Good tuning is foundational to getting a good drum tone. As with any instrument, it can take years to develop an ear for what a properly tuned bass, tom, or snare drum sounds like. That’s why we’ve put together this tuning companion. Packed with theory and helpful tips ranging from head seating to drum dampening to tuning by genre, this primer will help you become a better drum tuner.
- What Is Proper Tuning & Why Is It Important?
- Tuning Theory: How to Tune Your Drums
- Snare Sounds by Genre: A Reference
What Is Proper Tuning & Why Is It Important?
If you troll drum forums, you’re bound to come across arguments about the “right” way to tune this snare or that tom. The truth is, there is no right way to tune a drum; the right way is that which best suits the player and piece of music. That said, there are some physics and generally regarded best practices at play in getting a drum to perform at its peak. Here are two principles that hold true for most applications:
- Pure pitches sound best. This is especially true for toms. Our ears prefer a pitch we can sing. A head that is fraught with dissonances from tension rod to tension rod can reduce a shell’s resonant potential and make the drum less distinguishable in a mix.
- Better drums tune easier. Quality shells, bearing edges, and hardware yield a drum that tunes faster and stays at pitch.
Tuning Theory: How to Tune Your Drums
1. Preparing the Head for Installation
Most modern drums are equipped with two heads: batter (top) and resonant (bottom). For the purposes of this article, we’ll start with the batter side. Remove the unused resonant head or silence it on your knee or a carpeted surface. A product like the DW Tuning Table, which resembles a carpeted Lazy Susan, is ideal for this purpose.
Detune all tension rods until the head and counterhoop spin freely; rods should be loose but still threaded into their lug casings. Tap the shell and note its resonant frequency. Sing it. Record it. That’s the pitch you want to try to match. Twist the hoop back and forth until all tension rods are centered and upright. This will give you the least resistance on the path to a pitch-perfect drum.
Finger-tighten the shaft of each tension rod until you can’t twist anymore. Order is not important at this stage; it just gives a common starting point. Once all rods are finger tight, start in with the drum key.
2. Seating & Tensioning the Head
Give your starting tension rod two half-turns of a drum key. Then move across the head to the opposite rod and give it two half-turns. Skip a rod (or two — see diagrams) counterclockwise, then give this pair of rods two half-turns. The goal is equal-tensioned pairs across the head. If your shell and hoops are true and your lug threads well greased, you can also use resistance as your guide. The Evans Torque Key detects this automatically.
Repeat this process until all tension rods are equally tensioned and the head’s pitch closely matches the shell’s resonant pitch. Regularly smooth out wrinkles using a soft cloth and apply gentle pressure to properly seat the head.
Tip: for snares, DW’s Tuning Sequence head makes a handy reference.
3. Fine-tuning the Head
Once you near your shell’s resonant frequency, it’s time to start fine-tuning. Tap the edge of the head with your finger, about 2″ from the hoop, directly in front of any tension rod. Note the pitch; if you have trouble picking it out, you can rest a finger on the center of the head to better isolate the tone. Now tap in front of the adjacent (neighboring) rod. Is it pitched higher or lower than the first? Loosen or tighten to match. Continue moving circularly around the head from rod to rod until all sections produce an identical pitch. If done right, you’ll notice the drum start to sing as you approach resonant frequency. Now flip the drum over and repeat with the resonant head. Aim for the same pitch or up to a minor third (three half-steps) higher or lower than the batter head. Adjust to taste.
4. Checking the Sound
Note that everything we’ve touched on so far has been tuning theory, and that not all shells and drum types are created equal. If the sound you hear after carefully tuning both heads isn’t working, don’t be afraid to experiment. Raise or lower the batter head a whole tone. Detune just one rod. Try some muffling (see dampening tips below). With patience and care, your reward will be a drum that inspires you, responds the way you want, and suits the music you play.
