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Comment: In accordance with Wikipedia's Conflict of interest guideline, I disclose that I have a conflict of interest regarding the subject of this article. Bsafs (talk) 23:47, 22 May 2026 (UTC)
| Type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Musical instruments |
| Founded | 2014 |
| Founders | Bryan Bedson, Alexander Marshman, Bryan Saftler |
| Headquarters | , United States |
Key people | Alexander Marshman (co-founder, CEO) Bryan Bedson (co-founder, Head of Product) Bryan Saftler (co-founder, Head of Marketing) |
| Products | Snare drums, drum kits |
| Website | dialtunedrums |
Dialtune Drums is an American drum hardware manufacturer based in Seattle, Washington, founded in 2014. The company designs and produces snare drums and drum kits that use a proprietary single-point, cable-actuated tuning system in place of the conventional lug-and-tension-rod hardware found on most acoustic drums. Each drumhead on a Dialtune drum is tensioned through a single rotating dial connected to a non-stretch cable routed around the head via pulleys, allowing the batter and resonant heads to be tuned independently from a single point of contact.[1][2][3]
Dialtune was co-founded by Bryan Bedson, Alexander Marshman, and Bryan Saftler. Bedson invented the underlying tuning system and serves as Head of Product, Marshman serves as chief executive officer, and Saftler leads marketing.
History
editConcept and first prototype
editThe Dialtune system originated as a personal project by Bryan Bedson, a drummer who frequently performed in church and contemporary worship settings using shared house kits.[4] Bedson has stated in interviews that he sought a faster and more repeatable method of tuning drumheads under typical 30-to-60-minute setup windows.[4]
Bedson sketched the initial concept in a notebook while working construction. He drew on the BOA cable-lace system used in snowboard boots — a single-point ratcheting mechanism that distributes tension around the foot — and considered whether a comparable approach could distribute tension around a drumhead via pulleys.[4] Rope-tuned drums predate modern lug hardware by centuries, but Bedson's concept paired that approach with modern pulley-based tension distribution.[4]
The first physical prototype was built from a spare drum shell, hoops, used heads, and approximately US$30 in hardware sourced from a Home Depot store. Sliding closet-door rollers served as pulleys, steel cable transmitted tension, and the cut-off end of a ratcheting socket wrench fitted to a wooden handle served as a tuning knob.[4]
First patent
editBedson presented the concept to a patent attorney who also played drums and was part of a weekly coffee group Bedson attended. The attorney filed Bedson's first non-provisional utility patent pro bono, establishing initial intellectual property protection around the system.[4]
Licensing attempts and second prototype
editBedson initially sought to license the technology to an established drum manufacturer rather than produce drums himself. The major brand he approached declined to evaluate unsolicited submissions.[5]
Bedson continued developing the concept while attending graduate school at Seattle Pacific University. With assistance from an undergraduate engineering student, he built a second prototype intended to demonstrate the system more thoroughly. The V2 prototype featured both batter and resonant heads tunable independently through welded gearbox enclosures, with a conventional drum-key interface retained at this stage.[5] Independent top-and-bottom tuning has remained a core design requirement of the system since this version.[5]
The V2 design retained a locking, ratcheting quick-release mechanism on the tuning knob; this was later removed because the quick-release did not allow incremental detuning. The drum-key interface was also dropped in subsequent designs in favor of a dial.[5]
Investment and the Maker Series
editAfter raising outside investment, Dialtune developed an aftermarket version of the system intended to retrofit existing drum shells. Variability across shell sizes, hoop tolerances, and head specifications prevented the aftermarket approach from delivering a consistent player experience, and the company pivoted to building complete drums.[5]
The Dialtune Maker Series, the company's first production-ready snare drum, was introduced in 2019 and reviewed in Modern Drummer's March 2020 issue.[1] The Maker Series introduced the dial interface as a replacement for drum-key tensioning, along with a quick-release hoop designed to enable head changes in under a minute.[2]
Maker Series snare drums were sold at approximately US$999.[2] Hardware was cast overseas, while drums were hand-assembled in the United States by the founding team.[5]
Dialtune Snare
editFollowing the Maker Series, Dialtune partnered with a new manufacturing supplier and released the Dialtune Snare, a 6.5×14-inch snare drum intended as the company's standard production model.[6] The Dialtune Snare line includes variants in 8-ply North American maple, black nickel-over-brass, and aluminum.[3][6] Modern Drummer reviewed both the matte black maple and black nickel-over-brass variants in June 2024.[6] The aluminum and maple variants were reviewed by the German music gear publication Bonedo in April 2025.[3]
Dialtune Kit
editIn 2025, Dialtune introduced its first complete drum kit, comprising 10-inch and 12-inch rack toms, a 16-inch floor tom, and a 22-inch bass drum.[7]
