When I look back at the many drum sounds I’ve encountered while performing and studying music, I have to say that the 80s produced the most wide-spread variety of drum sounds and approaches out of all the decades of recording.

There was something in the water, I guess, back then – every engineer and producer seemed to want to try to make the drums sound different than they ever had before.

Gated drums; flanged drums; Simmons drums; MIDI drums; Roto-Toms… the list of twisted drum methods went on and on.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. That era gave us some unforgettable, shining moments in percussion history (“In the Air Tonight”, anyone?).

But since then, and even during that time, one thing kept happening behind the scenes that many who start recording drums forget to address: the tuning of the drum heads!

If you’re learning how to record at home and want your drums to sound as killer as possible, you must spend the time choosing the right heads that will complement your sound, and then tune them appropriately as well. It will make a big difference in the quality and creativity of sound you get in the final mix.

Wanna know why? Thought you might… !

Why tune?

So, why should we tune our drum heads before a recording or an important gig anyways? Is it really that important??

Yes. Yes, it is.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I’ve played with others before, without fine-tuning my kit from the lugs up, but… they were usually just jam sessions. If it’s a paid job, we want to sound our best.

Here are the main reasons I’ve found to consider your tuning before each gig:

1. A musical, cohesive kit sound
2. Choosing appropriate pitch options
3. Removing unwanted pitches/overtones/buzzes
4. Getting more, and better, gigs

These four basically come down to one principle: everything we play sounding, at all times, professional. We all want that, right? Having a kit that sounds cohesive, and musically complementary to the gig and songs you are playing, will get you a lot of the way there.

But there’s no one way to tune a kit. One thing, however, is certain: most drum recordings we’ve heard were strategically tuned for the particular song or project; rarely is a kit spontaneously recorded while tuned in random, non-related pitches.

So if you just set up your kit and play, tunings be damned, you’re gonna sound, at the best, a little amateurish in your tone.

And for good reason: for quite a few decades now, our ears have become accustomed to a drum kit being tuned certain ways. We’ve all heard thousands of songs in our lifetimes, and in most of them we’ve heard drum kits that contain tunings that are very specific, thought out, and meticulously adjusted for the recordings.

No wonder, then, that playing or recording a kit with no tuning preparation will leave your audience kinda goin’… “Meh.” Not the reaction you’re going for, I’m sure!

But won’t advanced technique win the day every time over drum sound??

In many cases, no. Your technique might be amazing and flawless, but any of you who have recorded drums in a studio setting know that drummers are not often called upon for really advanced techniques.

Instead, they’re called upon most of the time for tempo consistency, serving the song with the right simple groove and having a drum kit that sounds really good when mic’ed up.

Tuning our drums makes that last criterion come alive, and puts us as players in that upper echelon… the meticulous ones who do all it takes to sound amazing for every session. And that, my friends, is what gets us those magical dreams-come-true… called more gigs!

So just commit to yourself right now to do it; fine-tune your kit for every performance. To do this, you’ll need to factor in right now tuning time, in addition to your usual load-in time. If you don’t plan for it now you’ll forget, so PLAN IT NOW.

Do this and you’ll always be ahead of the game, and you’ll receive glowing reviews from the people that matter: your fans, and your sound mixers.

Isn’t It Good, Norwegian Wood?

Let’s now look at specific ways to tune your drums. The first I like to call “tuning to the wood“. This is a matter of finding the RESONANCE of whichever specific drum you’re working on and dialing the head in to that pitch. In this technique, you’re letting the drums themselves dictate the tuning.

Think about it: drum manufacturers go to great lengths to produce drums that have a good sound. There’s a “sweet spot” for each drum that will make it sound great when set up properly.

Much of this has to do with installing and tuning a drum head on it properly.

Do you know what the inherent good news in that is?? It’s that you don’t actually have to have a kit worth several thousands of dollars to produce a recorded sound that worth a million bucks!

