There’s not much worse at a gig than hearing a set of great flapping tom toms or a horribly ringing snare drum, but what’s a poor drummer to do?
Unlike guitarists with their easy-peasy electronic tuners, drummers have to do battle with Ye Olde mechanical lugs and tune the drums using nowt but their their lug ‘oles.
Drummers looking to get their best out of their kits are forced to faff about with a little metal key – a bit like a plumber fixing the radiators in your house – and it’s not an easy process.
Tune part of the skin up too tight and you might break it, and put too much pressure on one side and you’ll most likely thread the bolt.
Lugs. Lots of ’em
With each drum having up to twenty separate lugs, it’s a complicated business getting the drum to sound just right, and it’s something drummers have to learn sharpish, otherwise they’re likely to face the horrors of the sound engineers ‘solution.’
This invariably involves sticking large amounts of folded toilet roll and gaffa tape all over your lovely, pristine skins, rapidly turning your lovely kit into the aural equivalent of a knitted drum kit , with the additional perils of getting your sticks caught up in all the bog roll.
Thankfully, drum skin manufacturers Evans have produced a video explaining how to perfectly tune up a drum kit.
Although it gets a little technical at times (‘Opposite Tuning Tension system’, anyone?), it’s easy to follow and should leave you with a delightfully sounding kit. Give it a go and take control of your lugs!