The kit hardware was redesigned to reduce weight relative to the snare drum, which had used cast zinc housings. Tom housings were redesigned in cast aluminum with steel threaded inserts, reducing kit hardware weight by a reported approximately 50 percent relative to the snare-drum hardware while retaining the independent cable tuning and quick-release hoop system.[7]
Tom mounts use a fixed shell-mounted post with a rubber spacer between the mount and the shell, designed to allow the shell to resonate. The mounting bracket can be repositioned between two pre-drilled locations on the shell to change dial orientation, or removed entirely and replaced with a Dialtune badge covering the unused holes. The kit is shipped with a virgin bass drum, with toms intended to be mounted via cymbal stands, rack systems, or snare-stand basket mounts.[7]
The 22-inch bass drum uses a different tuning configuration than the toms and snare. Owing to bass-drum hoop geometry, the quick-release hoop was not used; instead, the bass drum uses a crossed-cable path and quick-lug components that allow head changes by detensioning, unlooping the cable, and reattaching the head.[7]
Technology
editThe Dialtune system replaces individual lugs and tension rods with a continuous cable routed around each drumhead through pulleys. Tension is applied to the cable through a single rotating dial; separate dials control the batter and resonant heads, both co-located on the same side of the shell.[2][3]
Reviews have described the tension transmission cable variously: Tape Op identifies it as a braided Kevlar cable rated to 700 pounds (320 kg), designed to resist stretch and memory.[2] Bonedo's 2025 review of the current production drums describes a non-stretch synthetic cable.[3] On the production snare drums, ten lugs are mounted around each head, each housing two pulleys; six additional pulleys per side route the cable.[2]
Production Dialtune snare drums weigh approximately 21 pounds (9.5 kg), substantially heavier than typical snare drums of comparable size and described by Bonedo as comparable in weight to bell-bronze snare drums.[2][3] Hardware for current production drums is manufactured in China.[3]
The quick-release hoop is designed to allow drumhead changes without removing tension rods or hardware: the user fully detensions the head via the dial, twists the cast hoop to release it through ten keyhole openings, swaps the head, replaces the hoop, and retensions with the dial.[2][3] Reviewers have reported head-change times of under one minute.[2]
Because the tension cable is considered a wear part, each drum ships with a spare cable and a hex key for cable replacement.[3][7]
Reception
editModern Drummer has reviewed Dialtune snare drums on multiple occasions. Managing editor Michael Dawson reviewed the Maker Series cable-tuning snare drum in the magazine's March 2020 issue.[1] Reviewer Jason Mehler reviewed the second-generation maple and black-nickel-over-brass drums in the June 2024 issue, characterizing the company as having "made headlines over the past few years for their patented cable tuning system."[6] The system was also discussed on the Modern Drummer podcast in January 2020.[8]
In Tape Op Issue #146 (November/December 2021), reviewer Slater Swan described the Dialtune Maple snare as "a serious piece of equipment" with hardware "unlike anything I've seen on the market," and reported that a drumhead change could be completed in under a minute.[2]
The German music gear publication Bonedo reviewed both the maple and aluminum variants in April 2025, awarding the drums four out of five stars. Reviewer Max Gebhardt described the tuning system as successful, praising the speed of tuning and head changes and the encouragement of sonic experimentation, but noted limitations including uneven tension across the head at lower tunings, the use of generic (non-branded) drumheads, and a sticky throw-off mechanism on the maple model.[3]
The drums have also been discussed in Drumeo's comparison article on drum tuning products[9] and reviewed in the Christian music publication Worship Musician by contributor Mitch Bohannon.[10]
Products
editReferences
edit- 1 2 3 Dawson, Michael (January 31, 2020). "dialtune Cable-Tuning Snare Drum". Modern Drummer. Retrieved May 22, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Swan, Slater (November–December 2021). "dialtune Maple Snare Drum". Tape Op. No. 146. Retrieved May 22, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Gebhardt, Max (April 17, 2025). "Dialtune Snaredrums Maple & Alu Test". Bonedo (in German). Retrieved May 22, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Marshman, Alexander; Bedson, Bryan (November 7, 2025). "Founder Story — Dialtune Origins Part 1: The $30 Prototype That Lit the Fuse". Dialtune Drums. Retrieved May 22, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Marshman, Alexander; Bedson, Bryan (November 7, 2025). "Founder Story — Dialtune Origins Part 2: From Gatekeepers to the Maker Series". Dialtune Drums. Retrieved May 22, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Mehler, Jason (June 1, 2024). "Dialtune Snare Drums". Modern Drummer. Retrieved May 22, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Marshman, Alexander; Bedson, Bryan (November 7, 2025). "Founder Story — Dialtune Origins Part 3: From the Workhorse Snare to a Full Kit". Dialtune Drums. Retrieved May 22, 2026.
- ↑ "MD Podcast Episode 228: Drum Sounds Through the Years, Dialtune Snare, and More". Modern Drummer. January 31, 2020. Retrieved May 22, 2026.
- ↑ "Do These Popular Tuning Gadgets Really Work?". Drumeo. 25 December 2020. Retrieved May 22, 2026.
- ↑ Bohannon, Mitch (March 6, 2024). Worship Musician Magazine | Review | DialTune Snare. Worship Musician Magazine. Retrieved May 22, 2026.