DrumMonkey

Originally posted by Lysakoski "Explain" this: out of this entire thread, one person has recommended the torque key. Everyone else has panned it, saying it's a waste of time. We're the drummers, we know about tuning drums, so take our advice or don't bother fucking asking in the first place. Yes, 1 person has "recommended" a torque key... but if you read my post you'd see I say it's a great starting point for tuning a kit. But you should also see I advocate having to still do some "real" tuning in addition. For me it's a massive time saver - I tune much quicker with one than I do without. Hardly what I'd call a "waste of time". After all, what's wrong with having "one more tool in the armoury"? Some people find they can tune quicker without one, some find they can tune quicker with one... different strokes for different folks... The guy asked for advice about torque keys so I gave it.... he seemed grateful and you lay into him telling him to "take our advice". Well, my advice is I find them useful... so does this mean you're gonna have a pop at me now...?

I'll go against the grain here and give you some advice... I have my torgue key set to 6 for the tom batters, and 4 for the resonant heads. However, I tend to tighten all the lugs finger-tight to begin with. Set the dial to 2 and tighten to that. Then flick it to 4 and tighten. Then to 6 for the top head. I don't go from 0-6 straight off. I find this gives me a great starting point to fine tune my kit as appropriate. After that it's all a case of tuning by ear. But to all the nay-sayers, due to a mis-judgement of time, there was a occasion when I had to reskin my toms 2 hours before we were due on stage. Using the above 4-6 ratio and a little bit of tweaking, it took me about 30 minutes AND the toms sounded ace. As I said, they're a great starting point... but you will still need to use your own ears! - DM