Studio Skillset: Drum Tuning Essentials

July 28th, 2011 by Trenton

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Great drum sounds start with great-sounding drums.

Today, we have more tools than ever to aid us in creating compelling drums sounds. So why is it still so rare and startlingly satisfying to hear great-sounding drum recordings?

You already have the ears and the instincts – now learn the rest.

The truth is that few drummers (and even fewer engineers) have developed a sense for tuning drums to speak with power, nuance and authority.

This is no dig on drummers. Just hearing the fundamental pitch on a drum can be difficult at first, even for players trained on melodic instruments. Because of this, alongside piano players, drummers are perhaps the only instrumentalists who are commonly unable to tune their own instruments.

Although some great drummers can get their kit most of the way there on ears and instinct alone, the ones who care most about this part of the craft often develop a system that helps them achieve optimal sounds quickly and without guesswork.

With reliable information and a little practice you too will be able to get your studio’s kit to a reliable starting point without fuss, develop a greater understanding of the potential of any drum, and just maybe save the day from time to time.

The basic process is straightforward, but there are a few essential ingredients many tuning guides leave out. Study up here, and while your peers are loading their sound replacers with sonically-homogenizing sample libraries, you’ll be reaching for a drum key like the badass engineer you are.

THE BASICS

There are plenty of basic guides out there, but it’s hard to find great written advice on drum tuning.

In doing research for this article, I found that the majority of percussion books glazed over the subject, most articles painted half the picture, and nearly every web-forums was rife with inaccuracies.

At its simplest, drum tuning can be broken down into a few basic steps. So it often is. But, once you try and follow through them for the first time, don’t be surprised if you come to the conclusion that there may be a few missing pieces to the puzzle.

A quick web search will provide dozens of links that outline the basic process of tuning a drum one head at a time. The advice often proves too good to be true for neophytes with high sonic standards:

1. Remove the old drumhead and wipe down the bearing edges. [The “bearing edge” is the part of the drum that comes into contact with the drumhead –Ed.]

2. Put on the new head and finger-tighten all the lugs. Gradually bring the drum up to a good pitch by tuning opposite lugs, one half-turn at a time.

3. “Seat” the head by firmly pressing down on its center. Depending on the type of head, you may hear distinct cracking sound as it seats. [This “seating” process stretches the head out, causing it to drop in pitch now – instead of loosening up and dropping out of tune later – in the middle of the session!]

4. Bring the drum back up to the desired pitch and fine tune. Repeat this process for the drum’s other head, and then on all the drums in the kit.

Sounds simple, right?

Well, anyone who’s spent hours chasing down dissonant overtones, and unexplained buzzes and rattles, or tried to correct unbalanced timbres, or lack of power, clarity or resonance, can tell you that “simple” is the last word that comes to mind.

Guides like these raise as many questions as they answer, not the least of which is “Desired pitch? What the hell is that?”

Although the steps above are in fact the basic nuts and bolts of the procedure, there are a few missing ingredients that, once understood, make the whole process much easier.

MISSING INGREDIENT #1: THE ENVIRONMENT

Tune for the room you’re recording in! A tuning that sounds great in one space may sound lousy in another.

Drummer David Berger tunes re-purposed bass drum during a Baby Copperhead session at Let ‘Em In Music.

This is a lesson I had to learn the hard way. I once had a session in Power Station New England, a stunning re-creation of one of New York City’s most iconic A-rooms.

After our initial setup, the band, producer, and I found ourselves shaking our heads over the sound of the snare drum, in the room and through the speakers.

The band’s drummer was a capable player, but not confident about his ear for tuning. When he heard I was learning to tune drums, he asked me to have a stab at it.

We took the snare drum out into the small, tiled studio lounge. The rest of the guys drank coffee and chewed that fat while I re-seated the head and toyed with the lugs. When we finally settled on the perfect tone, we took the drum back into the live room, only to find it sounded worse than before!

What seemed warm, resonant, and well-balanced in the lounge sounded choked and anemic in the spacious wood live room. In the end, I had to go through the process a second time, retuning the drum in the tracking room.

