Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. After a few days of fussing about, I think Im off to a much better start.
I bought this kit used, complete. 5 pc Swingstar Taiwan, 12,13,16,22, and a Pearl EX snare. It came with all of the original TAMA branded cymbals, 14 inch hats, 16 inch crash, and a 20 inch ride - all in a sabian cymbal bag, plus the cymbals setup with the kit. Paiste 14 inch hi-hats, Sabian 20 inch ride & 16 inch crash with a zildjan 16 in crash and 12 inch splash, all on Tama roadpro stands. 150 bucks, thanks you facebook marketplace. Dirty as hell, but surprisingly no pitting on any of the hardware.
I couldnt tune the toms for shit, no matter what i tried. after a week or so I posted here, completely frustrated. So the clear ambassadors i originally put on, all had small cuts just below the bead and Im guessing thats what most likely made them sound like plastic garbage pails being thrown down a flight of stairs. About 1 1/4 inch perfectly straight custs in all three Reso heads, so I can only assume that I somehow boogered them each up the same identical way while mounting them, and simply didnt catch it. ahem. alrighty.
So i threw the coated ambassadors on, since it was all I could get locally, and I am grossly impatient.
As Keith Moon said in
Acid Queen, Welcome.
Your kit, perfect for beginners, won't have the stellar sound of a premium maple or birch kit, but you can still get good tones from the toms. That said, focus on learning to tune three drums: the snare, the bass and the 16" tom (the easiest of the three). For beginners, I recommend a
Tune-bot. This helps you gets the drum in tune with itself and with that you'll know what that sounds like (and when it's out of tune). If you want to nerd-out on videos, start
here. Bob Gatzen's videos are old, but detailed.
Have patience. Once you learn to tune that SwingStar, you'll be able to easily tune on any kit by ear.
so i checked out tunebot, and went an ordered one, along with a drum dial and a few other odds and ends. so as i read all he tune bot docs, checked out the tuning charts, and presets, I figured wtf, I can do this now. An hour later, Ive got a not so sleak or streamlined surplus frequency counter sampling from a butchered pressure mic, and Im tuning up my kit to the settings listed in the tunebot chart for a 3 tom kit suing 12, 13 an 16 inch drums. This frustrated me for days. My 13 inch tom simply will not tune happily to anything lower than 92hz, and the tunebot chart, as well as most of their suggested settings all call for 87-92hz. Running the 12 inch tom at 110 and the 13 at 87 was out. That 13 just wasnt having anything lower than 92 in any way, shape, form, or flavor. didnt matter how i tensioned the heads, that 13 has a workable range about the width of a butterfly fart. I found the artist tunings, and luckily for me, out of the 300 they have listed on the site (not really 300 ...) I found the setting for the ONE 3 tom 12,13,16 kit on the entire website. You would think if they have only endorsed 1 player runing that setup, theyd have used those settings on their chart. Anyway, 124 for the 12 inch 114 for the 13 and 65/42 for the floor tom and kick. I would never had thought to go that high with the 12, but since the tuning range of that 13 is so effing narrow, I had no choice. It was the only thing that worked with the 13, and still sounded proper. IE - tuned to a proper interval, and then fine tuned to where each tom sounded its sweetest.
Overall, It took me just about 2 weeks to get this kit running properly. Solely due to my own inexperience, being slightly overwhelmed with trying to sift through a vast amount of information while being not so sure where to start and what to look for, and my particular brand of ocd perfection issues.
End result is a 20 something year old Tama kit in fantastic shape with great hardware, passable cymbals all new skins, tuned up proper and sounding good enough, that hearing this kit as it is now, with strings and vocals would completely escape grabbing anyones attention. And I by that, I mean these drums sound about as good as they are capable of sounding, (head choice and tonal variations exlcuded) they will neither catch your attention by being an awesome sounding kit, and they certainly woudlnt cause any impression of cheap, crappy, out of key or out of tune. no buzzing, rattling, dead spots, and after a little fine tuning, the snare sounds perfectly average.
150 for the kit, about 100 bucks for the heads, 3 pair of 2b hickory on the cheap for 10 bucks, and about 15 bucks in misc supplies. Little bit of Nevr Dull for the hardware, some White lithium grease for everything with threads, and some coffee pot cleaner. Commercial coffee pot cleaner is about the strongest non bleaching or acidic cleaner you can get, and its non toxic. Worked well for cleaning the lug threads. I had quite a few that were a bit gummy, and prevented smooth tension on the heads while tuning. Im sure some of you restoration guys have used it on the past, but if not, it works wonders.
so 175 bucks in, I've got a decent kit that is capable of far more than I could throw at it, and Ive had a blast for the past 2 weeks cleaning, tuning, and learning all the basics. With 40+ years playing guitar, Im a bit disappointed that I hadnt bought a drum kit decades ago.
thanks again for all the suggestions.