I figured this out a while ago when I had a snare-side head genuinely as tight as it could possibly go. I knew it couldn’t go any higher because when I started tuning the batter side up the snare side head snapped 😂 thank you guys for covering this one *Edit: that was one of the first times I ever tuned a snare drum. I tune much more reasonably now; I’ve checked it with a dial and the tension all-around is about an 85 for the snare-side
This is actually related to the phenomenon of extremely deforming drum shells that are tensioned on one side. Perhaps try comparing the evenness of the bearing edge before and after tensioning the head on one side. There is actually a difference of several millimetres in flatness. The snare bed in particular pulls the shell into a banana-like shape. This is then corrected by attaching and tensioning the batter head. This effect is due to the lack of drag torque in the radial direction. In the axial direction, the section modulus increases cubically with the material thickness. I couldn't explain it any shorter. Greetings from Germany, great channel!
Which plane is considered the radial plane in your explanation? This sounds like you have done some research or may have read some research about this. Anything published? That explanation makes sense and I hadn't thought of it like that before. I have a Slingerland Stage Band that uses the single lug configuration on all of the heads and I had always assumed that the tension changes were from the lugs "drifting" in their holes in the shell since the tension rods are very long and have a lot of flex to them.
Wow! I never thought about this, but it totally makes sense! Even if the lug is solid against the shell, there is still some give upwards and downwards.
Thank you. I did not know that! This is why you guys are so valuable to me. You venture into the weeds so often you must have permanent burrs in your socks. But when you come back out, you've uncovered some useful information for us. I've never tuned the snare-side head super-tight on the ol' Super Sensitive (gotta have that ring!), but I'll be mindful of what I've learned here the next time I change heads on my snare. It looks as though hopes for the return of Cody's pony tail have been dashed!
This is EXACTLY what I´ve discovered about ten years ago when watching the introduction video or the protean snare drum by gavin harrison and sonor. Gavin said in that video that he liked the idea of the tension rods evening each other out with these bridge style lugs. And I immediately thought to myself NO thats horrible!! I want the side I already tuned to stay that way exactly once i start to tension the other side ;-) So ever since then my number one criteria for buying snare drums is NO bridge style lugs
Oh man! Think of all of the fantastic snare drums you’re missing out on though. One can easily overcome this quirk by following the directions we included at the end and simply by utilizing your ears to assess and adjust the tuning accordingly.
And I will definitely try that approach on my Snares that have bridge style lugs. But to be honest I kinda like having fewer options to choose from 🤷♂️
What a great find of information. Because of this channel, I've gone down the wormhole with hours of experimenting and chasing tone. Thank you, gentlemen, for the clear and concise information. I truly enjoy watching your videos and the endless stream of advice and help. I enjoy playing more than ever. Appreciate it.
This was really informative! I'd seen indications of this effect over time, and the best way I had found to keep it under control was to just unison-tune both heads to about 88 on a Drum Dial, and then 'nudge' the batter until I got the sound I wanted. With the information you've provided, I now have some better tools for getting a more consistent and well-managed sound out of my snare. Thanks!
aside from the content of the ep (which is great and informative!) i really enjoy the "getting right into it" and explaining afterwards/throughout the video a lot!
You are correct about the increments on the drum dial being large changes. I think you said it backwards though. It has low resolution, not a high resolution. High resolution would mean that each increment is a small change in tone.
The Drum Dial will teach you a lot. I realized through it's use that you can't rely on the torque you feel when turning the key. You'll notice various levels of torsion but still see the same dial readout. (I wish we had a unit to assign to the drumdial numbers)
If the Drum Dial taught you this then that’s great. We figured it out based on the fact that the sound was different (we’re big on the whole sound thing 😉) and the interval had changed.
@@SoundsLikeADrum I feel like there's a stigma to the drum dial. Yes, I know how to tune the traditional way. I get better and quicker results using the drum dial. Then, I move on to playing music in bands with the damn things.
I learned the same thing. Especially true for old dirty lugs / tension rods. One tension rod can take way more torque to reach the same level of head tension than another tension rod. This shows me that the Evan's torque key is just not a viable solution.
@@benpeterson7530 exactly! Another thing akin to this that you’ll notice is the amount of turns of the key aren’t a good measure either. You’ll do a 1/4 turn and the dial barely moves. You’ll notice turn amounts don’t necessarily correlate to the dial read out. When I tune with this thing my drums sing like a mfer!
Fantastic! I remember experimenting with heads. I wanted to be sure to keep reso low & batter higher. So cool to see this expanded & explained further on what I was feeling! 10 out of 10! thank you!