If you take the time to find each of your drum’s innate resonance tones, they’ll sing like Pavarotti, and give you as much drum as you want in the mix without being buried.

(Oh, and as an aside, if you haven’t discovered my article on drum heads and their importance yet, I highly suggest you take that in. You can’t think about how to tune a head before you actually choose which head to get! So read about that HERE.)

So, each drum, based on its size, and material, has its own innate resonant frequency – the specific frequency where that drum will sound the loudest and ring the longest. Where that tone is on the Hertz scale is based purely on how, and with what, the drum was made.

The way we find this is by gradually increasing the tension on a single drum head (the other should be muffled or not on yet) until the clearest, loudest and most sustaining note is found. This is where the drum naturally sings – you’ll hear it.

(One more aside: if you’re really new to drums and need a step-by-step on how to do this, my friends at TunaDrum will walk you through how to put that drum lug wrench to perfect use. Find them HERE.)

If you then tighten the lugs past this specific resonance tension, you’ll notice the sound power and sustain then decreases again. That means you’re moving away, higher, from the drum’s natural resonant vibration.

Do you want your drums to sing with their best voice? Or would you rather they stay choked off? Muffled? Strangled?

Obviously we want to bolster the best out of our kit, so find the resonant tones of your drums. It’s a crucial first step to an impressive final tuning that will sound amazing in the context of a tune!

Song Sung Tuned

So, should we always tune a drum to its resonant tone for every gig or session?? Not necessarily. Every decision we make concerning our drums should be done for musical reasons, not just convenience or cost concerns.

One context for not using the resonant tone method is when we want our kit to tune “to the song“. This is usually done when the drummer, or the tracking engineer (or BOTH!), are hearing that the kit is not musically gelling very well with the other tonal instruments, like the keyboards or guitars.

This is usually because the key that the song is written in is “dissonant” with the tuning of your drums. That just means they clash, i.e…. they don’t play together nicely!

The easiest way to do this as a drummer, even if you’re not up on musical scales, tones and such, is to simply ask the keyboardist or guitarist “What key is this in?“.

\Then, use a drum tuner (lotsa brands out there, just pick one) to match your drums with the key. The key will either be MAJOR or it will be MINOR.

To the left I’ve added for you the breakdown of the three notes (or “triad”) that outline the main chord in each key. Use your drum tuner to match accordingly.

For example, if the song is in “C” (major) then I would tune my toms to the notes in the Chord 1 column: “C“, “E” and “G“.

Whether you tune those pitches ascending or descending (i.e. “C” on top, or bottom) is up to you.

I would probably put the “C” on the lower tom and outline the chord so it’s ascending. But descending might sound interesting too. As I say in the studio all the time, ya never know ’til ya try something, so don’t be afraid to experiment.

Just do your fiddling before the session, because we all know time is money, & no one’s going to want to wait while you guess your tuning – they’re ready to play!

As for the snare, you can choose whichever note of the three you like to match. OR, as I often do, make it a different pitch of your choosing to make it stand out.

For me, it’s all about the song, so I’d try higher and lower pitches to see which one suits the song best. Remember, your snare is your kit’s “soloist”, so its voice must be impressive and complementary.

Your higher toms and snare are the most important. The bigger toms have such lower pitches that they typically don’t interfere as much.

It is not unheard-of in pro studios for the drum kits to tuned to match the first song of the session. Each tom and the all-important snare are tuned to sit perfectly in the key of the song and bolster those pitches for added “oomph” and power. Then, when the next song drops, they adjust from there.

In fact, according to my friend Ross Garfield, whose drum cartage and supply company “Drum Doctors” revolutionized L.A.’s drum session scene in the 80s and is still going strong today, some producers have even called for several drum sets, all with different timbres and tunings, to be delivered for one recording session.

THAT’s how important it was to match the song’s overall vibe.

For the full, SO-insightful interview with Ross, CLICK HERE.

