On drums...

Cleaned up and tuned my HLD 588 today for the first time...

Does anyone else find these things extremely difficult to tune? I spent a good 4 hours getting it to tone... UGH!!

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Justin

Designer Maple Light (Bubinga) 8,10,12,14,16, 22 kick
Force Custom (Bee-Bop Jazz) 12,14, 18 kick
Remo Roto Tom (Chrome) 14, 16
Snare HLD 588 Signature

I found mine worked best at the just before choked point. She might lose a touch of body, but gain a bit of cut.
They are quite a loud drum. I could never get the snare wire tension 'just so' for my liking, no matter how I tuned her, but she sat best as mentioned above.
At lower tunings she would either be buzzing like crazy, or choked up. On occasion she would be so close, but she would change dramatically from room to room.
And for me, the fine adjustment (at the butt end) just wasn't fine enough.

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Jeff
Gots ta luv da Beech
Australia

I never had the chance to put the Drum Dial on mine, but going off my (severely ) fading memory, I'd say try around 88 for batter, and up as high as 80 (if you can get it) on the reso .

Some here will suggest that this would be like 'wearing undersized underwear ', but the drum shouldn't choke at the point, you may even be able to push a little harder .
What heads do you use, i was running a Power Center over a Hazy 300.

PS/ At the time I had my 588 my band was playing stuff similar to 'Tool'. I found at these tunings, I could get sound very similar to the Aenima album, particularly with the wires off.

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Jeff
Gots ta luv da Beech
Australia

Jeff,

Thanks for the response. You've addressed a lot of my concerns in these posts. The problem areas I was experiencing were very similar.

The first thing to address was that the drum head didn't fit as snuggly as I find they usually do on my other drums. I needed to, essentially, sit the head on the drum and be extremely careful not to bump it out of that position while placing the hoop on and lugs in. I felt like I was playing operation...had to do this process a few times before I was satisfied.

Also, I'm not sure if this is so with every 588 but the bearing edge near both housing carriages for the strainer seem to be indented a bit. I would think it was an imperfection (i.e. some idiot dropped it) but it seems fairly uniform on both sides. This caused a problem with an uneven ripple between the two lugs flanking the dip. It was only after I tightened it up really far that the wrinkles disappeared (and, finally, got it tuned evenly).

I found, like you, Jeff, that it sounded best tuned up way high. I'm using a Remo Diplomat Hazy on the snare side and a Remo Coated Ambassador on the top. It's funny that you mention Danny Carey's snare on the Aenima album...it's the sound I was looking for when I bought the drum.

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Justin

Designer Maple Light (Bubinga) 8,10,12,14,16, 22 kick
Force Custom (Bee-Bop Jazz) 12,14, 18 kick
Remo Roto Tom (Chrome) 14, 16
Snare HLD 588 Signature

Thats just the snare bed. I hope you haven't bent your bottom hoop by cranking it there.

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Jeff
Gots ta luv da Beech
Australia