[CJDG]

How do you prefer to have the tension in your drums?
Lots of bounce or dead solid... or do you prefer a mix?

Can you tell I'm trying to spark more conversations today.

[jhilldrums]

Funny. Years ago I liked dead, now I like a lively tight tuning. Age thing? Style of playing thing? I have no idea. You?

[Patknives]

Funny, I just had this conversation with a buddy of mine. He tunes every drum on his set pretty high. More of a active bounce to get around better. He plays prog and metal.
I play in a alt/rock band and tune the exact opposite. Near the bottom of the drums register. I think tuning and head tension should be about the actual sound of the drum and the acoustic ability of the drum before the "feel". I also tune my toms a whole step from each other so what ever the tension is I keep it there.

[phillywillis]

It all depends on the drum itself. My snare tends to be tighter, even tighter for my piccolo. The toms I like loser because I like the wet, funky sound out of my toms.

[Thunderfoot]

Drum sizes can often dictate a sweet spot for a certain tension for each drum....A high snare and lower toms and kick for recording is easier, but for LIVE then slightly higher tuning makes the drums project more. In the semi pro or casual uk gig scene even with mic-ed up to the hilt drums, sound guys can make your beautifully tuned drums sound terrible! They really try and over complicate the whole process and they can never mix properly, as long as there's loads of guitar they think the job is done!!
How many times have us drummers had our bass drum sound muffled or basically forgetten as a basis for the volume of the rest of the band?!?!?!?
Anyway getting back to the point.....I like a reasonably high snare 'crack' and middle to lowish ttoms, the kick I like unmuffled, cranked up a bit tight on the resonant side and a medium tension on the batter side....This really works with an RCI Starlite acrylic 26" bass drum!

[skinslapper]

I've just found the most awsome tension for my 14x6.5 free-floating brass snare. It's cracking like a ***** right now. Mid to high tension on that one.

I've got a medium tension on my rack toms. I also used to tune them as low as possible, but since learnt the value of finding the sweet spot.

My floor toms are tuned as low as possible. I get an awesome rumble out of my 16", my 14" on the other hand, is playing hardball and hope it's just a dud head and not the bearing edge.

My bass drums are tuned quite low. I used no muffling so it's as low as I can get them without losing all punch.

[frankc]

Does anyone use a Drum Dial for getting a consistent sound on the toms and snare? A lot of good reviews on Musicians Friend for it, but it 's pricy.

[Harry]

Hi All

I am with Skinslapper here:

For Snare:
Batter medium / high.
Reso: Medium

For toms:
Start finding the sweet spot on the lowest Tom, in my case low / medium
The other toms will follow nicely at the same principle.

I tune my toms's batter and reso's the same.

My bass drum fairly low/loose.

After many years of plodding on with tunings I adapted this tuning ( on advice of some real experts) since the last half year and it made a huge difference to the overall sound.

Cheers and Happy Drumming,

Harry

[FastHand]

Originally Posted by frankc

Does anyone use a Drum Dial for getting a consistent sound on the toms and snare? A lot of good reviews on Musicians Friend for it, but it 's pricy.

I bought one years ago. They're neat and everything, but the tension varies depending on the head, drum size, and where you put the dial itself on the head. As a result, when you tune the head back to the same tension, it never sounds the same.

Try the Evans Torque Key. It does the same job, only it uses a dial to set the tension allowed for each lug on the drum so that way you're guaranteed the same sound out of your drum as long as you're using the same kind of heads.

	Evans Drumheads Shop for Evans Drumheads at Musician's Friend

[Harry]

Hi Fasthand,

I tried torque keys: with very mediocre success I have to say.
These keys work on measured resistance of the tensioning device.
I found that some tension rods assemblies are just stiffer than other ones ( some run free, some run stroppy) so you will be misguided.
The best for me still is "the 25mm from the rim tap with the stick" at the lug positions and judge the sound.

Cheers and happy drumming,

Harry