Basic Drum Kit Tuning

by Clint Strait

Regularly and accurately tuning your drum kit should be a religious maintenance routine. Nothing amplifies the sound of good drummer better than a tightly tuned set of drums, and it can even make the average drummer shine a little brighter. Before you play your first note, taking the time to tune your kit immediately increases your level of performance and commitment to excellence.

As you should already know, a basic drum kit includes a bass drum, cymbal, snare, hi-hats and toms, and it is fairly customary to start by tuning your snare drum. This can be the most precarious drum to tune because the heads are known to bust easily. First, tune the top head. Turn each lug with your drum key clockwise to increase the tension or counter clockwise to release tensions, or lower the pitch. After adjusting one lug, moved to a lug on the opposite side, at 180 degrees from the first one. Then you can move back to the first lug and adjust the lug next to it, continuing on in similar way for the rest of the head. As you adjust ach lug, lightly tapping approximately one inch away from each lug with a drumstick. By making sure each lug is holding the same pitch, your drum will soon be tuned.

Many drummers tackle the toms next. Toms have the most noticeable rendering of pitch, so it is important to do a good job. Start tuning the bottom head of your toms first, using the same time of lug alternating technique. Once the bottom head has equal tension, you can move on to tuning the head, which is how you will adjust the pitch of the overall drum sound. To do this, you will need to know what pitch you are trying to match. You can use a piano, a pitch pipe, or you can even match to your guitarist. Once you know the pitch you want, proceed with adjusting the lugs on the top head until that pitch is obtained. Once you have found the right pitch, you will need to recheck the pitch near each lug, just like the snare drum.

Now you are ready to move on to the bass drum and start by tuning the head. You should not spend too long trying to tune the head, because the head of a bass drum is less of a factor in the sound of the drum. Once the head feels right to you and all the lugs are even, you can tune the back head so to your taste. Tunings for bass drums vary greatly depending on the style of music and the other instruments in your ensemble. So before you begin any of this process, you need to have an idea of the sound you would like to produce and the relative pitches that will help you create that sound. As you increase in skill and taste, you will continue to become more particular about the tuning of your drums.