Okay, since finishing that Pearl Piccolo and not being happy with the sound of it, I decided that I was going to re-tune it. So I took the wires and both the heads off and started over before I actually delivered it to Luke.
However this time around, I made the decision to go out and buy a tuner. I'm not sure of my reasoning as to why I never really wanted one but think I was always a little confused about them, so I avoided it. I also thought I never really "needed" one. Guitarists have tuners, So I used that as my justification on going out and buying one because I for some reason felt that using one was "cheating". Since an experienced drummer should be able to tune them by ear, yadda yadda yadda.
So I went out and bought this guy right here. Its called "Drum Dial". I must say that I'm totally in love with it. I forumed around a bit and some seemed to like it and some seemed to dislike it, but that goes for anything really. Tuning is a really hard thing to do. I've been tuning drums for 7 years and Ive always said "hm, that sounds alright" after EVERY drum that Ive ever tuned. That is now a thing of the past to me, hello confidence!
"DrumDial quickly and precisely tunes all drums by accurately measuring drumhead tension NOT tension rod torque. Tension rod torque can be used to tell you when you are over tightening a bolt to prevent thread damage, but is not accurate for drum tuning because of the difference in screw tolerances, plating, corrosion, and thread wear. You can eliminate these problems by using a DrumDial to measure drumhead tension directly from the drumhead, allowing you to precisely tune your drums faster and easier than ever before."- www.drumdial.com
I love it mainly cause the manual gives you a bunch of standard tensions for different size drums. So you get a starting point to try, then fine tune what you like and dont like from there depending on what sound you want out of your drum(s). Since I've been doing snares over I've already been finding out what I like for snares, I'm definitely not following the tensions that are given in the manual. I dont really agree with the tom tensions but, I do like the kick drum tensions they gave. I'm happy with them, even though I should probably put new heads of my kit, I'm getting my custom hopefully soon, so whats the point?
For lukes snare, I was lucky enough to find someone in a drum forum who was using a Drum Dial and had the same exact snare. So I used the tensions he had used and I think the drum sounds fantastic now. Although I'm not sure if the drum dial just served as a placebo or not, since I'm not aware of what my tensions were BEFORE I re-tuned it with the dial. Kind of bummed on that. It's still ringy, but I'm happy with it now.
I've come to realize that the drum dial isn't "cheating", to be honest I really don't even know why I have this sort of guilt about it haha because I can still go by ear and learn that way, then just use the dial to even out the lugs I went either too far or too loose on. I can definitely tell already though just by using it once the huge difference there is when you have ALL your tension around the drum perfect on both tops and reso heads rather than a "guessed" tuned drum.
If you want ALL the info about how it works, go to www.drumdial.com. The site is pretty much a blog within itself.