😱😱😱 woah!! I have been experiencing this for awhile and thought I was crazy. I thought it might be something to do with the lug design but I haven’t seen any other vids explaining or anything on the internet about it so I couldn’t really verify for sure. I have a piccolo with a similar connected lug design and this has been driving me nuts for the longest time. Thanks for this. I now know my suspicions were correct! Great, GREAT info.
I noticed this phenomenon long ago, although I never had any "numbers" since I never used any kind of tuner or dial, whatsoever. I've always tuned my drums by ear. When I was a beginner, my first snares had that kind of lugs. At first I thought I just needed to learn how to tune properly, or just train my ears better because I was doing something wrong since, you know, I was a beginner (and indeed we all need to learn, right?) When I had more experience and was becoming more confident with tuning and also having tested more different drums, I kept noticing the issue and it was driving me crazy, since as I didn't have any system to measure it objectivily (dial, tuner, etc), it was just my subjective perception. Once I realized what was going on it was a relief. I wasn't crazy and my tuning abilities didn't suck that much. Now all my snares (and the one I have in project to build myself) have separate lugs. It's not that this issue is a big problem (if a problem at all), but for me it's easier and more comfortable to just tune each head where I want it to be instead of having to correct it later or trying to predict (with more or less success) how much it will be affected once I tune the other. I also prefer separate lugs for aesthetic reasons, but that's another story.
I'm surprised that this isn't common knowledge, but I have been playing a Slingerland Stage Band for a long time now and it uses the single lug configuration on all drums so I have an advantage in observing the phenomena I suppose. Cool vid and awesome application of the tension gauge.
I found this aspect the moment i bought a pearl free floating drum. Tuning became so much easier and the sound was so beefy i thought i was in drums heaven. Unless you have a snare drum with separate lugs for top and bottom the only other option would be the firchie snare drums.
That Acro sounds great cranked up! Re: batter tension influencing reso side: single-contact, double-sided lugs are notorious for this, think Sonor 90s Hilite and later series. That first interval in pitch sounds like a half step to me, like between to adjacent piano keys, such as f# and g. Actually there are several modes at once, not just one pitch. Different persons might hear different modes as the "pitch". Still, all these modes change that same interval; it's actually easier to talk about the interval here than about a pitch. Those mechanical measuring devices make sense here as a reference point.
Having used a Drum Dial for decades, I noticed this a long time ago. So I get both heads at about the number that I want, and then fine tune after both heads are tensioned really close to their final tuning
Good find and informative clip. I wonder if the effect will be different if heavier hoops like die cast hoops are used on the batter side. I think heavier hoops put less tension on the lugs for tuning the heads.
Wow Cody! That’s an awesome Discovery! I wonder if there are Single side single point lugs to fit most of these snare drums to counter the problem of more accurate tuning, I guess we spend more time changing the top batter heads instead of the snare side heads.
I have an early 60s set of Pearl Velencia MIJ (pre badge) drums. They are configured with center lugs and soft wood shells, this issue is there constantly. I get them in a nice "sweet spot" and then need to adjust one tension rod and it is all out of whack. I also make sure that the lugs are tight on this kit and my 70 Ludwig set, which is not as critical.
does this happen at low tunings as well? when there is much less tension? Also, what about centre mounted lug on toms? assume this would happen there as well? Have you tried this with individual lugs an a snare?
I know this effect since 1990. Since than i tune using an electronic tuner. Now i tune with Tunebot for about a decade it is very clear: changing the tension of 1 head will change the tuning on the other side. Also putting on the snares or changing the snare tension will affect the tuning of the snare drum. I tune both heads same. For snare drum mostly recommended is bottom head much higher ...so my snare tuning is not as recommended. Mostly go from low tuning to higher. The final head for fine tuning and adjusting mostly is the batter head. I always leave some marging towards the exact wanted value to being able to choose which head to raise a little. On all drums mostly the reso head is more stable tuned all around, it stays better in tune with itself or other said if the reso/bottom head is tuned exactly it mostly stay exactly in tune with itself. when adjusting the batter head. On the batter head there often can be big differences between the tuning close to the tension rods. This can be explained caused by the effect we are hitting the batter head and do not hit the reso head. I tune 1 head exact in tune with itself. (dev 0 all around). Than the other head same and then i go upwards on bottom or batter towards the wanted fundamental tone. My goal is to have the same zero dev on all lugs from bottom and reso head when the wanted fundamental is reached. I always use 2 tuning keys. I use the prescribed tunings of the tuning calculator. My snare mostly is on G 196 Hz. Drums can be affected by temperature so ...outdoor gigs may give some trouble in the tuning. Like a piano: having a drum in a stable 20 degrees Celsius with constant humidity and not moving the drums will give the most stable tuning results. Soft hitting will results in a more stable tuning than heavy hitting. Stretching the head may be OK to get quickly a stable tuning. In my opinion: If you want to use the heads very long dont tune to high, dont strectch and hit softly with thin sticks and keep the drums on stable temperature and humidity and dont move or adjust the drums. I only strech in the middle/centre sometimes a very little to have the effect of equal distribution of tension to all lugs. It helps reaching the 0 deviation at all lugs.
