If I'm not mistaken that year still had wood air vent grommets, did you check to see if they were loose? Do all of your tension rods have plastic washers under the metal ones? Perhaps at a lower tuning the rods may buzz.

Just some thoughts, hope it helps!

Does it go away on that ONE rod? Maybe it's the head's metal ring vibrating under the rim? How low do you tune your 12"? JAW?

You need to do a process of elimination on the tom to find the culprit. It's a pain in the rump but wouldn't you rather know exactly where the problem lies? Remove all hardware, heads, hoops, tension rods, and lugs. Why, because you need to start at square one which is the shell. If plys are delaminatong, excess vibration can occur. Plus, when you are disassembling the tom, you can check each indidival component for cracks, breaks, or worn out gaskets. A lug casing with worn out internal parts can cause the spring to bounce around inside the casing. Take the stripped down shell, hold with one finger on the inside, give the shell a wrap with the butt of your fist and listen closely for excess vibrations. You will know when you hear it...if that's the case, shell is delaminating due to the glue breaking down between the plys. If no vibration is detected in the shell, look closely at all the lugs, hoops, etc.... The wooden vent holes can come loose. it's rare but it can happen. If it does, a toothpick with some Titebond Glue dabbed around the vent and clamped down via something heavy may fix it. I have had to do this before. Hope this helps...best of luck locating the rattle. Hope it's something simple....it usually is.

I think I may have found the problem and I believe the Vibration/buzz sound is coming from some of the lugs. You know that hole that the tension rod screws in to....its a hole that slightly rises up from the lug itself....I think that is what's causing this headache. The buzz sounds very much like how it would sound if you were to hit a tom without the tension rods screwed in. the lug's tension rod inserts would vibrate. I think I'm seeing something similar happening but I don't know how to fix this because the buzzing occurs even though the tension rods are screwed in.

EDIT: Yup. Looks like those tension insert holes are to blame. I went around my 9x12 and looked for lugs where the insert hole was actually touching the lug itself. I loosened up the rod...then inserted my finger nail between the lug and the insert hole and screwed the tension rod back in. Once the rod was at a nice tension, the insert hole stayed in the middle of the lug rather than all the way to one side (where it touched the lug) and the vibration sound disappeared.


Wow. What a pain in the but...this entire time.

Oops! Forgot about that. Thanks for the correction TamaDudeNJ. The lug insert sits atop a rubber stopper. Lug casings could crack abd vibrate. I have had it happen a few times.