MISSING INGREDIENT #2: THE RIGHT HEADS

A quick look around the marketplace reveals nearly as many types of drum-heads as there are drummers. The sheer variety can be dizzying, but don’t fear. For the purposes of outfitting your studio’s drums and holding onto some spares, the classic options are your friends:

In the studio, basic single-ply heads are the way to go.

While 2-ply or dotted heads can be great on tour where their durability and built-in muffling are assets, they often lack excitement, sensitivity, and flexibility in the studio. You can always dampen down a lively and resonant single-ply drumhead, but you can’t put life back into a dull 2-ply head.

For top (“batter”) heads, a single-ply coated REMO Ambassador, Evans G1, or Aquarian Satin Finish will do nicely.

This type of head has been the most popular choice for generations for a good reason. If you want a little more bright articulation and a little less low-mid resonance from your batter head, you can go with clear versions of these single-ply heads instead.

For bottom (“resonant”) heads, single-ply heads are also a good choice. They’ll steer you toward well-balanced tom sounds with ample sustain.

If you prefer a little less resonance, try a thinner single-ply head like the Remo Diplomat, Evans Genera Resonant or Aquarian Hi-Frequency.

For the bottom (“snare-side”) head of your snare drum, use the special snare-side version of either of these head types. They’re thinner, allowing the snares to vibrate more freely.

For bass drum, I’ll break my studio-wide prohibition on pre-muffled and even 2-ply drums. Feel free to use one if you’re a fan of tight, focused kick drum sounds.

For Tom Toms, please, please, please use the same combination of heads for each and every one. You’ll thank me later.

Once you feel you’ve become a true blue drum-tuning expert, feel free to experiment with new and unusual drum heads. But don’t be surprised if you keep coming back to the classics: a one-ply coated on top and one-ply clear head on the bottom is always a flexible choice, and a studio standard for a reason.

MISSING INGREDIENT #3: EVEN TENSION

One of the most crucial parts of the process is keeping the head in tune with itself while bringing up the pitch.

Tuning opposite lugs one half-turn at a time is helpful, but not guaranteed to keep you on track.

Some companies sell torque tuning keys that supposedly measure the amount of tension on each lug.

These are essentially useless.

We want to make sure that the tension of the head is even all the way around. The lugs themselves have little to do with anything. This is especially true if the lugs are rusted or bent in any way. It’s even possible to have an evenly tensioned head and find that one or two lugs have very little tension on them. This is even more likely with drums that have many lugs.

The Drum Dial helps expedite tuning by taking measurements of the tension at each position on the drumhead.

There are two tools that will help measure whether a head is evenly tensioned:

The first and most valuable of these tools is your ears. Tap the head near the lugs and listen for a note.

The other tool is the Drum Dial.

If you’re serious about learning drum tuning fast, there’s no better complement to the fleshy gauges that come factory-mounted on either side of your head.

But be careful: The Drum Dial is extremely useful, especially in the learning process, and can even help you figure out what you’re listening for. It also, for some inexplicable reason, is routinely trash-talked by superstitious drummers who have never used one.

Place this device directly on your drumhead, one inch away from the rim, and it will give you a tension reading of the skin at each lug.

In addition to helping you keep even tension around the head, if you find a tuning you love, you’ll be able to write down the marking and easily return to it whenever you like.

MISSING INGREDIENT #4: KNOW YOUR GOAL

Even though the drum kit is considered a “non-pitched instrument,” each drum will speak the loudest and most resoundingly at one specific note. It’ll often sound plenty good at a small handful of other pitches too.

When you finally find a note where your drum really sings, do yourself a favor: Write it down.

First, hit the batter side with a stick while muting the resonant side with a pillow or something similar.

Sing the pitch you hear. Then, find that note on a piano or other tone generator. Write it down. If you have a Drum Dial, take a measurement of the tension at each lug. Write that down too.

You’ll begin to find patterns, and discover that certain diameter drums often sound best in a certain range of pitches.

For instance: A kick drum often sounds best around the lowest pitches it’s capable of producing. On a 22” drum, I often find this note is usually an F or F-sharp for the batter side, depending on the drum. I also know that the resonant-side of a kick drum often sounds pretty good when I tune it one half-step higher than the batter side.

