How do you tune your bass drum reso head?

Mastiff

Senior Member
Never gave it much thought until today, but it makes a noticeable difference. Mine has a 6" or so hole in it too. I know a lot of guys go for super loose on the batter side, how about reso?

For me, with mic inside the drum, even with EMAD batter very loose, it still sounds ringy/boomy with a pillow in there. The reso was quite tight though. I've been working it down but ran out of time.
 
How do you tune your bass drum reso head?
And if I may add, what's the result of that tuning?
 
Start loose , tighten each lug clockwise with my finger pushing in the middle of the head till wrinkles disappear at each lug.. when all tightened back each lug off in a clockwise direction back half a turn. BOOM!
 
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Have started to tune my resonant higher now. Makes a huge difference & actually lowers the tone of the BD :)
 
Both fairly high.

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I feel they are quite even tuned as I like my batter head thight too, for a proper action of my pedal.

I use a DW logo head (these are fairly thin) with micro holes and a larger 4” hole in the bottom centre, with O ring on the reso.

The batter is an EQ3 with a double bass EQPC2 patch.

Inside I use The Kicker 2.0 by Sonitus with their mic mount.
 
My reso (3.5" ported unmuffled Fiberskyn) is tuned significantly tighter than the batter (coated PS3) to get an astonishingly deep boom out of a 20x16, but I'm unsure of the physics involved.
 
I emulate Bob Brown’s method, but probably get it 1/8 turn tighter than what he does in his video.

with mic inside the drum, even with EMAD batter very loose, it still sounds ringy/boomy with a pillow in there.
I used only two very small pillows inside my bass drum for years. They barely touched the drum heads, just enough to gate the boom. During a recording session last winter, I was trying to get a very tight sound; A very dry, focused thump. My 2-pillow method was failing, no matter how much the pillows attenuated the resonance. What fixed it for me was the KickPro Pillow. Its weight attenuates the shell vibrations and it really tightened things up. The only downside is my bass drum is 10 lbs. heavier.

 

I hope that pillow is better than the evans one... just got one and its garbage.
 
I hope that pillow is better than the evans one... just got one and its garbage.
It’s not the same concept. The Evans pillows (“EQ Pads”) are designed to place just a bit of pillow on the drumhead to reduce resonance of the drum head. The KickPro reduces the resonance of the drum head and drum shell due to its weight. The result is a very different sound than if you just used light pillows placed agains each drum head.
 
It’s not the same concept. The Evans pillows (“EQ Pads”) are designed to place just a bit of pillow on the drumhead to reduce resonance of the drum head. The KickPro reduces the resonance of the drum head and drum shell due to its weight. The result is a very different sound than if you just used light pillows placed agains each drum head.

sounds like that is more of what i was looking for
 
I keep mine medium loose, just enough to get some tone out of the head if the muffling isn't touching it. This gives me options for different styles and rooms.
 
The hole is too big. I have a resonant head with a 6" hole, (but it is pretty and has our band logo) super hard to get it to activate unless it's so tight that it gets that ringing. But the ring is no issue unless using a mic. When I have to mic, I back the tension off till that ring goes away. Makes for a flap slap acoustic sound that actually works fine for the mic.

My experience with my 14"×22" drum
 
My bass reso is a bit higher than my batter. I like a relatively thuddy bass sound, so both heads are on the lower end of the scale. The reso is about a quarter turn tighter. My reso is always ported, with a small Pearl pillow inside.
 
Start loose , tighten each lug clockwise with my finger pushing in the middle of the head till wrinkles disappear at each lug.. when all tightened back each lug off in a clockwise direction back half a turn. BOOM!
Thats sounds just like Rob Browns method on YouTube, I hate that sound! its way too limp


I tighten the rezo super high. Sounds and feels so much better, no stupid holes either.
 
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