grrrrr! lol

[yamahaboy]

Man I just bought a Yamaha Stage Custom. It has the nouveau lugs and it has an oak outer ply and Its loud and sounds great! The tom sizes are:8,10,12, and 16. The 16" is giving me soo many problems. I am used to the 14 inch floor toms so Its more difficult for me to tune it. I am a pretty good tuner but wow! this thing is a beast!. I have new heads and every thing but I can't get the sound I want. I looking for a low pitch dip and when I tune the bottom head lower than the top I still can get the tone Iam looking for .. someone help me out! I still want to maintain a good balance of control in the tone also. What would u guys suggest?

[fretai03]

Loosen your tuning. Let the heads resonate.

[yamahaboy]

I'll try that because I don't really have them tight.. Its just that it won't resonate like I want it to! Your tip might come In handy FRETAI! Thanx for the help.

[cloud9mission]

The 12inch on my stage custom is like that. The others are fine but I can never get that 12inch in tune. I even got my teacher to have a go and he thinks there might be a defect in the bearing edge on the batter side. Perhaps its not perfectly flat or something.

[fretai03]

I'll try that because I don't really have them tight.. Its just that it won't resonate like I want it to! Your tip might come In handy FRETAI! Thanx for the help.

Lol... Fred will do.

Anyway, try keeping the 16" loosely tuned but have the RESO tighter than the BATTER. That way the sound will be reflected back to you. This is an easier way for you to gauge your sound (while on the kit) & the looser tuning gives softer hits on the batter.

cloud - check that your hoops aren't warped too. My 14" pearl export snare side hoop is warped. I've had to just leave it at home now cause I can't get the tuning that I want. The only reason I haven't gotten rid of it is emotional attachment.

[juSe]

Ive had that problem out of my floor toms.  Thats one of the things that you run into with low end to mid range drum kits.  The floor toms give you lots of problems.

My personal kit is a PDP MX and I bought a set of Gretsch Catalina Maples for church.  I have done a couple of things tuning wise that have worked pretty well. 

My PDP's are 10x8, 12x9, 14x11 (i drilled legs on it because I was tired of fighting with positioning on the ball in socket) and 16x13.  My 14 tunes up well.  I've noticed that the 16 inch tom on my hit responds better to a medium loose tuning and with a 2 ply (g2).  It had a bit of a nasty ring when I played it unmuffled.  So I use the Evans E-Ring with a VERY SMALL piece of duct tape to hold it in place.  It gives me a lot of attack and a nice growl with the perfect amount of resonance. 

On my church kit, I play the same 10, 12, but the floor toms are square: 14x14 and 16x16.  BOTH of these floor toms give me the blues.  I was playing g2 clears on top but that didn't work.  I swapped out the floor tom legs to the DW style 90 degree joints.  That helped a little with resonance but not enough.  So I switched the floor tom heads to g2 coateds.  It made the difference in the world. 

Those are a couple of ideas for you.

Happy drumming doc.

[kazzd58]

u can try a different head......cause I had so many problems with my 16 for my gretsch kit.....I was using the remo pinstrips, Remo works just fine for the 8,10,12, and 14...but that 16 just wouldn't do right, so i changed it out and put an Aquarian on and it works just fine....I thought it had something to do with the way the tom was made, but sometimes to get the sound u want u might have to have a Remo and Aquarians heads on certain toms or whatever......hope it helps

[yamahaboy]

I have another Yamaha for church and it is a 14x11 and gives me no problems as far as tuning. My new kit has the oak outer ply and I though that would help a little bit but I think I may try the e rings because they worked wonders on my other kit. I still think that Yamaha, Gretsch, and PDP are the best choices for mid range kits though! they offer better wood choice for a good price and they look and sound good as well.

[BEATBOXERZ]

Loosen your tuning. Let the heads resonate.

DITTO! The 16" should be tuned as low as it can go without loosing it's tone and warmth. Do as Fred stated and loosen your top and bottom heads as loose as it can go without the ripples.
I hope this will help you.

[yamahaboy]

I was thinking about tuning the bottom head lower than the top... I have some moon gels on the batter side to reduce some of the ring but it isnt helping... so i may go with the e rings... Ill try all the methods yall gave me and see what I like...  ..

[juSe]

I was thinking about tuning the bottom head lower than the top... I have some moon gels on the batter side to reduce some of the ring but it isnt helping... so i may go with the e rings... Ill try all the methods yall gave me and see what I like...  ..

I wouldn't do that because that's where the tone comes from.  If you don't want your floor tom sounding like mud, you might want to tune your bottom heads a tad higher than your top head.  At the very least, the same pitch on both heads.

[yamahaboy]

Thanks man I tried tuning the bottom head lower just to see and It sounded nasty..but In a bad way...lol. Im going to the basement right now to work on it.