TUNE YOUR BASS DRUM QUICK & EASY! - Kick Tuning Workshop

you guys know what's going on today man I'm remaking a classic so if you've been following my channel since way back then you know all about what we're gonna talk about today thousands and thousands over you guys out there know all about maximum amplification and how to achieve it for those that don't this is a bass drum tuning workshop all right that means the the intention is for us to tune together so if you've been having trouble getting a great sound out of your kick drum watch this as your tuning we're gonna we're gonna fix your kick right now all right man so let's just get right to it all you're gonna need for this workshop is a drum kit go ahead get your favorite drum key and let's do this right now all right so there's only two things that you need to know as far as tuning your bass drum and they're both regarding the front head and that's basically where to put it how to tune it alright the tighter the front head is the more tone you're gonna get the looser the front head is the more punch you're gonna get alright so if you're looking for punch if you're looking for the thumb you want to tune that front head fairly loose I'm gonna show you how to do that anyway cuz that's what we're gonna go for today his thumb okay so uh so let's get started man take your kick drum I'm gonna I'm gonna do the batter head first and I'm gonna show you two different methods on how you can get this done alright so make sure before you start that on both sides all of these are back right off okay so let's let's say you just put a fresh brand-new head on there and everything is everything is cool and finger tight all the way around both sides okay another thing to I want to mention man if you've got a whole bunch of stuff and your bass drum right now empty it okay don't expect your kick to sound awesome if it looks like a load of laundry so whatever you got in there take it out we're gonna try to achieve the best sound we can with nothing in it that's the whole point oh this alright so yeah man here we go everything is finger tight let me show you how to do this this method once you learn it you'll be able to tune any bass drum and less than a couple of minutes very easily so take your prompt press down on the center this is a lot like tuning the toms like we did before alright the point of pressing down is to first of all stretching it out that's one thing but when we press them it creates wrinkles so we're gonna use the same sort of wrinkle technique as we did with the tongs alright so yeah if you got a fresh head on there you want to stretch it out you know do the whole CPR thing right like I said in the first video now we're ready to go take your drum key pick any one of these lugs alright while you're pressing down you're gonna take your key and we're going to do two things we're gonna tune it flat and turn it back remember that rhyme from the first one tune it flat and turn it back so go ahead and turn that drum key until the wrinkles in front of that tension rod go flat and while you're applying pressure as soon as they go flat turn it back maybe a half turn until those wrinkles just sort of reappear a little bit all right and that's it that's all you got to do so do that all the way around so tune it flat until the wrinkles are gone and then just turn it slightly back until they reappear if you follow me on this good doing a flat and turn it right back boom now notice one thing I'm not doing its counting turns I don't know why because I don't care it doesn't make any difference to me how many turns it is every drum is different so I can't say you know turn it three times turn it four times I don't know I don't know what kicked your tuning and it doesn't really matter all you have to do is look at the wrinkles wait for them to disappear and then just bring a little bit of it back some of y'all know me by now man you know how much I hate over complicating things you know what I mean this is not friggin trigonometry or anything this is really easy and once you get it down you'll be able to do this in no time doing a flat turn it back that far one this is all looking good man did I do that one I did that one already so that's it that is done remember what I said in the first one in the first video once you get this head here you have achieved sing it if you know it maximum tompa fication it's that easy alright so for you if you want to check your work to make sure that that you did alright when you look at it now it should look completely flat when you press down on the center you'll just see just a slight wrinkle all the way around and that's how that's how you pretty much know you did it right so again when you apply pressure those wrinkles will reappear then when you let up it'll look completely flat so that's that's done so now I'm going to do the resonant hit they had something usually here by the way I got an EQ three heavens EQ three on the front and I have an e mad batter on on the batter side I'm a big fan of these heads this is one of the best drum hit combinations that you can possibly have you might also notice I have a kick port on the front here I'm not gonna try to sell you on the idea that these are the greatest things but they do work so if you wanted to get one for your kick the only reason I noticed works is because I can't use it in the studio the reason why I can't use it in here it's because when I have it on the bass drum I can't get my floor toms to shut up because every time I punch the kick I guess the in that it produces keeps rattling my floor toms and it makes recording a nightmare so that's why I don't use it so anyways the fun what we're going to do for the front is going to be the exact same as the batter side with one extra step alright so again we're going to apply pressure on the on the front head but I'm gonna show you a trick if you want to try this yourself I have one of my wife's eight pound kettlebells here and all I'm gonna do let's plop it right in the center there's my constant pressure right so all I got to do now is repeat everything that I did on the batter side and then I'm gonna add one more step so let's just go around turn them all flat again you know use your palm if you don't have one of these just use your palm and apply that pressure to and all your wrinkles flat just really speeds up the process to not like it leading that like it needed speeding up because it's fast enough as it is but this makes it even faster so all my wrinkles are now gone and all I'm gonna do now just give it just just another quarter turn each I'm just estimating to this kick drum is tuned now check this out I got a mallet handy I'm going to turn this thing on its side are you ready for this who now for those of y'all out there that are playing smaller bass drums like 16 inches and 18 inches you got a couple of options as to how you can do that 16 inch bass drums I tend to tune them like 16 inch floor toms because their hoops are similar you know what I mean it's just kind of turned on its side 18 inch bass drums I tend to use this particular method and just leave both batter and and the resonant head loose especially if if it's not ported so if there's no hole on the front for general playing situations I do both front and back heads loose if it's a jazz kind of bebop thing then I'll turn it up a little bit I'll tune it up to get a little more tone out of it because that's just sort of the characteristic that I want how do those smaller kicks when I'm doing the bebop stuff but but yeah you have an option with 18-inch kicks you can tune it this way or you can tune it sort of like an 18-inch floor Tom and try that method too you're gonna find success with definitely would one of them maybe with both of them if you're dealing with a brand-new bass drum off of a starter kit so anything like sub 500 bucks the head that comes on it is going to be super thin and super cheap so if you have one of those bass drums do this little workshop follow the steps in this workshop just to know how to do it but I suggest you run out and invest in a good bass drum head it's gonna make a world of difference when you put it on there well yeah man whatever kick drum you're playing I think the goal should be to try to get the best possible sound you can get out of it with nothing inside of it alright before you start looking at any kind of muffling as you can see this kick is completely empty and all I got from muffling on this has just a little the little ring that comes with the team at head let the drumhead provide the muffling for you that's why they make these things right if you need any kind of muffling on top of that then you can take a blanket and fold across the bottom or like a nice thin pillow or or something like that but trust me man your kicks gonna sound the best empty today you go man super quick super easy super effective I can promise you this method works 100% of the time if you did it and your kick now sounds awesome drop a comment below but those of y'all that have been fans since the first kick tune in video I did a few years back drop a comment below let people know all about the maximum with amplification thanks for watching this video share with somebody if you dig it like subscribe see you next video [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Rob Brown

Views: 347,135

Keywords: how to tune a bass drum, how to tune drums, bass drum tuning, bass drum tuning techniques, bass drum tuning trick, drum tuning tips, drum tuning trick, bass drum tuning drum dial, bass drum tuning tune bot, bass drum tuning resonant head, how to tune a bass drum head, how to tune a bass drum with drum dial, beatdown brown bass drum, beatdown brown drummer, rob brown tuning drums, rob brown tuning, rob brown tuning workshop

Id: FTdXOWKIQc4

Length: 14min 58sec (898 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 12 2018