How to tune your drums (the ten-minute routine)

Most kits that sound cheap are not cheap. They are untuned. I have heard beginner kits sound great and expensive kits sound like cardboard, and the difference was ten minutes with a drum key.

So, first thing: "They have to be tuned all the time." Not once when you buy it. All the time. Heads stretch, weather moves them, and playing knocks them out. Tuning is maintenance, like tyre pressure.

Here is the whole routine.

What you need

A drum key. That is it. I use a regular drum key. You can spend more later, and I will get to that at the end.

Step 1: get every tension rod even

This is the part that matters most, and it is the part everybody rushes.

"Just getting each tension rod even is key..."

Take the drum off the kit and put it on a carpet or your lap. Loosen every rod until they are all finger-loose, then bring them all back to finger-tight. Now work in a star pattern - never around the circle - a half turn at a time: one rod, then the rod opposite it, then across, then across again, until you have been round the whole drum.

Then tap. Put the stick tip about an inch in from each rod and listen at every lug, one at a time. If one lug sings higher than its neighbors, back it off a hair. If one sounds dead and flappy, bring it up a hair. You are not chasing a note yet. You are chasing every lug agreeing with every other lug. When they agree, the drum stops fighting itself and the ring turns into a tone.

Step 2: the two heads are not the same

The head you hit is the batter head. The head underneath is the resonant head. They do different jobs, and they do not get the same tension.

"...tuning the resonant head slightly tighter than the batter head."

Say it again, because this is the bit people miss: "The resonant head and the batter head need to be tuned slightly differently." Slightly. Not a lot. A resonant head a touch tighter than the batter gives you a note that opens up and falls away instead of thudding.

Do the batter head first, get it even, then flip the drum and do the resonant head the same way, a hair tighter. Then hit it. That sound - the one where the drum rings out clean and then gets out of the way - that is what you were missing.

Step 3: do it again tomorrow

New heads stretch for the first few days. Tune it, play it, tune it again. After that, a quick check every couple of weeks keeps a kit honest.

If you do not trust your ears yet

You do not have to. In my own words: "...you can get a drum dial that will tell you the frequency that's coming from every lug, which makes it a lot easier for somebody who doesn't have a good ear."

A drum dial sits on the head, reads the tension at each lug, and gives you a number to match. No shame in it at all. Use it for a few months, listen while you do, and one day you will notice you stopped looking at it.

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Your kit sounds better. Now make it sound like you. I teach beginners in Austin, outdoors, starting with the beats that most of the music you love is built on: book a lesson.