Premier Rock Forum

iembalm wrote:You have to tune drums?shit, dude, if I don't, who will?truth be told:The last few months of 2010 was when I started realizing that absolutes and lines in the sand are mostly pointless. Sometimes a "bad" drum sound is exactly what a song needs, there's no such thing as too little or too much moon gel, sometimes you gotta pull that front head off the kick and stuff a lime green fun-fur-covered beanbag in there. Sometimes a singer needs an SM57, sometimes you run the guitar direct, sometimes you use the solid state amp and sometimes you put ketchup on a hotdog.and finally, no I don't need a drum dial to tune a drum. However, I also don't need a GPS to go to places I have been before, but if it's in the car and on, I can get there without wracking my brain as I drive there and I can concentrate on other things.I now have a couple of kits with really nice factory bearing edges. I'm thinking I may break down and get a drum dial.p.s.- Randy, will you cook for me?

Pros: measures timpanic pressure at each drum lug and provides perfectly proportional tension on drum heads, which SHOULD result in a perfectly tuned drum.Allegedly makes tuning a drum so simple a deaf person could do it.Cons: Pretty much worthless if the drum in question is not round or has lumpy bearing edges.Makes drum tuning appear so simple that one might be tempted to not actually learn to hear the difference between "close" and "in tune."What do you think, PRF?

You have to tune drums?

I would love to know how to tune a drum...with or without this device- I'm not particular.

i have the tama dial. for me it works. i'm self taught and don't know anyone who knows how to tune by ear and could never figure it out on my own. i have a nice set of vintage ludwigs and they always sounded ok until i bought this. now they always sound great and tuning only takes a couple minutes for the whole kit. i don't know if it's perfect but i think if someone had a major problem with the results i would think they have a stick up their ass.for big changes in tension i find it best to criss cross around the tension rods and for fine tuning going around in circular motion is better.

I was totally going to make a c/nc thread on drum dials a long while ago. Did some reading about them in the tech room, but never took the next step. Anything to help with this time-consuming project (aside from keeping Ringo chained to a radiator) can't possibly be crap.I want one.

Never a damned thing wrong with another tool in the box. NC.

i love that these people are acting like proper musicians. how can you tune a bang? is insane.

Well, I got outbid on one on EBay just now.Oh, well.Thinking about getting these instead:

I don't know a thing about tuning drums, maybe that's I can't understand how could an instrument tuner be crap? It's fresh, etc.