Tom Drum Tuning
There is a lot of confusion and frustration I hear of when drummers talk about tuning their toms. The frustrating thing is that drummers do not know what they should be doing to achieve the sound they want out of their toms. Although I cannot guarantee you by reading this article you are going to have an amazing tom tuning revolution; I hope to share some insight and suggestions that you can apply to your kit immediately.
One of the questions I hear drummers asking all the time is, “What notes should me toms be tuned to?” The answer is, “Whatever notes you want them to be tuned to.” The truth is, you don’t even have to tune your drums to a specific pitch. If I were tuning my toms, all I do is make sure the drums have a crisp tone without any nasty rings or hums. Then, I make sure that my 12” tom and my 14” tom have enough of a pitch difference to sound good when played together.
I have tuned my drums to a specific pitch once before. The problem was that they didn’t hold their tune for very long and I didn’t have time or the energy to pitch them before every gig or practice session. Also, I really liked the way they sounded when I just tuned them to my ear, and whatever sounded good to me.
The same principles apply to tuning your toms as tuning your snare drum and bass drum. When first starting to tune, make sure you hand tighten, then evenly tighten the tension rods across from each other until you have a desired tension.
One thing that I do recommend is that you experiment with minimal amount of dampening. There are a couple different products on the market that work excellent for getting rid of nasty tom overtones. The first product is DrumGum.
This product is unique as it is a gummy substance that has an adhesive backing on one side. You can cut a piece to your desired size and place it on the edge of the drum head. You’ll be amazed on how much better your toms will sound just by following this one simple step. The difference between drum gum and other products is that it lasts longer because only one side has adhesive on it, keeping your drums clean and looking good.
Tuning your toms will probably be the most challenging of all the drums to tune. I encourage you to be patient and experiment with different tunings. I think the saying goes “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” The same applies to this concept, it is going to take time and practice.
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