Once I was tuning the batter head and the snare side cracked. I always thought it just gave up for natural reasons. It never struck me that I had to do with tension transfers.
I would love you guys to get a tunebot (as it measures note not tension) and see if you tuning a kit by ear ends up being fairly even, and what the intervals between the batter & resos were for a great sounding drum and see if it had any bearing in a classic musical context (ie a standard number of semi tones between the heads) and then what the pitch interval was between the parts of the kits. I'm been experimenting with this myself and have found there's some mileage in semi tones between top and bottom heads to get you into a ballpark range that you can then finetune slightly.
I do ALOT of tuning nearly constantly, but this video and information is great to know, MANY thanks !!! I felt this going on, but couldn't put my finger on it exactly... LOL
If you tune drums to the shell pitch you will find that the pitch of the shell changes when you change the tension. It is possible but it takes a time till heads and shell have same pitch. It was possible on the toms. The sound was OK for each tom individually but the ptiches / intervals between the toms were crazy. Yes going from high to low when increasing diameters but not a smooth transition like when tuning in 4th, 3rd, or major chords. Puting damping on or in the drums may sometimes change the pitch. When hitiing hard or soft also there are small differences in pitch. This channel has very nice tunings and probable much better than i do but Using Tunebot and the recommended tunings on top and bottom and 0 dev on all lugs top and bottom is an easy way to always have a drum kit that sounds and react as you know. I play oin several kits from my own and from others and ...it always is possible to use the recommended tunings. Always know how the drumkit reacts inside, outside, in each song, etc. Changing the floortom from C to D was a big change in feel. C was a nice deep 80's laid back ballad or blues feel and D is a more energetic and loud rock. Tuning in 4th did give a wide spread of tones around the kit with very high sounding small toms. Can be a bit to much. 3rd intervals do give nice smooth results.
Surprising but it makes sense... like other comments I had never considered this. I wonder if wood snares have the same effect to a similar degree also deeper snares say 6 1/2 v 5". It might even happen on my toms because my Yamaha Recording Custom kit has dual headed rather than separate lugs.
This is like the part of the movie after the big reveal and they do a bunch of flashbacks showing all the times you thought it was one thing but it was this thing. That's me right now
I'd like to know if you have addressed my issue prior on your channel. I find that my snare skins and my bass drum skin tend to detune after a while , but my toms skins tend to tighten instead of the opposite. I have my drums inside my house and my air-conditioning is constantly on throughout the day and night. Does temperature affect skin tension and should address this issue as far as turning my drums?
We've referenced this a bit in the past but to answer your question, yes- temperature and humidity can affect drumhead tension. The affect to which notice this on different drums is dependent on the shells, the heads, the tension the heads are under, the exposure of the drums/heads to changes in temperature and humidity, etc. Even outside of these changes, it's not at all uncommon for snare drum heads to lose tension from rimshots or simply drumming on the rims (especially with 10-lug snare drums).
That sent me off to test on one of my snare drums. I already move in up tension via really small turns, and I check often. On this very drum, an 8 lug drum, if I ever attempt to make say a full turn on any lug during setup it takes forever to get the drum dialled in. And indeed, batter head affects the snare side, and a little bit vice versa too. So my recipe, which is already about tuning it small increments, now means going back and forth between batter and snare side to check what’s happening. I feel sorry for beginners, how do you explain how to tune with all of these crazy variables? You just got to get used to the mechanics involved, and the rule is basically “everything impacts everything else”. Thanks for sharing!
Did you experiment to adjust both sides together in star pattern, keeping the same tension by hand? I tried after I saw this video, and it works pretty well for me. I got the impression that, this way, the snare side head goes higher in pitch just enough to balace the overall sound. Would love to see you guys testing it!
the biggest Ghost is,that the lugs can move up and down 1-2 mm because the holes in the shell are slightly bigger than what the lugs would need,so it's easyier to screw them to the shell....and maybe not every lug is absolut the same as the others and not every hole in the shell is at the absolute right spot....and so on...... What works suprisinglly good,is to take off the lugs and connect the screws from the top and bottom directly,so that you tension both heads at the same time.....sleishman from australia do it like that,the drums with the rope tension system from somewhere in the US work like that too,the first snare and bass drums were like that....and since a couple of years i practice this in a simple screw to screw way too....and it works totaly fine....the thin reso head seams to be able to handle the tension of a normal 10 mil head...at least up to a medium/high tension....super high i dont know,i prefere medium to pretty low sometimes. It's worth to give it try....
