L.T. Lug Lock: Lug Lock

Recording drums has always seemed to be more of a hassle than recording other instruments. A lot of this can be attributed to multiple microphones, phasing, etc. One area of recording drums that has always been the biggest pain to me is keeping the drums in tune. This problem is even worse if you're recording a drummer who is an extremely hard hitter or one who does rimshots on every snare hit (you want this though, because rimshots sound great, right?).What generally happens is you get the drum to sound great before the tape (or hard drive) starts rolling, but halfway through the song the drum starts to sound flat and dead. This is where the Lug Lock comes in. It's a little square piece of plastic with a hole in the middle that you push down tightly onto the tension rod of the drum. The square plastic is pressed up against the rim of the drum so that it can't move. This keeps the tension rod from loosening during rimshots. Using two Lug Locks on each tension rod works even better because the tension rod won't budge at all. The holes in the Lug Lock get bigger from taking them on and off, so eventually you have to use new ones. That's okay because they're pretty cheap. ($25 for 100-pack, $2 for 4-pack; www.luglock.com)