Is it nessesary to seat drumheads before you tune them?

Question

I was looking around for imformation on tunning drums and i came across an article that said before i put the rim on and tightnen up the head i should apply pressur on each side then around the entire head. I just wasnt shure if this was absolutly nesesary or if it would affect my sound becuz as far as i know my set has never had the heads seated(i got it for cristmas and was allready set up and stuff) I was planning on getting a new set with really expensive head and i wanted to make shure i didnt ruen em...

Answer 1

You should always tighten across the head. Do one, then one directly across from it, then one next to the first one, then one cross from that one.

This is to do the tightening evenly across the head. If you tighten going around then you will end up with a head where the sound is different on one side from the other. It will have "spots" of sound. Kinda kewl if you want to do that on purpose and use it, but bad for the head.