Hmm. I thought this was common knowledge. (I noticed it right away when I tuned my first snare.) It’s particularly evident in vintage-style drum sets, where the toms and even the bass drum use this one-lug-per-both-sides system. The frustrating part is that your instinct is to crank up the lug bolts inside the shell to prevent the lugs from shifting. That, however, is an exercise in futility-you’ll _never_ be able to tighten them enough to counteract the forces exerted by the tensioning rods. So, yes, you just have to live with it.
It'll happen to varying degrees on any snare with bridged lugs that extend the from batter to reso. Drums with separated lugs (like the majority of toms, for example) are immune to this particular issue. Cheers!
Our hypothesis is that drums that don’t use full-shell lugs won’t experience this. It’s the pull on the lug that’s affecting the resistance on the opposing side.
I’m curious how you conclude it’s one lug pulling on the other? Have you tried tightening one lug and checking the same one on the opposite side? The threaded receivers are not coupled; so it’s pulling the actual lug casing to the side you’re tightening? And this definitely doesn’t occur on, say, a 6.5” drum with separate lugs?
That’s exactly what we did. Make an adjustment to a single lug and the tension on the head at the opposing side changes. We haven’t been able to reproduce this with any drums that don’t feature full, shell-length lugs.
Thanks for the reply! I would have speculated something about the column of air in the shell, but a mechanical answer like increased tension makes so much more sense. Thanks for the video and again for the response!
Yep, the lugs are shifting just a bit. This can vary depending on lug design, the way the hardware is attached to the shell, and especially the size of the holes vs. the screws/inserts that go into the shell.
The other day I had my batter head change when I loosened my snare head. I tune my snare high and decided to see what would happen if I brought down the snare head (snare head was almost table top tight). It lowered the batter to about a medium high which actually sounded good so I left it there. I did loosen the snare wires just a little because they seemed too tight and almost choking.
When you've got the snare side up in a "tabletop-tight" range it's completely understandable how this could also affect the tension on the batter head. It's also important to know that the design and installation of different lugs will make this effect either more or less pronounced.
The same thing happens with guitars, tension on one string naturally tends to equalize on the other strings. This is why tuning a Floyd Rose is a pain in the ass.
this is a different concept, maybe very punk: I tune the drums and after months playing it I feels like the skins sits down and even pleasantly for me. they get lower to a nice sweet spot for itself.
That seems to be a nice general tension for a 3mil snare side head, at least on this drum. Since we don't ever start with a number in mind it's more about going for the sound and behavior we're looking for.
No, though we don't have any toms with full, shell-length lugs. That's part of the culprit here. The other aspect is the ultra-thin (by comparison) snare side head being more susceptible to change in tension.
So basically if the lugs do not have two tension rods going through it no problem so a snare drum that has a lug of its own on the top and bottom it should not be a problem no tug of war.
I've got a Sonor Force 3000 kit which uses "pipe" lugs, and it absolutely has this impact on tuning the toms. I think this is a reason why Sonor moved away from that style of lug. Interestingly, the Signature series that was available at the same time as the Force series used separate lugs.
Being an engineer most of my life I will say that the amount of variables doesn't start at the head tuning as you can't accept that the lug being tight to the shell is an acceptable given. The amount of play in metal and wood shell holes and its corresponding hardware is huge in regards to precision engineering. I would bet that if you were to use CNC machining to make the holes in the shell and the receiving hardware (lugs) where the fit is unmeasurable rather than visible adding a 4 point connection two at each end over one tube lug then I believe you would be able to eliminate the tuning anomaly. In short your issue is inherently sloppy engineering.
I figured this out a while ago when I had a snare-side head genuinely as tight as it could possibly go. I knew it couldn’t go any higher because when I started tuning the batter side up the snare side head snapped 😂 thank you guys for covering this one
*Edit: that was one of the first times I ever tuned a snare drum. I tune much more reasonably now; I’ve checked it with a dial and the tension all-around is about an 85 for the snare-side
This is actually related to the phenomenon of extremely deforming drum shells that are tensioned on one side. Perhaps try comparing the evenness of the bearing edge before and after tensioning the head on one side. There is actually a difference of several millimetres in flatness. The snare bed in particular pulls the shell into a banana-like shape.
This is then corrected by attaching and tensioning the batter head.
This effect is due to the lack of drag torque in the radial direction. In the axial direction, the section modulus increases cubically with the material thickness.
I couldn't explain it any shorter.
Greetings from Germany, great channel!
Which plane is considered the radial plane in your explanation?
This sounds like you have done some research or may have read some research about this. Anything published?
That explanation makes sense and I hadn't thought of it like that before. I have a Slingerland Stage Band that uses the single lug configuration on all of the heads and I had always assumed that the tension changes were from the lugs "drifting" in their holes in the shell since the tension rods are very long and have a lot of flex to them.