Now, if successful music moguls making millions are doing this… shouldn’t we change our tuning once in a while, to complement the songs we’re playing on?

The short answer: uh…. DUH! Yes!!

He’s A Math-ic Man, Momma

A third way to tune your drums, which is not prevalent yet but is on the rise thanks to current technology, is “tuning to math“.

This approach takes the Hertz frequency scale into consideration and spreads the drum tones out in a spaced spectrum based on how many drums you have.

It’s the most scientific approach to getting a good drum sound, and those with an analytical bent will probably gravitate towards this one naturally.

You will need a drum tuner for this approach, since you’ll need the numbers on the pitch readout screen to match the tuning graphs.

If you use this method, remember that the more drums you have, the smaller the intervals need to be, pitch-wise, between your toms.

The absolute best example I’ve seen of using Hertz mathematics to calculate the pitch positioning of drum heads is done by our friends at “TuneBot”. Talk about having it down to a science!

If a more calculation-based approach floats your rhythmic boat, you’re gonna love their charts and info. I couldn’t do it better, so just follow their comprehensive primer HERE.

This approach uses musical intervals, just like our previous method, but it doesn’t concern itself with matching any particular song. It just spreads the kit out evenly and makes sure it sounds great all by itself.

I personally might use this method to start my tuning, but since everything should be about THE SONG when recording, I’d definitely change it if it clashed in any way with the key once we’ve started run-throughs after set-up.

No Jimi Hendrix in the Drum Room Please

I love Hendrix. His skill. His showmanship. The way he brought feedback to the forefront of guitar playing. Amazing.

But in the studio, I find feedback to often get in the way of a good mix, especially regarding drums. Perhaps you, like me, have found yourself bothered by these things:

• too long of a resonance ring on the toms
• too loud of an overtone on the snare
• snare wires buzzing when a certain tom is played
• ‘sympathetic vibration’ of another drum

These are all things that we usually can fix by changing our tuning. It’s a trade-off tho’, because if you fix one of those problems by changing your tuning, you will probably lose the perfect resonance of one or more of your drums.

So should you just slap a gate on the offending drums instead?

Maybe. It depends on what’s more important to you as the tracking engineer/producer. Your job is to get the very best sound out of those drums for the song at hand.

So, put on a gate. Does that improve the sound within the tune? Or, instead, change the pitch of the offending drum. Does that improve the sound within the tune better? Or worse?

As with everything, (why yes I will say it again!) it’s all about the song, not the drum. So only make, and keep, a change that makes the overall song sound better. Otherwise, you might as well just be recording a “solo drums” record!

If you work with (or ARE) an engineer who prefers keeping the drum tunings the same on all tracks, song to song (what I don’t advise), then sure… set your tunings the way you like and make sure you’re monitoring that they’re staying that way throughout all the recordings.

I will say, though, that if you choose that ‘easier path’, you’re missing out on some wonderful opportunities to foster incredibly pleasing, symbiotic interplay between the drums and the other tonal instruments.

Especially considering how the overtones on drums ring out, the potential for impactful, congruous washes in your room mics, IF you tune to the key, is quite high.

The last thing I’ll say about tuning to overcome noises and unwanted ringing is this: most of the time in the studio, I don’t have to bother the tuning at all for this. It’s called “Moon Gels“, baby. Buy these… problems solved!

Calling the Tonal Shots

I have great respect for talented drummers. I know many who are far better than I at the skins.

But in the studio, here’s what I find: very few of them are well-versed in the intricacies of software recording, mixing, mastering… and specifically, what it takes to make drums sound AMAZING in a mix.

Unless you have years of experience actually recording and mixing your drums in the studio, always defer to your tracking and mixing engineer. It’s their job to make you sound as cool as you possibly can, and they probably know their studio tools (compressors, transient designers, limiters, reverbs, gates…) way better than you do.

