NEVER GLUE FOAM TO THE SHELL! My line had it like that and the foam wasn't exactly the same amount touching on each head and they sounder weird. Our new drum caption head took them out, we got mx-1, I like the sound if you have something that you really want muffled use the other hand!

Anyone use those drum dials to help tune basses? If so, any luck?

the drum dials dont really work for the simple reason that some lugs are harder to turn than others even though they may be putting out the same amount of tension.

i had my experiences tuning a set of bass drums for the first time about 2 weeks ago.
there was a set of evans MX2 heads sitting about in our drum room so i decided to put em on our basses for our last indoor competition.
Yamaha field corps series drum sizes 18" 20" 22" 24"
the bottom drum i left rather loose and filled with newspaper, like our instructor had it at the beginning of the season. i tuned it a little higher so it would be more forgiving on diddles. every drum after that i left all the pads on under the plastic film and i tucked the foam glued on the last heads under the film, above the pads. i tuned the bassline relative to the pitch of the bottom drum, to what i heard in my head. this turned out to be somewhere around a major seventh chord.

end result? the basses sounded appropriate for an indoor environment, articulate although perhaps a bit low. i didnt want to crank the top drum any higher because a couple of the lugs started feeling a bit 'iffy' to me and i didnt want any broken drums a week before our competition.
the only problems were that the heads sounded horrible if hit anywhere but dead center.

really?
someone was trying to sell me one that worked like a torque wrench, you set it to a tension and it wouldnt let you spin it anymore when it got there

edit: ok i looked it up, drum dial is what you meant? i havent heard anything about them. i thought you meant torque drum key

http://www.drumdial.com/precision_drum_tuners_made_in_us.htm

Just trying to make sure I wasn't crazy. I tuned a set of tenors with one of these once, years ago. As I recall it worked great, though I think it's overkill for marching applications (they're $90). I have some friends that are borderline tone deaf when it comes to clearing a head, so it might be good for people that don't hear pitches well. From the site:

"Measures Timpanic Pressure, not Tension Rod Torque"

Toe, tuning all of the basses in fourths would cause sevenths between 5-3 and 3-1 if I'm not mistaken...am I?

On head pre-stretching(?), I've seen/heard of people that do more intense things, like having someone small stand on the heads and possible jump a little bit.

At the college I attend, we used six basses last year, and our tech tuned them from the bottom(a 32"), at it's lowest reasonable pitch because:
1) it the pitch is too low, it projects even less than it would normally and,
2) if it's too high top bass will be a snare drum

We did 6-fifth-5-fourth-4-fourth-3-major third(fourth if we're feeling lucky)-2-minor third(major third with the fourth from 3-2)-1

First, we make sure the head is in tune with itself, and then crank it with quarter turns. We lightly muffle a head with one hand and play the drum on the other side with the mallet, and tune each side to the same pitch that way. We use Evans MX1's and use the provided muffling.

Basses 1,3, & 5 would be the same pitch...only different octaves...as with basses 2 & 4.

There's no "Wrong" way to tune basses...if you choose to go with actual notes (my bass tech when i marched drumcorps would use a tuner and the drums sounded sweet) go for it.

I personally go with perfect 4ths across. I have tuned bottom to a 5th for that power chord sound, and it's worked out nicely also.

As for having someone small stand on a bass drum head to stretch the head out....seriously, does it sound like a good idea? Put the heads on...tighten the heads finger tight..half turn on each rod...check to see if the head is evenly cranked by checking the pitch right under each claw...once the head is cleared....1 full turn on each (going in a star pattern).

Let the heads settle for a few hours....or a day if you have the time, crank again. By this time the heads should be fine to play on...then crank again after use, to allow the head to settle more.