Spruce Up Your Beats With These Cool Drum Tuning Tricks – Score Music Tech

What tricks are there to properly tune your drums? Currently thanks to the exact tuning systems such as drum dial or tune bot everything has been simplified so you can make sure that everything is mathematically exact.

What is tuning?

Tuning is the process by which a musical instrument is tuned by matching the sounds it produces with a previously established sound frequency. Tuning systems seek to build a series of vibratory frequency relationships that give rise to the notes of a scale.

In the specific case of drums, we will focus on the type of sound we want each part to have. This, depending on the type of style, we will mold it in one way or another.

How to tune a kick drum

The kick drum is the largest and lowest tuned instrument.

In order to perform a correct tuning we must do the following:

Step 1: Loosen the patches through the towers.

Step 2: Tighten each tower with the force of your hand (do not use the wrench) until you can’t tighten any more. In this way we make sure that we equalize the tensions of all the towers enough.

Step 3: Now, with the tuning key, we will give each tower a half turn, always following the order of the previous graph.

Step 4: From this point we can test quarter of a turn in each tower and assess the sound that is produced.

How to tune the toms on a drum set

To perform the tuning of the toms we will have to follow exactly the same steps that we have used for the kick drum, always maintaining and respecting the comfort zone of the tones of each of them.

How to tune the snare drum or snare drum

The method of tuning a snare drum is a bit more complex than the kick and tom. 

Step 1: Loosen the upper and lower patch and lower the bordona

Step 2: Lower or resonant patch. Tighten each tower with the force of your hand (do not use the wrench) until you can’t tighten any more. In this way we make sure that we equalize the tensions of all the towers enough.

Step 3: At this point we will have to tighten 2.5 turns with the tuning key for drums in each of the towers, always following the same order as for the kick drum and tom. 

Step 4 : Top patch. Tighten each tower with the force of your hand (do not use the wrench) until you can’t tighten any more. In this way we make sure that we equalize the tensions of all the towers enough.

Step 5:  At this point we will have to tighten half turns with the tuning key for drums in each of the towers, always following the same order as it is for bass drum and tom. Check that the resonant is quite tight.

Step 6: In order to guarantee that the drums are in tune, we will have to hit about 2.5-3.5 cm from each tower with the stick and listen if each and every one of them sounds the same. We have low tuning at this point. In this case, the feeling will be of a lower note

• If we want medium tuning: We make half a turn more in each tower of the upper head. In this case the note will be higher than the low pitch
• If we want high tuning: We make half a turn more in each tower of the upper head. In this case the note will be higher than the average pitch.

Step 7 : We raise the bordona and finish.