Knowing the note ranges I’m looking for and the tension they will show on my Drum Dial makes the process quick and painless.

Similarly, I know that when it comes to a traditional 14” snare drum, I’ll often find a note I really like anywhere between A-flat and B. That’s the default range for me. I also know that these pitches start to show up at a fairly high tension: often over 85psi on my Drum Dial.

I tend to like my toms near the lower end of their spectrum, especially for rock. Based on my personal tastes, I’m likely to tune a 14” floor tom somewhere around an F. If I want to find this quickly on the Drum Dial, I know I’ll find it lower down, just under 75psi on the heads I like.

For my tastes, that range serves as a good all-purpose default. For a jazzy tone the toms might be tuned higher. For certain types of metal, I might drop them down until they’re practically flaccid.

I find that having great starting places doesn’t paint me into a corner. If anything, these quick and easy touchstones leave me with more room to explore. Having a surefire lifeline to familiar territory can have the effect of making us more adventurous.

With the heavy lifting already done, I can use my ears for the delicate stuff, exploring my options and fine-tuning the lugs to quickly get to the best-sounding pitch for that drum, with that head, on that day, on that song.

MISSING INGREDIENT #5: RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN HEADS

Once you’ve found a batter-side tuning that works, it’s time to tune the resonant side.

For starters, try tuning the resonant-head to the same pitch as your batter-side head.

Sounds pretty alright, doesn’t it? Okay great! If you’re happy, you can stop there.

Want to try something else? Okay. You have two ways to go: Tune that bottom sucker up, or tune it down. Either way, you’ll start to get some pitch bend happening. Experiment! See what you like. If you get too far off course, you’ll always have your reference point: Tune back to unison and start again.

Kick drums tend to sound pretty good with the reso-head tuned a half step lower than the batter head. They can also sound cool with no front head at all, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Tom Tom resonant heads can sound nice and balanced at unison. You can tune them down a half-step or up a half-step to get some serious pitch-bend. Other pitches may work, but this tends to be a fail-safe starting point.

For snare drum, the traditional orchestral approach is to find a note where the top head works well, and then tune up the bottom head so that it’s a 4th or even a 5th higher. So, if your top head was an A, your bottom head might be a D or an E.

Moongel Drum Dampening Pads by RTOM

Tuning the bottom head up in this way causes the snares to be more sensitive. You should get plenty of crack and articulation, and will even be able to loosen the snare band a little.

If you want a fatter, slushier sound, try tuning the bottom head down instead. Just a little though. A 4th or a 5th is probably too low.

Tuning both heads to the same note can work great too. It’s a pretty classic sound.

If all of these sounds are open and resonant for you, you might like the old “funky drummer” trick: first, get to a good place where the drums speak well and have a pleasing sustain. Then, take one lug on the top of the snare and crank it down a half or full turn. You’ll lose a lot of that resonance and end up with a sound that’s a whole lot drier, tighter and funkier before you even touch a Moongel or a piece of gaff tape.

MISSING INGREDIENT #6: RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN DRUMS

A lot of people don’t think of their kit as a pitched instrument. But the fact is, no matter where your drums end up tuning wise they are at some collection of pitches. Aren’t you better off picking ones that sound good together?

A good rule of thumb is to tune drums in 3rds, 4ths, 5ths and Octaves when compared to each other. As a general rule, really small intervals sound pretty silly, as do really big ones. Basically, stay away from any kind of 2nd or 7th and you’ll be fine.

If you start with the highest drum in your kit and work your way down, you may end up painting yourself into a corner by the time you reach your floor tom. I strongly recommended you start low and go high.

Begin with the kick and find a note that works. Let’s say you’re working with a 22” kick that sounds good at an F.

Now, let’s say your next drum is a 14” tom that sounds pretty good at an F (one octave up from the kick), an F-sharp, or a G. Which note do you think we should tune it to?

If you said “the F one octave up”, you’re damn right. If you also said that the other options would probably sound stupid in context, you’re even more right.