5. Tuning Tips for Each Particular Drum
Bass drum
You might find that intonation is far less important with kick drums, since most often you’re looking for punch and low end rather than a pure tone. Start with the batter head and tighten to just above wrinkle*, or to where the drum starts feeling right underfoot. You’ll want to feel the beater sink in and not rebound too easily so as to prevent unwanted double-strokes. Then go around to each tension rod, starting from the top, tightening and loosening and noting what each screw does for attack (looser) and tone (tighter). Once you’ve got the batter head dialed in, the front head is pretty forgiving. You can use this to manipulate note length and bass frequency — lower or higher, shorter or longer, etc.
Note: This choice is personal and style dependent. Jazz players, for example, like their bass drums to sing more. Don’t be afraid to crank your kick drum if it suits the music.
Bass drum heads
The Evans EMAD Clear is a go-to batter head for many modern drummers. It makes just about any kick drum, of any size or quality, mic up like a rock record. The Aquarian Deep Vintage II is good for more of a Keith Moon vibe, and the Remo Powerstroke 3 Coated is good for that Chad Sexton wet-scooped-and-punchy thing. For jazz and soul, a single-ply coated batter head, like the Remo Ambassador Coated, will better highlight the natural tone of your kick drum with a clearer, more defined pitch. As for resonant heads, the Evans Calftone series is handsome and affordable. The DW Microvent heads are nice, too, for breathability without a traditional port hole.
Toms
Start with a tom’s batter head tuned to resonant pitch, then raise and lower the tension until you hear the drum start to speak. Move on to the reso head and aim for about a whole tone higher than the top. Adjust to taste. The two heads work together in concert, so constantly check back and forth for symbiosis.
Tom heads
For tom batters, you can’t go wrong with a thin 2-ply coated head like the Evans G2. Clear heads do tend to feel better from behind the kit, but can sometimes come across too “sproingy” under miked conditions. For a reso head, the Reso 7 is pretty neutral and offers good control.
Snare drum
The Nick D’Virgilio approach to snare tuning is to crank up the snare-side head and adjust the batter head to taste. This gives you a tight, controlled snare response even if you prefer your top head swampy.
For the snare side, tune up until the head just starts to sound choked, then back off a half-turn or so. You can slide a stick underneath the snare wires to mute them while you tune. Just be careful — those thin snare-side heads can pull if you go too far.
Tune your batter head medium to medium-high until you find the body, attack, and tension you’re after. Then, with the snare positioned at the kit, detune the bottom-left three tension rods. Try a just-above-wrinkle detune on the rod directly under where your stick drops, then experiment by dropping tension immediately to the right and left. If your pitch drops too much, you can compensate by tuning up the tension rods opposite the loose ones. This gives you warmth, stick response, and a dry tone that doesn’t require a ton of muffling.
Important! Some drummers claim this method can damage shells and hoops. Use caution.
Snare heads
The classic snare combo is a single-ply coated batter head with a wafer-thin clear snare-side head. For this pairing, the 2-piece Remo Ambassador Propack is convenient and saves some bucks. The dual-ply Emperor Coated batter head is another classic, or for a heartier punch, check out the reverse-dot Emperor X. The 3-ply Aquarian Triple Threat is good for that triggered type of snare sound. On the other end of the spectrum, the Dunnett Res-O-Tone, with its 7.5-mil tympani-like film, is built thinner for a more faithful shell tone.
6. Drum-dampening Tips & Tricks
Especially where mics are involved, it’s hard to get that fat, controlled, focused sound without a touch of treatment. Fortunately, dampening (also known as muffling) products and solutions abound today. Here are some of our favorite methods for treating snares, toms, and bass drums.
Snare drum dampening
- Moongel — RTOM Moongel makes a great dampener and adheres to heads to spot-treat overtones, offering even better control than tape and cloth, but with less loss of tone and volume. Moongel will last you several years and through numerous applications if you take care of it. Clean with rubbing alcohol or rinse under the tap to wash away residue and reactivate the stickiness.
