Tag Archive - how to tune drums

Makedrums.com Top Posts of 2011 (according to Google Analytics)

December 27, 2011 in Drum Building 101, Drum Building Resources, Drum Building Tutorials, Drum Tips, Drummer resources, Drums, Drums History, How to Tune Drums, Product Review, Reader's Drum Pictures with 1 Comment

It’s been amazing year for Makedrums.com and I wanted to recap some of the most visited blog posts and pages of the site for the year 2011. If you are brand new to the site, this is a great place to start! Enjoy, and please join in the conversations and leave some feedback in the comments area! HERE’S to an even better 2012!

Makedrums.com Top Posts of 2011 (according to Google Analytics)

  1. The Cobus Method Review – How to Play Drums Like Cobus | How to Make Custom Drums
  2. My Favorite Custom Drum Builders | How to Make Custom Drums
  3. How to make Custom Drums | How to Make Custom Drums
  4. Drum Building – Pros and Cons of Tube Lugs | How to Make Custom Drums
  5. How to Wrap a Drum Shell Part 1 | How to Make Custom Drums
  6. Drum Building FAQ – How much time and money will I need to invest? | How to Make Custom Drums
  7. Drum Building Tools for the Beginning Drum Builder | How to Make Custom Drums
  8. Ryan’s 1st Custom Snare Drum Build | How to Make Custom Drums
  9. How to Make an Inlay Jig for your Router Table and Cut/Install Perfect Inlay on your Custom Drum Set! | How to Make Custom Drums
  10. Reader’s Drum Pictures | How to Make Custom Drums
  11. 33 Drummer and Drum Related Gift Ideas For the Drummer In Your Life | How to Make Custom Drums
  12. 4 Tools That Make Building Custom Drums Easy | How to Make Custom Drums
  13. Drum Building Tools | How to Make Custom Drums
  14. 8 Custom Drum Companies That You Should Know About | How to Make Custom Drums
  15. Drum Building Tools for the Advanced Drum Builder | How to Make Custom Drums
  16. Drum Building 101 – Don’t Let Your Drums Slip Out of Tune | How to Make Custom Drums
  17. That’s one very large custom floor tom… | How to Make Custom Drums
  18. My Drum Head Recipe – The Best Drum Heads for Bringing The Funk | How to Make Custom Drums
  19. 7 Custom Drum Companies That You Should Know About | How to Make Custom Drums
  20. Drum Building 101 – How to Prevent Your Drums From Slipping Out of Tune | How to Make Custom Drums

What would you like to see more of on the site in 2012? (Click here to leave a comment)

Ed Francis on The Importance of “Spiking” Your Drum Kit Set-Up

August 18, 2011 in Drum Tips, Drummer resources, Drums, General Updates with 2 Comments

The Drum Coach from Round Rock Drums, Ed Francis (AKA: The Drummer on the Round Rock), combines his love of life, music and people with a HUGE and generous heart. At no cost to the recipients, Francis tours Round Rock and surrounding areas to share his passion for the arts and drumming. He donates countless hours to elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, juvenile detention facilities, music stores, drum studios, community centers, YMCA’s, daycare centers, and other outlets. He does this with one thing in mind – to spread his passion for music and drumming. I have had the privilege to become his friend over the past year and recently had a chance catch up and ask him to share a drum tip with the readers here at Makedrums.

MD: I know your a busy man, so I’ll make this quick. Can you share just one drum tidbit with our readers that has been helpful to you during your 33 years of playing?

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How to Tune Drums – 4 Practical Drum Tuning Tips

August 15, 2011 in Drum Tips, Drummer resources, Drums, How to Tune Drums with 1 Comment

The ability to tune drums is something that comes with practice and patience. In this post I offer just a glimpse in the world how to tune drums. This post is not intended to make you the next great drum tuner, but should at least give you some insight in the the art of tuning drums that you may or may not have already known. This is your basic drum tuning stuff….stay tuned (no pun intended!) for some more in depth step by step “How To” drum tuning advice in one of my next posts! Enjoy!

Practical Drum Tuning Tips

  • The quality of the materials in the drum and the craftsmanship put into making the drum will ALWAYS transfer to how well the drum tunes and sounds.
For instance, there is a huge difference in the time and effort put into making a “custom” drum set from a high end drum company as opposed to a mass produced drum set you can buy for $300 at a music store. The materials in a high end kit are used because of their acoustic properties, structural integrity, and overall higher quality. Most factory produced kit’s are thrown together as cheaply as possible, using cheap woods and cheap hardware, with the expectation of the owner upgrading their kit after a few  years of playing on this “beginner” set. To put it bluntly, you will have an extremely difficult time trying to make a PDP Starter Kit sound like a Pearl Reference Pure drum set.

My Drum Head Recipe – The Best Drum Heads for Bringing The Funk

July 6, 2011 in Drum Building 101, Drum Building Resources, Drummer resources, Drums with 4 Comments

Over the years I have gone through hundreds (if not thousands) of drum heads between replacing them on my personal kits, and installing them on the custom drum sets that I build. Some drum heads have impressed me over and over and stayed on my kit for weeks, but other drum heads have come off my drum set after a few hours of playing them. This post will show you what drum heads I’ve generally trusted over the years to provide me with a sound that makes the engineers go wild. I’ll also tell you the pros and cons of each drum head, and my preference in how to tune each drum.

My current preference in drum heads for my kit:

Keep in mind I play mostly rock/pop/funk.

Snare Drum: Remo Ambassador Coated Drum Head + Remo Ambassador Snare Head, Hazy

  • Pros: Fairly cheap, almost always in stock at any music store, sounds great tuned low and tuned high, very articulate even for ghost notes.
  • Cons: 1 ply drum head can dent easily for heavy hitters and may need to be replaced more often.
  • My Tuning: I tune both batter and resonant heads to the same pitch, I try to tune them high enough to give me a mid-range “crack”, as well as giving me a good stick response. On the resonant head I tune the lugs closest to the snare wires about 2 turns tighter than the rest of the head. This allows the snare wires to have a more crisp and clean snap as well as picking up more snare snap when playing ghost notes.

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How to Prevent Your Drums From Slipping Out of Tune

February 19, 2010 in Drum Building 101, Drum Building Resources, Drum Building Tutorials, Drummer resources, Drums, General Updates with 4 Comments

lug detuningDo you have problems with your tension rods detuning themselves as you play a gig? I know that I dealt with this for a very long time myself. I would sometimes find myself trying to tune my snare drum back up after a couple of songs because usually the lug nearest to where I hit my rim shots ends up detuning and dropping the drum’s overall  pitch.

This just made me frustrated…until I found out about  Loctite Thread Locker Blue.

loctite thread locker blueLoctite has been great for me for the last couple of years that I’ve used it on my kits. I apply just a small amount to each tension rod on all of my drums. You have to be careful because this stuff can get messy.loctite tension rod

I have also started to put it on all of my hardware screws and lugs screws that attach the hardware and lugs to the shell.  One mistake you definitely don’t want to make though is getting the permanent Loctite thread locker. There are multiple ratings of adhesive-ness (is that even a word?) and you have to make sure you get THREAD LOCKER BLUE REMOVABLE. Continue Reading....