hi! i used to own a tama tension watch, which is basically the same thing. when you put it on the drumhead, close to a tension screw, it measures the tension of the drumhead. it should be the same tension all over the place, then it is tuned "right" according to the device.

as i said, i used to have one, but sold it again after a few weeks. it might be a helpful device to get a good "basic" tuning of the drum, but i always found it to be too much of a hassle. obviously with a bit of practice everybody is able to get a good drumsound without a drumdial or tension watch. and to be honest, i find it much more fun and satisfying to find the right sound of a drum by myself. Excited

I too have one. I like the device. It really does enable you to get an equal amount of tension around the head. But, it explains in they're instructions that you can adjust the sound to your preference.

In short, it's a time consuming method, but it does work. The only time I really use it is when I replace a head, or bring the drums in after being exposed to varying climates. Hope this is of some help.

agreed..it works as a good point of reference ....once you find the best sound for the particular drum, note the #'s for future use ,which helps when new heads are needed...I like to tune up a drum to my liking and then check with the drum dial to see how close I was to the original #'s....I am normally very close to right on, which is how it should be once you have gained experience in tuning..........

They're pretty cool. I've always felt like I had a pretty good ear when it came to tuning, so I was a little skeptical. On most of my drums I found that I was tuning pretty consistently across all the lugs, but I did find a few mistakes. The drum dial takes a while to use properly, so it's not something I'd use for a quick tune on gigs. It really is great for recording, though, when perfection is necessary. I can get a beautiful ring out of my drums. If you're someone who likes to tune to specific pitches for recording purposes, you can combine the drum dial with melodyne to set your drum to the exact pitch. Then just write down the readings on the drum dial so you can get back to that pitch easily next time. If you're really anal about this, you'll end up with a log book to store the settings for all your drums. Keep in mind that your heads must be new and your shells perfectly in round to achieve the best results, but that would have been true anyway of tuning.

That much having been said, there are a few things the drum dial can't do. The drum dial isn't going to make a crappy tuner good. If you're already good at establishing drum tunings that sound and feel good, the drum dial can help you perfect and reestablish them. But you have to remember that, for most drums, simply having the tension rods even doesn't mean the drum sounds good. Getting the best sound out of any drum, particularly a snare drum, is a long process. I don't think there's any substitute for experimentation. It always takes a while after I buy a drum before I feel comfortable performing with it. You just have to find the sound that's right for you. The drum dial can't do that for you. I think it's a great tool for professionals, but I would really advise against beginners using it. Learning to tune properly is an essential skill for drummers, and you do not want to develop a dependency on this tool.

But yeah, they're pretty cool.

-Max

I got one last Saturday. I have a Gretsch Blackhawk fusion kit I aquired a while back from guitar center. My brother is manager of Miller Pro Audio here in town and they are doing a gig for a local university. They want to rent some drums, so he called me asking if I had something. Well, he knows I have a dozen drum kits, but they are mostly vintage. So I thought of the gretsch. I decided to change the tom heads to evans g2, and tighten all the hardware screws and blots etc...., I also tungoiled the inner shells. I just tuned them with the drum dial using the recommended settings. They sound pretty good to me, aand the drum dial wasnt hard to use at all. Its pretty dam cool as far as im concerned.

I read on another forum that you could just get a dial indacator from harbour freight, drill a hole in a hocky puck and have a cheap drum dial. But all in all I think its a neat gadget! One of these days If I get really bored im gonna go in my music room and tune all 37 of my snares, if i ever get caught up on my restorations.

I have one and like it as a reference to get a drum to where you like the sound, then write down the readings in a book. That way, if you store your drum, ie. snare away for a while, and you detune it to reduce the tension on the heads, when you pull it out of the closet to play, just go to your book of tension settings, dial in those tensions on the batter and reso heads, and voila, you're back to that sound you liked. Same applies when putting new heads on. But the key is to write down the readings when you have the drum sounding the way you want. Otherwise, months later, the drum dial can tell you when all the lug tensions are equal, but it can't tell you what tension works on that drum. If you're not the kind of guy who wants to keep a record book, it is probably not worth the money. Most guys decent at tuning can get equal tensions at each lug without a drum dial.

The guy that made the original one, Bob Neary, was my Sunday school teacher and the 1st drummer I ever saw play live. He kicked me out of Sunday school for acting like an idiot. He brought the prototype drum dial up to my house to test it in the mid 70's when he was developing it.

Truthfully, I always thought it was a dubious product. It's not really sensitive enough to dial in (npi) the harmonics. Very often the harmonics are right but the drum will actually be at different tensions at each lug, which the scientists won't understand but it's true.

I think the best thing is to really get an understanding for the harmonic series and start hearing in every aspect of your life. That's the key, not a number from a scientific measuring device.

I think it's false to think that if the drum is at equal tension at each lug that it means anything.

Just 1 opinion out of 6.5 billion! :)

I'm in the process of updating the Vintage Drum Store. Securing inventory and getting the pricing in line. I will have some of the inventory of keys coming tomorrow.

I can work out deals with anyone interested.

Vintage Drum Store Keys

Thanks and in the coming weeks I should have a total of 13 keys in stock and ready for shipping.

There will be coupons, free offers and special discounts.

David