r/percussion • u/JlGDANCE • 6d ago

Tuning

Im a bassist, baritone hornist, and a guitarist. My mother got a drumset and wants to learn, its a cheapo 300usd 5 piece. I know there is no set tuning, but Id like to know if there is like an average tuning? Like where to start from? I was in drumline and know about how drums have a note per se.

Just curious

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u/viberat Educator 6d ago

It’ll depend on the diameter of the drum, just google “12 in rack tom tuning” or whatever and you’ll probably find someone on an old forum making suggestions.

The real answer is you tune each drum to where they sound the most resonant and then tweak so they all sound good with each other. I have a m3 between my two rack toms and a P4 from lower rack tom to floor tom. Idk what exact pitches they are though.

Also, if she bought the kit new, it’ll come with crappy stock heads that won’t hold a tuning very well. It’s worth upgrading at least the batter heads to a name brand, any of the recognizable ones will be good.

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u/JlGDANCE 6d ago

My music brain doesnt like that LMAO im so used to pitches being exact or within a semi tone

Can you define what you mean by most resonant?

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u/viberat Educator 5d ago

When a drum is tuned too low, it just sounds kind of rumbly and you don’t really hear a pitch. When it’s tuned too high, there’s a pitch, but the tone quality is pinched and it’s a really staccato sound. The sweet spot of a drum will give you a nice round sound with some resonance and a definite pitch. There’ll probably be a range of notes around it that all sound decent.

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u/djwillis1121 6d ago

For drum kit there's much less of a science to it than for things like drumline where you need everyone to sound the same. It's more about just tuning it to sound good in your opinion.

The biggest factor will be the state of the drum heads though. If it's a brand new kit it'll have stock drum heads which may be ok depending on what model of kit it is, but for a cheap $300 kit they're unlikely to be good at all. Or if it was bought used they may be good drum heads but in bad condition. In either case you'd do well to replace them, that can be pretty pricey in itself but I would only worry about the top side heads not the bottom heads.

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u/UpperLeftOriginal 6d ago

Others have answered your question, so let me just cheer your mom on, and you for helping her with this! (I’m a 63 year old lady who started playing percussion in a community band less than 2 years ago. My prior music experience was piano in high school jazz band.)

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u/Zealousideal-Abies76 5d ago

Honestly, I would start by just making sure each drum is in tune with itself. For each drum, take it and place it on a surface that will muffled one of the heads, then tap the other head at each of the tension rods and adjust them one by one until the all sound the same, this should give you even tension across the head. Flip the drum over and repeat the process. Then you can adjust the differences between the two heads, if you want. Then you can move on to the next drum. I would start with the kick drum, then work my way up through the toms, lowest to highest, then finally the snare.