Drum Tuning

Technique & Care

Also called tuning drums, drum sound.

Tuning is how tight you pull the heads on your drums. Turn the tension rods and the pitch goes up or down, and the feel of the stick rebound changes with it. Every drum has two heads, batter on top, resonant underneath, and you tune them separately. Higher pitches ring brighter and shorter; lower pitches give you that deep, fat rock or jazz sound.

Start by seating the head: press the centre of the head with your palm until it settles, then tune in a star pattern, a third of a turn per rod, going around the lug circle until the wrinkles disappear. From there, bring both heads up until the drum sounds good to you, then even out the head by tapping near each lug and matching the pitch at every rod. Muffling is part of tone too, a strip of tape or a gel pad kills the ring you don't want.

For an electronic kit, tuning mostly means choosing the right kit preset and adjusting head tension or module settings if your module allows it. The principles still apply: match pitch relationships between toms, keep the snare crisp, don't be afraid of lower pitches on a mesh-head snare so it doesn't sound like a toy.

Practical tip: tune your bass drum lower than you think, around the point where the head stops flapping. Then hit it and put a pillow or dedicated damper inside until the thump is clean. Most bad drum sounds in rehearsal rooms are a poorly tuned kick, not bad drummers.