Crazy! 50 years of drumming and I would have never believed it...until today. : )
Yep! Never would have guessed though I knew something more dynamic was going on!🤣🤷♂️
Definitely heard “Ants Marching” kick in when you cranked the snare way up and started hitting it.
Wow! I never thought about this, but it totally makes sense! Even if the lug is solid against the shell, there is still some give upwards and downwards.
Thank you. I did not know that! This is why you guys are so valuable to me. You venture into the weeds so often you must have permanent burrs in your socks. But when you come back out, you've uncovered some useful information for us. I've never tuned the snare-side head super-tight on the ol' Super Sensitive (gotta have that ring!), but I'll be mindful of what I've learned here the next time I change heads on my snare.
It looks as though hopes for the return of Cody's pony tail have been dashed!
This is EXACTLY what I´ve discovered about ten years ago when watching the introduction video or the protean snare drum by gavin harrison and sonor. Gavin said in that video that he liked the idea of the tension rods evening each other out with these bridge style lugs.
And I immediately thought to myself NO thats horrible!! I want the side I already tuned to stay that way exactly once i start to tension the other side ;-)
So ever since then my number one criteria for buying snare drums is NO bridge style lugs
Oh man! Think of all of the fantastic snare drums you’re missing out on though. One can easily overcome this quirk by following the directions we included at the end and simply by utilizing your ears to assess and adjust the tuning accordingly.
And I will definitely try that approach on my Snares that have bridge style lugs.
But to be honest I kinda like having fewer options to choose from 🤷♂️
What a great find of information. Because of this channel, I've gone down the wormhole with hours of experimenting and chasing tone. Thank you, gentlemen, for the clear and concise information. I truly enjoy watching your videos and the endless stream of advice and help. I enjoy playing more than ever. Appreciate it.
This was really informative! I'd seen indications of this effect over time, and the best way I had found to keep it under control was to just unison-tune both heads to about 88 on a Drum Dial, and then 'nudge' the batter until I got the sound I wanted. With the information you've provided, I now have some better tools for getting a more consistent and well-managed sound out of my snare. Thanks!
aside from the content of the ep (which is great and informative!) i really enjoy the "getting right into it" and explaining afterwards/throughout the video a lot!
Thanks for the feedback!
You are correct about the increments on the drum dial being large changes. I think you said it backwards though. It has low resolution, not a high resolution. High resolution would mean that each increment is a small change in tone.
The Drum Dial will teach you a lot. I realized through it's use that you can't rely on the torque you feel when turning the key. You'll notice various levels of torsion but still see the same dial readout. (I wish we had a unit to assign to the drumdial numbers)
If the Drum Dial taught you this then that’s great. We figured it out based on the fact that the sound was different (we’re big on the whole sound thing 😉) and the interval had changed.
@@SoundsLikeADrum I feel like there's a stigma to the drum dial. Yes, I know how to tune the traditional way. I get better and quicker results using the drum dial. Then, I move on to playing music in bands with the damn things.
Another thing the drum dial will reveal is any problems with either the bearing edge or your hoops.
I learned the same thing. Especially true for old dirty lugs / tension rods. One tension rod can take way more torque to reach the same level of head tension than another tension rod. This shows me that the Evan's torque key is just not a viable solution.
@@benpeterson7530 exactly! Another thing akin to this that you’ll notice is the amount of turns of the key aren’t a good measure either. You’ll do a 1/4 turn and the dial barely moves. You’ll notice turn amounts don’t necessarily correlate to the dial read out.
When I tune with this thing my drums sing like a mfer!
Wowwwwww. That difference was a lot bigger than I expected even when you said there was gonna be one.
Fantastic! I remember experimenting with heads. I wanted to be sure to keep reso low & batter higher. So cool to see this expanded & explained further on what I was feeling! 10 out of 10! thank you!
I’ll definitely be giving this a try next time I tune my snare, and every other shared lug drum!
😱😱😱 woah!! I have been experiencing this for awhile and thought I was crazy. I thought it might be something to do with the lug design but I haven’t seen any other vids explaining or anything on the internet about it so I couldn’t really verify for sure. I have a piccolo with a similar connected lug design and this has been driving me nuts for the longest time. Thanks for this. I now know my suspicions were correct! Great, GREAT info.
I noticed this phenomenon long ago, although I never had any "numbers" since I never used any kind of tuner or dial, whatsoever. I've always tuned my drums by ear. When I was a beginner, my first snares had that kind of lugs. At first I thought I just needed to learn how to tune properly, or just train my ears better because I was doing something wrong since, you know, I was a beginner (and indeed we all need to learn, right?)
