# Tuning bass drum and floor tom?



## Doomcreeper (Dec 12, 2007)

Hey my sister is going to university and sold her drum kit her first year. She wanted to start playing again and my dad bought her a kit that was on sale at a local music sotre. She comes home on saturday and I wanted to set up the kit for her. I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to go about tuning the bass drum and floor tom. Do I just tighten the skins until it sounds right? I know to tighten one screw thing then the one across from it. How do I know which of the skins to tighten? I realize it is somewhat preference but if someone had a clip of what it should sound like that would be great too.


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## Oogadee Boogadee (Dec 12, 2007)

With new heads....

Seat The Heads: for the floor tom, finger tighten all the lugs, making sure the head is centered on shell (not drifting off to one side). With two drum keys, pick 2 lugs on opposing sides and tighten half a turn. Notice how the two lugs would make a straight line, if you were to tie a string to them. Pick another two lugs, who's straight line would bisect the first line as perpdicularly as possible, then give them half a turn. Think of it like this... so far, we made a "t" with our lines (12 and 6 o'clock, 3 and 9 o'clock). Now we have to make an "x". Of course this depends on our floor tom having 8 lugs. If you have more or less, follow the same logic anyway (bisect lines). In our 8 lug example, go 1:30/7:30, and 10:30/4:30, with half turns. Repeat this process again, with half turns... but maybe in the opposite order (X first, then T). Once you have a tone when you tap on the head, start tapping at each lug, raising or lowering pitch until you're uniform all the way around. Usually, if you have a low pitch at a lug, you'll have a lower pitch at the opposite lug too. if you have a low pitch at one lug, and a low pitch at the opposite lug, and the lug next to the opposite lug, sometimes just raising tweaking up the 2 adjacent lugs will pull the head enough to raise the pitch of the single opposite lug. Think of the shape as a 90/60/30 angle tri-angle.

Once you have uniform pitches, continue in half turns until the head is tight and dorky.... like an orchestral timpani drum. Then with your palm, press on the center of the head with a good 40-60 pounds of pressure. This strecthes the head, and seats the bearing edge contact point. Detune all the lugs, in the x/t pattern, by half turns. you dont have to go all the way floppy, but go below the pitch you want to settle at. Then raise to the pitch you like. 

do this for both the batter and resonant heads. Should only take a few minutes, if you're good at recognizing the over/undertones at each lug as you tap them for pitch (that's the hard part). For floor toms, I usually start with both heads of equal pitch to get the sustaine and volume I like.... but if I dont like what i hear, I'll raise the bottom head a little.

Floor toms are a bitch... tune a set of toms by going with the floor tom first, then tune the rest of the toms up from there. It would suck to tune the high toms first, then get your pitches down to the floor, and realize that the intervals that will sound natural to your ear end up resulting in a pitch too low for your floor tom to handle.

The same procedure goes for the kick... 

I usually end up with the batter medium tight for decent beater bounce... and with the reso as low as I can get away with. I stuff a pillow in there too so my midgets can sleep comfortably.

james


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## DeL07 (Dec 12, 2007)

Oogadee Boogadee said:


> With new heads....
> 
> Seat The Heads: for the floor tom, finger tighten all the lugs, making sure the head is centered on shell (not drifting off to one side). With two drum keys, pick 2 lugs on opposing sides and tighten half a turn. Notice how the two lugs would make a straight line, if you were to tie a string to them. Pick another two lugs, who's straight line would bisect the first line as perpdicularly as possible, then give them half a turn. Think of it like this... so far, we made a "t" with our lines (12 and 6 o'clock, 3 and 9 o'clock). Now we have to make an "x". Of course this depends on our floor tom having 8 lugs. If you have more or less, follow the same logic anyway (bisect lines). In our 8 lug example, go 1:30/7:30, and 10:30/4:30, with half turns. Repeat this process again, with half turns... but maybe in the opposite order (X first, then T). Once you have a tone when you tap on the head, start tapping at each lug, raising or lowering pitch until you're uniform all the way around. Usually, if you have a low pitch at a lug, you'll have a lower pitch at the opposite lug too. if you have a low pitch at one lug, and a low pitch at the opposite lug, and the lug next to the opposite lug, sometimes just raising tweaking up the 2 adjacent lugs will pull the head enough to raise the pitch of the single opposite lug. Think of the shape as a 90/60/30 angle tri-angle.
> 
> ...



Sounds perfect for the floor tom, but for the kick drum I've got different suggestions depending on what sound you want...

If you want a boomy bass drum, tune the batter head a step under medium tight and tune the reso head tight...

If you want a good punchy bass drum, get the batter head loose, throw a pillow on the batter head and and setup the reso head medium/loose...

If you want a click bass drum, get the batter head loose, throw the pillow in there and get the reso head tight...


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