- Rings — These thin, pre-sized muffling rings for toms and snare drums include Remo Control Rings, Evans E-Rings, and the Big Fat Snare Drum Steve’s Donut. No adhesion is required. Just rest rings on your heads and enjoy a more focused sound without much fuss. They’re also useful for writing out set notes and lists.
- Old drumhead — After changing your batter head, place the old head upside down right on top. Not only does it massively deaden the tone, but it also drops the pitch several semitones for that Rumours-esque fatness and dryness.
- The wallet — Resting a wallet on the snare’s batter head can really focus the sound and bring out its punch. You’ll lose volume, but if you’re close-miking the drum, this should be no major concern. Use a square of double-sided adhesive or hook-and-loop tape if you want to secure it in place.
- Bandana — This tip comes from Cody at Sounds Like a Drum. Fold a standard square handkerchief in half, into a triangle shape. Drape the folded fabric over about half of the snare batter with the point facing away from you. Drive a drum key into the fabric over a tension rod to secure it in place. Now you can roll the handkerchief up to achieve varying degrees of muffling. Very quick, very handy, and very effective.
- Tape and cloth — Excess ring? Tap your drum with a stick while tracing around the edge with your finger, about 2″ from the hoop. You’ll eventually land on a spot where the overtones are minimized. Secure a piece of a duct tape or gaffer tape to that spot, or if the ring persists, tape down a piece of cloth. Old shirts and paper towels work great.
- Dish towel/T-shirt — This one comes at a massive reduction in volume, but it may be just the sound you’re after. Simply drape a dish towel or T-shirt over the batter side of your snare drum. You can secure it to the shell with a large rubber band or bungee cable if you like. Just make sure the cloth stays in contact with the drumhead. Instant ’70s sound!
Tom dampening
A pat or two of clear Moongel on the batter head usually corrects any unwanted overtones and sympathetic resonances in toms. A touch on the reso head can sometimes zap errant ring as well. The trick is in experimenting with where you place the gels. An inch inward from the counter hoop is a good starting place. Try different lug regions and different amounts until you achieve desired results. For a deader sound, a set of Evans E-Rings or Remo Tone Control Rings works great.
Bass drum dampening
When you need control for your kick drum, it’s hard to beat the internal pillow. The big-box store bed size works just fine. You might also consider the Pearl Bass Drum Muffler, which looks nice, is the right size for most bass drums 18″ and larger, and offers a good range of control. Towels, blankets, and home insulation are effective too. For subtler dashes of ring repellent, a strip of felt stretched between the reso head and hoop is tried and true.
7. Drum Tuning Accessories
Dedicated drum tuners can really streamline frequent head changes. These tools measure the tension or pitch by each tension rod, so you can reproduce your favorite tunings every time you tune up. Two good options are the DrumDial, which is all mechanical and requires no batteries, and the digital Overtone Labs Tune-Bot, which saves 50 settings across five different drum kits.
Snare Sounds by Genre: A Reference
An ear for “good” drum tone takes years to develop. Here are some guidelines to get you in the ballpark:
- Pop rock: crisp and defined
- Hard rock and power ballads: big and lively
- Modern rock: beefy, macho
- ’60s and ’70s rock: splatty, muted
- Classic country: loose and bassy
- Modern country: woody, cutting
- Folk: snappy, polite
- Punk and hardcore: sharp, abrasive, ringy
- Black and doom metal: deep and dead
- EDM: crunchy, bold
- Hip-hop: percussive, immediate
- Blues/R&B: fast and punchy
- Dance hall and reggae: tight and lingering
Sweetwater Has All Your Drum Needs
We hope this article has empowered and inspired you to dive into your next tuning project. Like drumming itself, tuning takes years to master, and you won’t get better unless you practice. Call your Sweetwater Sales Engineer at (800) 222-4700 to learn more about any of the products referenced here.
