EvansTorque Key - Drum Key Tuner - Magnetic Drum Tuner - Drum Tuning Key with Tension Setting - Ergonomic Drum Torque Key

This thing is an amazing time saver if you’re a tuning perfectionist, like me. You can use it to quickly get all of your tension rods up to the same tension, and then fine tune with a TuneBot. It’s typically accurate enough to get every lug within 2-3 Hz of one another.The lowest tension settings may still be too high if you have really floppy floor tom heads, but it works great for “normal” tunings, including snare reso heads which are typically super tight.One thing to note is that the “clutch” does not fully disengage when you’ve reached the set tension. The plastic part will click out of position to let you know to stop, but you can’t just keep cranking it like you can with a torque wrench. It’s not a big deal, you just have to be careful to twist it at a reasonable speed so you don’t miss the click.

Greatly aids accurate, fast tuning. Not expensive.

I bought it for my drum throne. I just stick it on the nut on the leg to adjust the seat height and leave the key attached to it, holds it in place. It's not ideal for short screws on my Roland V-drums, but normal acoustic drum kit I think would hold firm. I can still turn the V drum screws, but they are too shallow to get a full grap on it.

Great idea, but the only issue i have with this is that they rounded the square portion that goes over the tension rod, I am assuming so that they could get the magnet in there. The issue with this is that it will slightly round off the tension rod making this key unusable. I have purchased two of these and had the same issue with both. I had to buy a drill bit type drum key, and modify it to fit the Evans torque key. I think I would be OK not having the magnet if Evan‘s just made a square like a normal drum key.

First of all the key comes in a plastic package, so dont expect any kind of seal thet proves that this item hasn't been used before. The is very sturdy, kind of heavy, but you get used to the weight after using it for a bit. I quickly noticed that when i adjusted the toque dial to 5 the key moved without any effort without the expected "click". At first i thought the product was damaged, but i soon realized that you need to adjust the torque dial all the way up to 8 in order for the key to show some resistance. Upon aplying a pressure greater than the selected resistance in the torque dial you will get your "click" to tell you that you have reached the desired tension.I ignored the fact that i had to crank the dial up a bit to get the first click, and i started to tune up my kit. Once i was done i tested the kit and i sounded amazing. The key really does what it was meant to do. The sound was even better than when i tuned the kit by ear (I'm not really good at that... Reason why i got this item).When putting the key away i turned the dial back to zero. Few weeks later i wanted to re-tune my snare and i suddenly noticed that now the key didn't click when set on number 8 ! I had to crank the torque dial a full turn before even getting some resistance on the key's knob ! This really worries me since i expect to have to crank the dial higher and higher to get the first signs of resistance on the key. Eventually i think i'm going to have to buy another one to replace this one, so the lifetime guarantee an the product's description must be BS.Other than this the key has turned to be an awsome product.

Highly recommend

I bought this product even though there were several mixed reviews about it. I am glad I did. I am a beginner and have only tuned my kit by ear once before. I used this key for the first time 2 days ago as I bought a second bass and floor tom to add to my kit. I had to assemble my new drums when they arrived and tune them. There are many instructional videos on youtube on how to use this key but, in my opinion, not very good and not much help to me. The instructions that came with this torque key was not very clear either. To use this properly, you should turn the dial counter-clockwise all the way to zero until it stops (this was not mentioned in the product instructions or any of the instructional videos I've seen). Then, you can set the tension you want and start tuning your drums in the star pattern as usual. Once the tension is reached, the key will click and you can move on to the other lugs. Of course, you should only turn each lug 1/4 at a time and not turn it all at once until you hear the click. For me, I still fine tune my drums by listening after all the lugs have reached the same tension. I should mention that the dial on the key can go around twice. This means that if you want to set your tension at, say 12, you would turn the dial clockwise passed zero and set it to 2. At least, this is how I used this key and it seems to work for me as my drums sound pretty good. I think of this key as just a tool to help you tune your drums quicker with not much guess work, especially, if you're not good at tuning by ear. It was well worth what I paid for.

Much simpler than the fancy meters, which are really overkill. This thing works great.