Take a moment after the first run-through of the song to ask, “Hey – whaddya think of my tuning? Is it complementing the song well?”

Do this, and not only will any problems be addressed and the recording improved, but the engineer’s eyebrows will raise in amazement that a drummer actually asked that question and they’ll forever think you are the bombest of the bomb.

Oh, and you’ll probably get hired again. That can’t hurt either.   lol

Stay Tuned!

So, that’s what you need to know about tuning drums. From here, you can go make the type of killer recordings legends are known for… at least from the standpoint of how your drums sound.

As for technique, consistency and groove, well, that’s up to you… and the woodshed.  😉

Stay tuned for more intriguing glimpses into studio & concert life here at Seriousgas, and let us know in the Comments how these tuning techniques work for you, or ones YOU use that are different.

Now, go… make… (in tune) sounds!!

Teaj

If you’re a drummer/percussionist, you were probably hitting things very early on.

Lots of things!

Like pots, pans, walls, beds, school-books, bus seats, siblings, maybe the occasional pet…

But as you matured you learned something: that the surface that you hit responds to your pummeling in two ways – with a certain bounce and a certain sound. And that some bounces and some sounds are obviously better than others.

Fast-forward to today: scientific studies have shown that… guess what? Drum heads are responsible for 80 percent of the sound of a drum! Whodduh thunk?!

So what does that mean? Simply put, no matter what drum kit you have, whether it’s worth three hundred bucks or three thousand, the choice, tuning and interaction of your drum heads will impact your sound more than anything. So for all of you that can’t afford the super-duper-pro model, fear not – you can actually get a GREAT sound out of your kit most of the time (if it’s free from damage) if you take the time to get the perfect drum heads.

Drum shell thicknesses? Materials? Sizes? Sure, those are still relevant… but they’re not as crucial in determining your final sound as the heads! Knowing this, we must consider, before every session, the state of our heads – both the one on our shoulders, and those on our drums.

In this post we break down our drum head choices into categories, look at their various effects on your sound, and ultimately help you decide which makes you sound the most awesome, in light of your style, venue and gig types.

Let’s start groovin’, shall we?!

So Many Ways To Bang Your Head

In our modern age, the task of choosing drum heads is more complex than ever. I mean, just check out this list of all the options we now have to sift through:

• textured or non-textured
• dampened or non-dampened
• single ply and multi-ply
• thin or thick
• white or colored
• clear or coated
• oil between the plys or not
• monochrome or hide-emulated

Sheesh! I’ve been playing for years and it still boggles my mind!

Thankfully, there’s an easy way to keep our percussive wits about us. Using a linear process to make your drum head decisions gives you good understanding of the options, plus enables you to make changes in one or all categories as you progress in your playing.

Here are the most important factors to consider, in the order of importance:

1. Thickness
2. Ply
3. Clear vs. coated
4. Dampening

There are quite a few other factors to choose from, but they don’t carry near the weight of these four. Start here, then whatever else you add to your percussive pie, it’s still gonna end up bamaliciously tasty!

In the Thick of It

Drum heads come in many thicknesses. Why? Because the variances make a big difference in how pronounced your sound is.

Generally speaking, the thinner the head, the more sustain, overtones, and projection you will hear as a result of each strike.

As you thicken the head up, those same descriptors are reduced.

If you’re playing live gigs mostly, then you definitely want projection, so a thinner head would be great.

If you mostly play in studios, for recording sessions, as I do, most of the time (tho’ not always!) you won’t want so much projection or overtones, so thicker is your best bet.

Thickness options also affect music genres. Jazz players tend to like the thicker, warmer heads. Pop/rock players usually opt for the thinner variety. Bebop players often buy the thinnest heads possible because they like to tune them higher than players in other genres.

Whatever genre you’re smashing skins in, there’s a head thickness made that will give you just the right bang for your buck.

