
or i'll tune it up a little higher to
get a little bit more response off of
that drum and a little bit more tone but
a lot of people actually will tune their
floor tom
it's almost sounds like a bass drum more
like a thud as opposed to like a doom
but if we go back to the doom
doom
right
less tone
and ring so what we're going to do is
since it's already finger tightened
we're just going to turn it once
we're going to do the cross pattern
again
i'm telling you everyone watching
regardless of your drum heads you have
if you have a crappy drum set that
doesn't sound very good
and you haven't put on new heads if you
just go through this exercise you'd be
amazed at how much better your drums are
sounding okay so we did basically did a
half turn there we're gonna hear what
sounds
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right we're gonna up a little bit more
in my opinion
do a quarter turn there
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bottom
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actually tuned slightly higher than the
top head
now i might work on this a little bit
more i might go around and make sure
everything is correct this one actually
feels a little bit loose
right there
this one feels a tiny bit loose
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okay so next we're going to tune the
snare drum i've got everything finger
tighten here now it's just again we're
going to bring it up to tension
let's do one turn
the cross pattern
and i know everyone has their own
methods and some of you will argue with
me and say i'm doing it wrong but i
would say listen
use your ears follow your ears how does
it sound
okay
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there isn't necessarily a wrong way to
tune your drums unless you're doing it
in a way which could break them
i've never broken anything when tuning
my drums nothing
so i'm happy
and i like to bring up the snare
nice and tight
right away
sounds really good personally i like it
tighter
and then you can
basically do the pitch test once you
kind of got it in the range that you're
looking for
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so
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now talking about the resonant head on
the snare drum
the way i have this one tuned is
basically table top tight so again if
you want to make sure your resin head is
tuned correctly
or to a way that works for you what you
do is just detune it
just like we did the top head bring it
back up to tension doing the start
pattern and nice and tight this is the
most important thing for me in getting a
really responsive
snare drum sound and making sure that
you really hear the wires but you do not
want too much wire sound so that is how
to tune the toms and the snare drum
let's hear how they sound
so i will say
heads make such a huge difference so if
you're looking for a head that's more
controlled you need to get a thicker
head so that could be like an evans ec2
it could be an evans
g2 coated it could be a remo pinstripe
it could be something with a little bit
more control like a rim emperor
something that's two-ply if you're
looking for something really really
responsive with more ring go with a one
ply drum head my head of choice is
either the evans g2 coated for the toms
or the evans uv-1 this they sound quite
different or the evans genera hd dry on
the snare which is what is on here or an
evans uv one on the snare drum which is
a much more responsive much more ring um
it kind of makes the drum a little bit
crazy which i love okay nothing like a
crazy drum so next thing we're going to
do is i'm going to rip everything away
and i'm going to show you how i tune the
bass drum okay so we've got all the drum
set stuff stripped away and what we're
going to do is we're just going to
de-tension
the batter side of this drum now it's
actually quite loose already so start
from this point if it's a new head you
can go ahead and just stretch it a
little bit you don't have to do too much
and then bring everything up to finger
tighten as tight as you can go with your
fingers
now if you're looking for a tone out of
the drum if you're playing jazz or
something you could get a mallet and
actually pitch match each section
but here i'm basically going to
be bringing things up to tension
as i did on the snare drum but a much
lower tension
because it is the bass drum and we're
not looking for as much of a tone as we
are looking for
a certain amount of attack
okay
that's pretty much it if i rub my hand
around the edge of the drum you'll
notice there's no wrinkles here and this
is an evans
eq3 batter head which i like it has some
internal control rings it sounds really
really great lots of attack a little bit
of tone but not too much
okay so that's what i do on the batter
side
now when it comes to muffling i kind of
generally someone else has used this kit
since the last time i played it but it's
a similar muffling system this is like a
remo system i just use basic beach
towels i just set them in there and it
works for me
the other side
whether or not you have a hole in there
will determine how much resonance
the drum actually provides it will also
determine the action off the drum head
because this lets a lot of air escape
every time you hit that
your beater onto the batter head and so
you'll notice that the action off of the
head is different with no hole so i much
prefer a resonant head with a hole in it
what i do here is the exact same
thing
as the other side okay now i don't need
to go through it and show you it's a bit
of waste your time but if you want to
check
your heads
when it comes to like the tone because
it's kind of hard
you can just do it by feel so feel this
one
and feel this one and they're very cool
they're quite similar okay all i'm
seeing here is a tiny wrinkle when i
push in so i just want to bring that up
to tension a little bit and that is how
i tune my toms my snare and my bass drum
like i said at the beginning of the
video it's very much a personal
preference and i learned this by trying
things over and over again by
getting some new heads not liking the
sound
detune them tune them up again
detune them tune them up again do this
10 20 times figure i don't like that
head sound so i'm gonna go get a
different kind of head and over the
years i've been playing from one 20
years now i've kind of figured out a
system to do it
it doesn't require a lot of guesswork
it's not that hard i don't really
struggle with tuning at all anymore and
it's something that you can easily learn
to it's just more by putting in the work
and trying different things so thank you
so much for watching this video i hope
you got a lot out of it and like i said
at the beginning everyone has their own
methods i've been playing drums for 20
years and when i tune up drums now i
don't even really think about it it's
just something that i do quickly and
it's done so what i'd like you to tell
me in the comments below is how do you
tune your drums do you use the star
pattern like i did do detention and then
bring things up to attention until
they're at the perfect sound but how do
you do it i know everyone has their own
methods and i think we can all learn a
lot from each other so if you have
something to share please share it if
you don't have anything to share just
say hello come on just get in those
comments below i read every single one
of them and i'd love to hear what you
had to say thanks for watching and i'll
see you again very soon
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you