RESOTUNE II(tm)..... What it does and how.                                  

Drum tuning involves managing two important relationships. The overall pitch of each drum head is the most obvious one, but equally as important is how well all the lugs match to each other.

This lug matching is often described as "Clearing" the head or drum, because when all the lugs are closely matched to each other, the the drum's overtone structure contains just one concise series of resonant overtones and not a chaotic mixture of multiple only slightly different weak resonances interfering with each other. A "clear" drum sounds more open, more pure.

 RESOTUNE II lets you electronically measure and then "clear" your drum (fine match the lugs to each other) at any pitch it happens to be at, or you can first adjust the the head tensions for a specific note (series), then fine match the lugs to each other. Both note tuning and lug matching are important for optimal and repeatable drum sound. Multiple toms in a single kit are routinely tuned to different notes to provide a musical effect when played in sequence. Note: since every drumhead resonant series contains multiple non-harmonically related notes, RESOTUNE II displays both the lowest fundamental or "Drum" note (in red), and next higher "Lug" overtone (in green) so you can fine tune one or the other to taste.

The bottom (resonant) drumhead can be adjusted to the same (lug) note, or slightly higher/lower than the top (batter) head, which creates a near infinite combination of voicing possibilities. RESOTUNE gives you the capability to very accurately return to "your" preferred voicing. See our About Drums page for more general information about how drums vibrate and resonate.

Note: In the picture above, the lug being measured should actually be centered between the two middle support struts for accurate clearing measurements.

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          "Find Both"- Full drum scan  (before clearing or note tuning)

The first step when you start to use RESOTUNE II on your drum, is to let it read and learn what notes the drum is currently tensioned to. It is also necessary to capture a clear reference to use in Clear mode to measure and fine adjust the lugs.

Find Both mode- Drum heads resonate at several different non-harmonically spaced pitches so it is useful to identify the the two specific lower resonances optimal for voicing a drum and clearing lugs. RESOTUNE identifies and captures the lowest "fundamental" note (drum note) and the next higher resonance (lug note), that we have determined is optimal to use for "clearing" the lugs to each other. It is difficult and time consuming to do this manually, so we automatically perform a scan under software control that reliably identifies the important resonances and also captures the lug offset reference for lug clearing. 

To perform "find both" place the RESOTUNE II above the drumhead supported by the struts, and simply press "Find Both". It will first scan from the lowest range and roughly determine Drum and Lug notes, then jump into fine tune modes to zero in alternating between Tune Lug and Tune Drum modes. The Drum note will read out in red, the Lug note in Green. You can exit from both by pressing On/Exit to stop, or any other button to change modes. 

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  Clearing your lugs or drumhead

Before trying to figure out which note pitch you want to tune to, we recommend that you first clear your drum at whatever note it is currently tensioned to. Using CLEAR LUG mode the row of LEDs along the bottom edge will literally show you which direction to adjust the one lug RESOTUNE is pointed at to match the previously captured lug offset time reference. This reference is captured in Tune Lug mode so always run that before "clearing" a different drum. The first lug will start with a green middle LED since it is the captured reference. When you rotate RESOTUNE around to measure the other lugs, you will often see red leds indicating what direction to rotate that lug, to agree with the reference lug. When all of the individual lugs are adjusted to indicate green, they are all matched to the clear reference lug, and each other. This matching is even more precise than frequency matching (RESOTUNE measures phase shift of a constant pitch). The lugs will now be very precisely matched to each other, and the drum head will deliver a superior "clear" sound when struck.

Red leds indicate when the lug is too tight or too loose for optimal clear. The green (middle) Clear LED indicates when the lug tension agrees with the internal reference.

For a technical  description of this specific technology read US Patent # 6,925,880.

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Tuning your Drum to a specific note

RESOTUNE II automatically grabs the two lowest notes whenever you do a Find Both scan so you can save whatever tuning you like by ear. If you wish to target a specific note RESOTUNE will follow as you adjust the lugs so you can read the drum note pitch in real time as you adjust. You can track and follow either the Drum (lowest fundamental) note or Lug note. They will respond slightly differently as you adjust so you will need to vary all lugs, a little each at the same time, when changing notes. Of course you will need to re-clear the drumhead after changing the note tuning to make all lugs match again for optimal clear quality.

Tune Lug or Tune Drum can be rune independently or both at the same time. It is good prcatice when first starting on a drum the first time to run "Find Both" to make sure you lock onto the correct resosnances. 

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    SAVE NOTE mode

AT any time after you have performed a new Find Both, or new fine tune resulting in a new note you can save the note pair (fundamental Drum and next higher lug resonance) into RESOTUNE II memory, by simply pressing the SAVE Note button. RESOTUNE II compares the new note to previously saved notes and ignores the request if notes are already saved. If the notes are new, the note display will indiate that new notes are saved. 

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RECALL NOTE mode

You can recall previously saved note pairs by pressing RECALL Note button. RESOTUNE II will alternate between playing both saved notes, first displaying the note, then a simple relative level meter on the note display. The Drum not will display in red, the Lug note in green. The level display will help identifying the right note pair for a previously tuned drum.

An advanced Recall feature performs a quick measurement of all previously saved Lug notes for drum return level and sorts the loudest drum note to the top of the list. This advanced feature is called by holding down the RECALL button for more than one second.

Another advanced feature allows you to erase the note pair currently being displayed in RECALL mode. Press the EXIT button, but before releasing it press the RECALL button. RESOTUNE will earase the note pair and exit RECALL mode. 

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For a full description of these functions and what each RESOTUNE button does in "all" modes you can view a PDF copy of the latest owner's manual here Owner's Manual .   

Even if you are not ready to take advantage of high technology tuning, we think you will find the information on our about drums page and links there, interesting and helpful even when using the less precise mechanical or by-ear tuning approaches.

Check out our FAQ page if you have any unanswered questions and check out the rest of our website. Our web store is WEB STORE here.