Just starting out and don’t know where to begin? Start out with a 7 or 10 ml single ply head . The seven ml is by far the most popular. Then, if you want more or less sustain, overtones and projection, you can go up or down from there. Good examples of this would be the Remo “coated Ambassador”, the Evans “UV1”, or the Aquarian “Texture Coated” heads.

But, now that we’ve broached the subject,… what’s this “ply” stuff mean??

Ply Your Thwackin’ Trade

The ply number of a head is simply how many layers it has. There are really only three choices:

• One ply
• Two ply
• Three ply

The first two are by far the most popular. The three plys are not hugely popular, but they’re out there.

Why would you want that thick of a head? Mostly, because triple-ply heads keep HEAVY HITTERS from breaking through their skins all the time. If you’re a Neanderthal on the kit and find yourself going to through heads too much, try a triple-ply. Probably you’re gonna find your problem solved. A triple-ply also has very little overtones, so if you don’t like ringing, you’ll probably love the dry attack and limited sustain it offers.

If you don’t hit the drums like Thor in Ragnarak, then either the two or one-ply are options. The double-ply will, again, give you a little more protection from ripping through the head (durability), a more focused tone and fewer overtones ringing, but the trade-off is the response and timbre: it won’t project as brightly a thinner head and the stick response won’t be as snappy.

Buy thinner? It’s the opposite.

So, what kind of a sound do you want with this in mind? In the studio, I typically don’t want lots of ringing overtones to muddy up my mix, so I always opt for a 2-ply head. The most popular size for 2-ply is 14 ml, and that’s what I use and it serves me well when recording.

But how come some heads are see-through and others not? I’m so glad you asked…

The Choice is Clear. Or Coated!

If you buy a drum head that is see-through, or CLEAR, then just know that you are opting for a bit longer of a sustain and a more bright, open, overtone-singing sound. If having a “warm” tone is your thing, avoid these clear heads. Instead…

… opt for a coated head! Some describe coated heads by saying they slightly ‘muffle’ the tone. But if you’re not into super-bright whacks, this is your stretch-skin. It’ll have a shorter sustain and give you a toasty tone – one sure to make your “significant other” melt whenever you play and want you, carnivorously, after the set!

Well, actually, about that melting… your mileage may vary.     ;-0

One last thing to consider in this category: do you ever play with brushes? If so, you want a coated head on your snare. The rubbing against the coating is what produces that “Ssshhh-sh-shhhhh…” sound we all attribute to the “brushes sweep sound”, but it won’t be there without the coating.

So we see there’s another example of how we play determines which heads to purchase.

Finally, it’s not uncommon to find pro drummers using coated heads for studio recordings, but switching to clear heads when they go on tour. Lars Ulrich of Metallica, for example, does this. It allows for a very controlled sound in the studio, but more ‘bite’ pouncing on the cheering fans when live in an arena!

And it should be said here with great fanfare a loud guitar power chords: here’s to all the drum techs who have to do all these time-intensive head changes on the road with pro bands. You guys are my heroes!!    lol

Damp It, Jim!

Now we’re starting to get into the hybridization of drum heads. We’ve gone through the three basic choices, and now we move on to the fourth, which really allows us to mix up our options a bit.

Dampening is the ability to cut off a lot of the overtone ringing that heads will give you, especially if they are clear and single-ply. You can get heads that only shave a subtle amount of resonance , all the way up to total tone restriction.

Some adhere a foam ring to the head for dampening. Others use a thin metallic ring. Still another way to dampen is to add a “Dot” to the drum. You’ll see these large dots, either black or white, in the center of the head. The dot is for dampening, and add more focus as well as durability to snare heads.

But wait, there’s also “reverse dots”! This is where the manufacturer adheres a resonance-busting dot beneath the head so that the upper surface remains smooth. You still get the focus and less ring; it just looks normal from above.