When I had more experience and was becoming more confident with tuning and also having tested more different drums, I kept noticing the issue and it was driving me crazy, since as I didn't have any system to measure it objectivily (dial, tuner, etc), it was just my subjective perception. Once I realized what was going on it was a relief. I wasn't crazy and my tuning abilities didn't suck that much.
Now all my snares (and the one I have in project to build myself) have separate lugs. It's not that this issue is a big problem (if a problem at all), but for me it's easier and more comfortable to just tune each head where I want it to be instead of having to correct it later or trying to predict (with more or less success) how much it will be affected once I tune the other. I also prefer separate lugs for aesthetic reasons, but that's another story.
I'm surprised that this isn't common knowledge, but I have been playing a Slingerland Stage Band for a long time now and it uses the single lug configuration on all drums so I have an advantage in observing the phenomena I suppose. Cool vid and awesome application of the tension gauge.
👌🏼👊🏼! Nice! This is great! Thanks for sharing!!!
I found this aspect the moment i bought a pearl free floating drum. Tuning became so much easier and the sound was so beefy i thought i was in drums heaven. Unless you have a snare drum with separate lugs for top and bottom the only other option would be the firchie snare drums.
Well that explains it! I always start with the drum dial, but finish off both heads by ear, so the end result works out.
I’ve suspected this for a while now when I started noticing the wrap on my snare start to bunch up at the lugs. This validates my suspicion.
That Acro sounds great cranked up!
Re: batter tension influencing reso side: single-contact, double-sided lugs are notorious for this, think Sonor 90s Hilite and later series.
That first interval in pitch sounds like a half step to me, like between to adjacent piano keys, such as f# and g. Actually there are several modes at once, not just one pitch. Different persons might hear different modes as the "pitch". Still, all these modes change that same interval; it's actually easier to talk about the interval here than about a pitch. Those mechanical measuring devices make sense here as a reference point.
Having used a Drum Dial for decades, I noticed this a long time ago. So I get both heads at about the number that I want, and then fine tune after both heads are tensioned really close to their final tuning
Good find and informative clip. I wonder if the effect will be different if heavier hoops like die cast hoops are used on the batter side. I think heavier hoops put less tension on the lugs for tuning the heads.
Wow Cody! That’s an awesome Discovery! I wonder if there are Single side single point lugs to fit most of these snare drums to counter the problem of more accurate tuning, I guess we spend more time changing the top batter heads instead of the snare side heads.
I have an early 60s set of Pearl Velencia MIJ (pre badge) drums. They are configured with center lugs and soft wood shells, this issue is there constantly. I get them in a nice "sweet spot" and then need to adjust one tension rod and it is all out of whack. I also make sure that the lugs are tight on this kit and my 70 Ludwig set, which is not as critical.
Always insightful! Thank you.
Great video guys!
does this happen at low tunings as well? when there is much less tension? Also, what about centre mounted lug on toms? assume this would happen there as well? Have you tried this with individual lugs an a snare?
This never occurred to me - good to know and thank you!
I really appreciate this info since one of my kits is a WFL Club Date.
I know this effect since 1990. Since than i tune using an electronic tuner. Now i tune with Tunebot for about a decade it is very clear: changing the tension of 1 head will change the tuning on the other side. Also putting on the snares or changing the snare tension will affect the tuning of the snare drum. I tune both heads same. For snare drum mostly recommended is bottom head much higher ...so my snare tuning is not as recommended. Mostly go from low tuning to higher. The final head for fine tuning and adjusting mostly is the batter head. I always leave some marging towards the exact wanted value to being able to choose which head to raise a little. On all drums mostly the reso head is more stable tuned all around, it stays better in tune with itself or other said if the reso/bottom head is tuned exactly it mostly stay exactly in tune with itself. when adjusting the batter head. On the batter head there often can be big differences between the tuning close to the tension rods. This can be explained caused by the effect we are hitting the batter head and do not hit the reso head. I tune 1 head exact in tune with itself. (dev 0 all around). Than the other head same and then i go upwards on bottom or batter towards the wanted fundamental tone. My goal is to have the same zero dev on all lugs from bottom and reso head when the wanted fundamental is reached. I always use 2 tuning keys. I use the prescribed tunings of the tuning calculator. My snare mostly is on G 196 Hz. Drums can be affected by temperature so ...outdoor gigs may give some trouble in the tuning. Like a piano: having a drum in a stable 20 degrees Celsius with constant humidity and not moving the drums will give the most stable tuning results. Soft hitting will results in a more stable tuning than heavy hitting. Stretching the head may be OK to get quickly a stable tuning. In my opinion: If you want to use the heads very long dont tune to high, dont strectch and hit softly with thin sticks and keep the drums on stable temperature and humidity and dont move or adjust the drums. I only strech in the middle/centre sometimes a very little to have the effect of equal distribution of tension to all lugs. It helps reaching the 0 deviation at all lugs.
