What heads have you tried? Sometimes, you need to use different heads. That can get expensive, however. Did you look at the bearing edge? What about bottom heads- tried anything different there?

Just throwing out a few possibilities...

With out having the drum in hand it's hard to tell what should be done . i would start by taking all the heads off and and hold the tom by the mount and tap test it and listen for any rattles and stuff like that . the check all the lug screws to see if any are loose , in some cases if the lug screws are over tighten that my choke the drum . i tryed many different head from all company's and the aquarian clear classic seem's to be my new go to head .

I have 2 10" toms (one MIJ, one DW) and they both resonate freely and beautifully. Could be a flaw in your drum, flaw in the tuning, flaw in the head, the choice of mounting mechanism, or any other number of reasons.

My little brotha....10's are a pain to tune. First off, what is the layup? If it is a Pearl, let's go to the well and get all the spiders out. Not many people can tune a 10 without knowing their way around the head.

Then ...

Place shell on flat level surface, check for unevenness around the bearing edge, edges should be true, if not you'll need to sand or re-cut edges. Measure for roundness, an out of round sometimes can give you problems. Measure depth all around at lug points, shell may be cut out of true. You'll need to re-cut the depth and re-cut bearing edge.

Small drums don't resonate like their bigger brothers do, but there should be some resonance. Clear tone and fast decay.

Vent hole? If not, I'd add one. Air needs to go someplace, otherwise it's like hitting a basketball.

My 30's radio king kit rebukes that statement flat out. .Small drums don't resonate like big drums, really tell Elvin Jones That?????????????? your such a dork!

???

My DW 10" tom resonates plenty long. Not as long as the floor tom, of course, but comparable to the 12" tom. I wouldn't say "fast decay"...

[QUOTE=drumhack;137963]Is it common for the small tom, mine is 10", to not have any resonance? I put the bottom heads on all my drums and the floor tom sounds awesome, the big tom, 12", also sounds good and I can hear the difference but the 10" tom just sounds dead to me with very little if any resonance. It rattles the snares pretty good, which is annoying in it's own right, but it just doesn't have that cool almost echo sound that the other two toms have. Just wondering if there is some trick to this, or if these smaller toms are pretty much known for this.

if i'm reading it right, you haven't got a bottomhead on??

if so, that might be your problem.

i once took all the bottom heads off of my Pearl Export, (just because Roger Taylor did on the quuen in montreal gig), and they sounded awful!!

like it's been said here already, a 10" tom should ring,maybe not as much as a bigger tom, but it should ring.

i've recently played a Pearl fusion kit, and the 10" sounds lovely!! and it resonates. it has an Evans g2 on the batter side.

they're a good head, also the Evans g1 are good. a bit thinner, so might resonate more.

so to conclude, try a bottom head on your 10"er!! (nudge nudge, wink wink...) LoLoLoLo :p

You have the RK with the tacked on bottom calf heads that can't be tuned and do not form an air tight seal around the heads? A vent hole is not needed on them.

The "newer" RK's (lugged bottom hoops) I've seen all have vent holes.