How to Tune Your Drums Like a Pro | Drum Lesson

Sweetwater Sales Engineer Mark Johnson shows you how to get your drum kit tuned up. If you're not sure how to properly seat your heads on the bearing edge, how much to tighten your lugs, or anything else related to drum tuning, this video is for you.

0:00 - Intro
0:25 - Replace the Head
0:51 - Tightening The Lugs
3:03 - Fine Tuning
3:45 - Tuning The Snares
4:50 - Check The Tuning
5:38 - Six Lug Drum
6:57 - Tuning The Bottom Head Of A Tom-Tom
7:34 - Eight Lug Drum
10:40 - Bass Drum Tuning
12:30 - Thanks For Watching!

#Sweetwater #HowtoTuneDrums

[Melvin]

Call me stupid, but it truly took me forever to understand "skip one to the right" for the tuning order. For anyone else wondering, it's actually "skip one going counter-clockwise."

[jmfs]

4:50 For years I tuned without touching the center of the head, i just tapped near each lug and made adjustments. LAST WEEK I was tuning at practice and had trouble hearing over my band warming up, and I used the finger in the center to focus and as I fine tuned each lug I actually felt the head begin to vibrate more as it got more evenly tensioned. My drums never sounded better to me.

[MrNatan]

Honesty time, i have never seated my drum head before. This seem like small fixes that will really help improve my overall drum sound. Now I gotta wait till i’m outta work so i can rush home and try some of these tips out!

[piotrwarsztocki]

Big thanks for this video. Explained in short and understandable way. That's what i needed

[jameskirkbydrums]

dont forget about pre-muffled heads like the aquarian studio-x, focus-x, superkick and impact series heads, where you dont need any extra muffling :) (unless you really want to of course)

[JeromeDayUniverse]

NOTE: Do not hit the resonant front bass drum head with a stick, you could mark it up or even dent it! Use a mallet or finger tap it. Nice video but just sayin’.

[eschdaddy]

Best tuning video I’ve seen.
Lesson for gig drummer... ALWAYS tune your drums. Watch some YouTube vids. You can always hear those that don’t take that time to tune.

[shadowrider]

Just ordered a bunch of stuff from sweetwater!

[EightyFourThousandss]

The visual effects were really helpful so thanks

[qtimbroad]

Just got my first kit. Just wondering what is best to quieten the drums so I can practice more and not get complaints.

[towakun]

Wow I feel like an idiot... I didn't even know you had to tune drums but it makes perfect sense lol

[sewind]

Super helpful. Thank you for your time.

[jordonpolete]

I'm kind of teaching myself how to do the drums personally haven't had drum lessons! I was curious what is the tuning pattern for a floor tom?

[shadowrider]

I play my kick finger tightened only, no tighter, sounds best in my opinion with no overtones and resonance, nice quick loud thud. Is that wrong?

[SuperBaby]

Wow what a lesson
But What the heck is a sales engineer??

[ccdrums]

Don’t tell Simon Phillips to make his drums sound dead live. He gets one of the best live sounds out there….totally wide open.

[liggerz]

When you did the snare how many turns in total did you do as you like fast warded it

[eagonpaulsen]

Thanks alot it was really helpful appreciate it

[nick]

my childhood best friend had that exact same rug on the wall in his stairwell

[deathbymona]

i just bought a set of evans hydraulic heads from you guys, my question is, do i press down on those type of heads before finger tightening them?