Great info! Thanks!!🔥🥁😎
Who’d a thunk it? Great episode guy’s!
Once I was tuning the batter head and the snare side cracked. I always thought it just gave up for natural reasons. It never struck me that I had to do with tension transfers.
I would love you guys to get a tunebot (as it measures note not tension) and see if you tuning a kit by ear ends up being fairly even, and what the intervals between the batter & resos were for a great sounding drum and see if it had any bearing in a classic musical context (ie a standard number of semi tones between the heads) and then what the pitch interval was between the parts of the kits. I'm been experimenting with this myself and have found there's some mileage in semi tones between top and bottom heads to get you into a ballpark range that you can then finetune slightly.
I do ALOT of tuning nearly constantly, but this video and information is great to know, MANY thanks !!! I felt this going on, but couldn't put my finger on it exactly... LOL
If you tune drums to the shell pitch you will find that the pitch of the shell changes when you change the tension. It is possible but it takes a time till heads and shell have same pitch. It was possible on the toms. The sound was OK for each tom individually but the ptiches / intervals between the toms were crazy. Yes going from high to low when increasing diameters but not a smooth transition like when tuning in 4th, 3rd, or major chords. Puting damping on or in the drums may sometimes change the pitch. When hitiing hard or soft also there are small differences in pitch. This channel has very nice tunings and probable much better than i do but Using Tunebot and the recommended tunings on top and bottom and 0 dev on all lugs top and bottom is an easy way to always have a drum kit that sounds and react as you know. I play oin several kits from my own and from others and ...it always is possible to use the recommended tunings. Always know how the drumkit reacts inside, outside, in each song, etc. Changing the floortom from C to D was a big change in feel. C was a nice deep 80's laid back ballad or blues feel and D is a more energetic and loud rock. Tuning in 4th did give a wide spread of tones around the kit with very high sounding small toms. Can be a bit to much. 3rd intervals do give nice smooth results.
Surprising but it makes sense... like other comments I had never considered this. I wonder if wood snares have the same effect to a similar degree also deeper snares say 6 1/2 v 5". It might even happen on my toms because my Yamaha Recording Custom kit has dual headed rather than separate lugs.
This is like the part of the movie after the big reveal and they do a bunch of flashbacks showing all the times you thought it was one thing but it was this thing. That's me right now
I'd like to know if you have addressed my issue prior on your channel. I find that my snare skins and my bass drum skin tend to detune after a while , but my toms skins tend to tighten instead of the opposite. I have my drums inside my house and my air-conditioning is constantly on throughout the day and night. Does temperature affect skin tension and should address this issue as far as turning my drums?
We've referenced this a bit in the past but to answer your question, yes- temperature and humidity can affect drumhead tension. The affect to which notice this on different drums is dependent on the shells, the heads, the tension the heads are under, the exposure of the drums/heads to changes in temperature and humidity, etc. Even outside of these changes, it's not at all uncommon for snare drum heads to lose tension from rimshots or simply drumming on the rims (especially with 10-lug snare drums).
That sent me off to test on one of my snare drums. I already move in up tension via really small turns, and I check often. On this very drum, an 8 lug drum, if I ever attempt to make say a full turn on any lug during setup it takes forever to get the drum dialled in. And indeed, batter head affects the snare side, and a little bit vice versa too. So my recipe, which is already about tuning it small increments, now means going back and forth between batter and snare side to check what’s happening. I feel sorry for beginners, how do you explain how to tune with all of these crazy variables? You just got to get used to the mechanics involved, and the rule is basically “everything impacts everything else”. Thanks for sharing!
Did you experiment to adjust both sides together in star pattern, keeping the same tension by hand? I tried after I saw this video, and it works pretty well for me. I got the impression that, this way, the snare side head goes higher in pitch just enough to balace the overall sound. Would love to see you guys testing it!
My whole drumkit has bridged lugs. I'm paranoid now 😂 just kidding, awesome video :)
the biggest Ghost is,that the lugs can move up and down 1-2 mm because the holes in the shell are slightly bigger than what the lugs would need,so it's easyier to screw them to the shell....and maybe not every lug is absolut the same as the others and not every hole in the shell is at the absolute right spot....and so on......
What works suprisinglly good,is to take off the lugs and connect the screws from the top and bottom directly,so that you tension both heads at the same time.....sleishman from australia do it like that,the drums with the rope tension system from somewhere in the US work like that too,the first snare and bass drums were like that....and since a couple of years i practice this in a simple screw to screw way too....and it works totaly fine....the thin reso head seams to be able to handle the tension of a normal 10 mil head...at least up to a medium/high tension....super high i dont know,i prefere medium to pretty low sometimes.
