I moved two drum kits in my teaching studio yesterday and neither one of them sounded quite the same as they did before I swapped their positions. Granted, they are now in different places in the same room so the different acoustics account for part of it. I even made sure to use the same microphones on the same drums. Both kits sounded really good before being moved (about six feet), but after being moved I noticed some tuning issues that were not apparent before the move. After taking some time to adjust microphone levels and such, I proceeding to tune the drums. This made a huge difference and now the kits are sounding great again. The heads were not “singing” the way that they usually do, so I may change the drum heads soon. New drum heads always make the drums come alive.
The main part that made the biggest difference was when I checked on the bottom (or resonant) heads of the toms. The more I tweaked and tuned these heads, the more the drums sounded how I like. I do not always check the resonant heads as often as the top (or batter) heads. I think I’ll start doing that more often now!
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