Need help tuning dhol w/ two synthetic skins

[NeeshDFeesh]

Hi everyone,

First time posting, hope this is the right place. After years of wanting one, a friend of mine gave me an old dhol. It's not in great shape and I need help tuning it. It's got GBC 7mm synthetic heads on both sides (so no goatskin) and I can't tell which side is the dagga and which is the tilli. One side has a metal rim raised around the head, and the other has the skin raised above the rim (the heads are the same just one is upsidedown). Can anyone tell me which side is which and give me some tips on tuning it? Both sides have bolts to tune.

Cheers.

 

[Dholi harsh]

if the drum is built properly you can tell which side is which by the thickness of the wood on either side, usually the bass side is thicker and the treble thinner. Also, you can look at the barrel itself, on most of my drums, i've noticed that the bass side is shorter and the treble is longer, so it almost looks like a vase type thing. The whole rim thing confused med, idk what you mean by raised rim and rim around the head.... pictures maybe?

Just a recomendation, for synthetic skins, a 10mm works much better than a 7mm, might want to look into getting a new one.

 

[NeeshDFeesh]

Yo I'm subbed to you on youtube! Huge fan, love your dhol covers! Literally have some of them on my phone. Haha this is awesome.

Okay so I took off the heads to check, and the thickness is the same on both sides of the barrel. It's a straight dhol so I can't really tell if one side is closer, but it looks pretty even.

This is what I meant about the rim:

"photo 2" shows the rim raised around the head
"photo 3" shows the head raised over the rim

I just mentioned it in case it could determine which side is which. I'm having issues with the lengths of the hooks so tuning it is a challenge. On the side I though was the dagga (the rim raised over the skin), the hooks are a bit too short so when the nuts are all on its pretty tight and high pitched. When I got it, that side was actually missing hooks. I bought hooks to replace them and now I can't get it to sound deep enough. The other wide, the tilli side with the skin raised over the rim, the hooks are all long enough to loosen the bolts a fair bit. That's why I'm not sure which side is supposed to be which. I was basing it off of where the pompoms where hanging (using that as the front, tilli right, dagga left) but maybe they were put on wrong to begin with.... I have no idea what I'm doing haha.

 

[Dholi harsh]

Oh okay, so clearly the one stretched is going to be the tilli head and the other side is going to be the dugga. those types of drums are tricky because its very hard to actually see what is what and you just have to go based on ear at that point

 

[NeeshDFeesh]

By "stretched" to you mean the second picture? Because that's the one I've been using as tilli. It still doesn't really sound right...but I'll keep fine-tuning it. Thanks for the help!

 

[Dholi harsh]

Yeah i do mean the second one, and if it doesn't sound right, try switching the sides and see how it sounds, you just gotta take the heads off and switch em, 10 minute fix probably

 

[superdholi1994]

NeeshDFeesh, what is the size for 2 current drumheads? i hope it's exactly 11", 12", or 13"

if yes: then try remo clear ambassador or evans g1 clear (10 mil) as dagga(bass) side