It's worth to give it try....
Hmm. I thought this was common knowledge. (I noticed it right away when I tuned my first snare.) It’s particularly evident in vintage-style drum sets, where the toms and even the bass drum use this one-lug-per-both-sides system.
The frustrating part is that your instinct is to crank up the lug bolts inside the shell to prevent the lugs from shifting. That, however, is an exercise in futility-you’ll _never_ be able to tighten them enough to counteract the forces exerted by the tensioning rods. So, yes, you just have to live with it.
Does this happen on deeper snares, or on separated-lugs snares, too? Awesome video by the way, hardcore fan here 👊
It'll happen to varying degrees on any snare with bridged lugs that extend the from batter to reso. Drums with separated lugs (like the majority of toms, for example) are immune to this particular issue. Cheers!
Excellent, thanks, guys! Cheers!
So… would a snare that has offset lugs have the same issue?
Our hypothesis is that drums that don’t use full-shell lugs won’t experience this. It’s the pull on the lug that’s affecting the resistance on the opposing side.
I’m curious how you conclude it’s one lug pulling on the other? Have you tried tightening one lug and checking the same one on the opposite side? The threaded receivers are not coupled; so it’s pulling the actual lug casing to the side you’re tightening? And this definitely doesn’t occur on, say, a 6.5” drum with separate lugs?
That’s exactly what we did. Make an adjustment to a single lug and the tension on the head at the opposing side changes. We haven’t been able to reproduce this with any drums that don’t feature full, shell-length lugs.
Thanks for the reply! I would have speculated something about the column of air in the shell, but a mechanical answer like increased tension makes so much more sense. Thanks for the video and again for the response!
Soooo, the lugs are moving? Seems like that is the only way this can occur. What if they were welded in place? Thanks for pointing this out.
Yep, the lugs are shifting just a bit. This can vary depending on lug design, the way the hardware is attached to the shell, and especially the size of the holes vs. the screws/inserts that go into the shell.
The "organ pipe" is the size of the drum's internal volume, and it'll only do one specific pitch *really* well. Some drums are fussier than others
The other day I had my batter head change when I loosened my snare head. I tune my snare high and decided to see what would happen if I brought down the snare head (snare head was almost table top tight). It lowered the batter to about a medium high which actually sounded good so I left it there. I did loosen the snare wires just a little because they seemed too tight and almost choking.
When you've got the snare side up in a "tabletop-tight" range it's completely understandable how this could also affect the tension on the batter head. It's also important to know that the design and installation of different lugs will make this effect either more or less pronounced.
so.... this phenomenon does not happen on a drum with separated lugs??? a good reason for the deep snare maybe??
The same thing happens with guitars, tension on one string naturally tends to equalize on the other strings. This is why tuning a Floyd Rose is a pain in the ass.
this is a different concept, maybe very punk: I tune the drums and after months playing it I feels like the skins sits down and even pleasantly for me. they get lower to a nice sweet spot for itself.
That's odd you're starting at 75, by favorite "sweet spot" seems to be 75. Great video as always!
That seems to be a nice general tension for a 3mil snare side head, at least on this drum. Since we don't ever start with a number in mind it's more about going for the sound and behavior we're looking for.
Never had the guts to tune the reso lower than the batter 😢
So...every drum is a free-floater. To some degree 🙂
I thought this was fairly common knowledge. It's very apparent when changing a head.
Please make video with tunebote
Please ask Tune Bot to sponsor the video you’d like to see us make.
Have you noticed the same phenomenon with toms?
No, though we don't have any toms with full, shell-length lugs. That's part of the culprit here. The other aspect is the ultra-thin (by comparison) snare side head being more susceptible to change in tension.
So basically if the lugs do not have two tension rods going through it no problem so a snare drum that has a lug of its own on the top and bottom it should not be a problem no tug of war.
there is a ghost in my drum
Who ya gonna call?
I've got a Sonor Force 3000 kit which uses "pipe" lugs, and it absolutely has this impact on tuning the toms.
I think this is a reason why Sonor moved away from that style of lug. Interestingly, the Signature series that was available at the same time as the Force series used separate lugs.
OK now do this again with a Free-Floater....
Being an engineer most of my life I will say that the amount of variables doesn't start at the head tuning as you can't accept that the lug being tight to the shell is an acceptable given. The amount of play in metal and wood shell holes and its corresponding hardware is huge in regards to precision engineering. I would bet that if you were to use CNC machining to make the holes in the shell and the receiving hardware (lugs) where the fit is unmeasurable rather than visible adding a 4 point connection two at each end over one tube lug then I believe you would be able to eliminate the tuning anomaly. In short your issue is inherently sloppy engineering.
Translation: Change to playing timbales
I though this was obvious all along... It's just simple mechanics.