Drum tuning bible

Tuning and Seatingmeans of repeating a tuning once you know the settings the gauge displays with a head of your choice.If you’ve spent much time tuning by ear you know that it’s not uncommon to have a few lugs that feel loose compared to others. Soremember it’s the pitch at each lug, not the evenness of lug or head tension/torque that counts.So where do the gauges fit in? Gauges can cut several minutes to hours off of tuning time. If your drum heads, hoops or bearingedges are the type where the seating of the drum head requires high tension to accomplish, then seating of the head cannot beeffectively accomplished by the use of any such gauge. The seating process must be done manually and then detuned prior to use ofa gauge. After seating, you can then use the gauge to get reasonably close. Without seating by hand and pre-stretching the head (orcracking glue joints) you may find the use of the gauge alone will lead to constant retuning for an extended period of time.To find settings, you need to go through the process of learning how to tune by ear and afterwards, place the gauge on the drum andrecord the settings created at tension and pitch. When replacing heads, you can then seat by hand, detune, place the gauge of yourchoice on the drum and very quickly get the drum reasonably in tune. Tweak by hand and even the head so that pitch is the samelug to lug.What to Expect - Anytime you change brand of head, drum, thickness of head, or the manufacturer changes itsmanufacturing technique, you should start over by hand and record the settings. So you may end up with a book of severalsettings.All rights reserved - J. Scott Johnson, Indianapois - "c" 1999http://home.earthlink.net/~prof.sound/id5.html (7 of 7)1/22/2005 4:11:41 PM