Someone experienced in drum setup can get a kit with dampening heads quickly ready for a recording session. Not having to fight the ring means more of the natural sound of the drum can be picked up without usurping the mix. No Ghengis Tom’s allowed!

Oh, but remember this: whatever head you choose, you can use “Moon Gels” or even the ol’ stand-by “Duct tape” to lessen the head overtones and sustain after you buy it. So don’t think you have to achieve the perfect balance with just the head purchase. I do, but I always know I can add a little dampening if needed at the drop of a gel. Nice to have in a pinch.

Flamming Fads & Fashions

If you’ve made wise, informed choices in the above four areas about your drum heads, you are well on your way to making your drums sound amazing!

But there are other specialized additions to heads that you can find. Will they affect your sound? A bit, but not as much as the basic four.

Need more “Sssshhh” for your brushes? By a more “textured” head.

Don’t like the standard white colored heads? No problem; buy black. Or blue. Other colors are available.

Just don’t expect your music store to have a color palette like, say, Baskin-Robbins.  😉

They also make drum heads that look like actual animal hide, if you’re wanting a more, oh, say, tribal look to your kit. Heck, David Lee Roth even call you for a session.

There’s even 2-ply drum heads that have oil between the plies. Why?? It’s yet another way to apply dampening and reduce overtones from your sound. If you typically have your kit mic-ed up, you might wanna try them. If you’re playing live mostly, this would probably kill your chances of getting a great live sound and cutting through the other players appropriately.

Those oil heads are pretty bizarre to look at. If you push your finger down on the head and move it, you’ll see the oil pooling around beneath.

So, are these further options worthwhile? Just a fad? Only you can tell, because only you know if it gels well with the music you produce.

Batter Heads vs. Resonant Heads

The thinnest head on your kit is going to be your resonant heads. These are the heads on the bottom of your drums. Not all drums are made for reso heads, so if yours aren’t… hakuna matata, baby!

But if you do need resonant heads, I find that simple, clear, thin heads work best. I use Remos, but really any will do.

Frankly, I don’t find that the brand makes much of a difference when buying reso heads, just as I don’t find that they need to be changed that often. Your experience might lead you to another conclusion, but what I hear on my recordings sounds awesome when I dial in the uppers with new heads, regardless of what I have on the bottom (tho’ I DO tune them each time as well), and regardless of how old the reso heads are.

But, hey, if you’re loaded, by all means… change all the heads every time you play out. Ya only live once, mate!  lol

Walkin’ My Beat…

Since I’m always a big fan of full disclosure, lemme share with you what I choose for recording in my studio RIGHT NOW:

First, on my Pearl Export studio kit:

• Remo WeatherKing Coated Powerstroke head on all three of my snares
• Remo WeatherKing Coated Emperors on all my toms
• Remo Powerstroke Pro clear head on the kick
• Pearl Resonant black ported head on the kick back

Next, my Ludwig 1983/4 Keystone Badge rock kit:

• Aquarian Texture Coated Studio X head on the snare
• Aquarian Performance II clear heads on all the toms
• Aquarian Force I Batter clear head on the kick front
• Aquarian Force II Resonant black ported head on the kick back

Am I still trying out different heads? Yup. But these have been giving me great drum tracks so I know they work. Can I improve? Maybe. Just like you, we can’t be sure ’til we try, so… let’s keep experimenting!

The Mastuh Blastuh of Drummin’ Disastuh!

All these things we’ve discussed today should help you decide on what really matters to your drum sound: choosing the appropriate heads and letting them sound great. Notice I didn’t say GETTING them to sound great; just let them.

If you methodically think through the lists I provided, you will, with a little trial and success, find the perfect heads that will resonate timbre of your drum shells well and make you sound like a “Mastuh” in the music genre(s) at which you excel!

So put in the time and effort. You’ll be glad you did, and you’ll find knowing how to record your drums at home with pro quality is really achievable… at any price!

Now, go… make… sounds!!

Teaj