Here’s one of many possible tuning options that may work with some standard-sized drums:

22” Kick: F (Root)
16” Tom: C (5th up)
14” Tom: F (4th up)
12” Tom: B-flat (4th up)
10” Tom: D (3rd Up)

If you’re kicking yourself for never taking a music theory class, don’t worry. You too can tune drums in a perfect 4th or 5th without thinking very hard about it.

Do you remember 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Yes, the one with the monkeys and that big obelisk thing.

Good. Can you hear those iconic timpanis in your head? You know, the ones that go “bum-bum bum-bum bum-bum bum-bum.”

Yeah, so can I. That’s a 4th down.

Now hum the melody. Those first two notes are a 5th up!

If you tune drums to have nice round relationships like those, they’ll work in any style of music.

MISSING INGREDIENT #7: HEARING PITCHES IN DRUMS

I have to warn you. If you start talking about tuning drums to specific pitches in front of certain drummers, you will get dirty looks from some of them.

Initially, some drummers resist the idea of figuring out what pitches they’re tuning to. Often, this is a self-defense mechanism. Why? Because trying to learn this skill requires that we admit two things.

1) It’s hard.
2) We’re not sure if we can do it.

At first, figuring out the pitch of a drum can be very difficult, even for those of us who play a real instrument, not to mention drummers.

(Kidding, kidding. I get to make one drummer joke, right?).

If you’re having trouble guessing what pitch your drum is at now, chances are your digital guitar tuner will be as confused as you are. However, if you’re smacking away at a drum and just can’t get a solid feel for what the fundamental note is, I have some good news for you:

Jaws can save your life.

Try this: First, mute one head with a pillow. Hit your drum once, then quickly crank up the tension enough to hear a real difference, and hit it again.

With any luck you will have unleashed the minor 2nd, an interval that just happens to be the building block of the Jaws theme. You know the one:

Da-dum…. Da-dum….. DaDumDaDumDaDumDaDum…

If you had trouble finding the fundamental note by itself, this new contrast should make two choices for your fundamental note stand out. Pick one of these notes, hold it in your mind, and tune all of your lugs to match that note. (Remember that it’s always best to tune up to your desired pitch, not down).
Whenever you get lost, just remember that contrast often allows us to hear the hidden fundamental pitch.

Jump into the mouth of the shark and be saved!

TUNING TO THE KEY OF A SONG

By now, you’ve probably heard that some producers like to tune their kick drum to the key of the song. Does this mean you should have a complete arsenal of a dozen kick drums, all ready to be pulled off the shelf at a moment’s notice?

Of course not.

What it does mean is that if you have a kick drum that sounds great at F or F-sharp, and you’re playing a song in F, you’re probably better off tuning to the F.

If the key was D Major, that same kick drum might just sit a whole lot better in the mix if it was tuned to an F-sharp.

Food for thought.

A CAVEAT

I’m not trying to convince you that your drum kits should sound note-y or melodic. None of the drums we’ve discussed here are timpanis or roto-toms. Even at best the pitches on a standard drum kit are subliminal and relative.

If you did a great job tuning your kit, we’ll be subconsciously aware of the musicality and balance you’ve developed across your kit – It won’t smack us in the face.

MUFFLING AND DAMPENING

A lot of songs don’t benefit from an enormously ringy giant Def Leppard-style snare drum.

Although I recommend tuning first to a place where each drum has a good balanced resonance, once you’re there, moongels, gaff tape, tea towels, packing blankets and the like can all be your friends.

The idea is that you never want to be hunting down awkward and dissonant overtones with your muffling tools. That’s what tuning is for. Approach it backwards and you can be sure your drum sounds will suffer.

CONCLUSION

Many drummers tune instinctively, and that’s fine. Few drummers are trained in pitch recognition and many are reluctant to learn on their own. That’s okay too. It just makes your new skills more valuable.

The truth is, whenever we tune drums instinctively, we’re creating musical relationships on the fly. When those relationships are sounding good there’s no problem; Without even knowing it, we’re often following the guidelines laid out here.

But, whenever we run into problems it can be helpful to stop and look at the map.

I hope this little map has been valuable to you. If it was, please share it!

Now get tuning.

Justin Colletti is a Brooklyn-based producer/engineer who works with uncommon artists, and a journalist who writes about music and how we make it. Visit him at http://www.justincolletti.com.