Nothing beats a great concert when everything sounds like it should be, every piece of equipment like a well-oiled machine. This is the very reason why sound checks and rehearsals are held prior to a concert so when the lead singer, Taylor Swift, for example, takes the mic and starts singing with mock rain as a backdrop, no piece of equipment shorts or becomes distorted.
One piece of equipment that contributes one of the best works in music making is the drums. Without drums, a concert just isn’t the same unless it’s acoustic.
This is why it is so important if you are a drummer to make sure that your drums are balanced. For this you start on the head of course.
Here’s how to do just that:
- Test the surface of your drums. If it sounds too hollow or uneven, you need to balance it already.
- Get yourself a drum key. You should already have this when you first purchased your drum set.
- Set your set upright. Remove those that are hitched on lifters or raised on metal contraptions because you won’t be able to balance your drums correctly if these aren’t upright.
- Start with the bottom section of each of your drums. Keep in mind that the bottom head of your drum is extremely sensitive, more so than the heads on the top portion so use your drum key firmly but not forcibly. Use the drum key to work the lug that is closest to the front – this being the one closest to you when you start beating on your drums. Follow this pattern using clockwise movement or the lugs across from the front if you prefer. You need to tighten each lug.
- Drum test after each lug is tightened. You should hear a deep and boom-boom sounding feedback on each side and across each log. If this kind of feedback is not achieved all around, you need to tighten the lug some more. Again, please be careful when tightening the lugs, you don’t want to tighten it forcefully. Just firm turning will be enough. Besides, the lugs will turn without much force unless they’re rusting.
- Move to the top portion of your drums. After you achieving the sound quality that you are aiming for on the bottom section of your drums, you need to switch to the top portion now. Ever so slowly, turn over each drum so you can work on the top now.
- Tighten 2 lugs on opposite sides first. Your goal is to stretch the material to a significant tension so that when you start testing the surface by drumming your fingers you will hear a significant difference in the timbre of the feedback.
- Assume a star position with your hands. That means placing one hand and splaying your fingers equally like a star in the middle of the top portion of your drums. With your other hand, you begin tapping opposite sides of the surface of your drums. You must be sensitive enough to catch irregularity in the feedback, which means you will need to tighten the lugs a bit more.
- Finish by testing your drumsticks and playing a familiar beat on your drums. If the beat comes out as you expect, you have balanced your drumheads correctly.
Congratulations! You just did a slam-bang job on your drums!
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