Kind of amazing how so many people here become rude, reactive and inappropriately defensive when someone kindly shares a preferred method of making sounds. You'd think you were sharing a preferred method of doing their mother...

Well timpani are a whole different dynamic. You can change the pitch and play somewhat melodically, especially in the higher registers. Drumkit is a different beast because of the relatively "untuned" (as defined earlier in the thread) kick/snare/cymbals. The kit, even with my method of making it "tuned" or "tonal" is still not a very melodic instrument, it's more droney like a tabla, which is what i was going for.

To me it's not necessarily about "tuning to the song", rather its about getting the drumkit and the relationship between drums and other instruments sounding it's best. This poses limitations, but to me limitations drive creativity, which is why I use 1" 8 track tape even though I have a 16 track Pro Tools setup. So it's more about tuning the instruments to each other and even tuning the song to the drums.


As far as tuning to the shell, I know some will disagree, but I have found that method to be useless. I have not seen any science that explains why this method is used, but I have tried it and it doesn't make sense to me, nor does it improve the sound. While, depending on the heads used, drums will usually have ranges and sweet spots (mostly due to size), they are unrelated to the shell frequency and are much larger than a single note. I actually tried tuning both the lugs and fundamental to the shell, and then to compare, I tuned the heads off by a dissonant interval, which if this theory was legit, should have yielded a worse or less resonant sound, which it did not.

The guy from DW in the video was tuning the res head lugs to the shell, not the fundamental, which to me is bizarre. I am open to any scientific explanations of why this is used, but no one can tell me how a shell's fundamental frequency relates to the head frequencies, other than if you are actually striking the shell while playing. I think this mostly comes from "folk tuning" which is handed down from teacher to student as something rather than nothing in the absence of any concrete science or electronic tuners. While science is not everything, you'd think with all the scientific studies of drums there would be some mention of this, but I have not seen any. Who knows.

What I have heard is that this method increases resonance, but rarely do drummers try to maximize resonance anyway, usually detuning the heads from each other, muting, using coated or dotted or thick heads to decrease resonance rather than increase. And when i tried it, I found it did not increase resonance at all anyway. But I am happy to be proven wrong.

It does make sense. you can tune your kit to deal with a wide variety of music. You don't tune it to notes, you tune it to a sound.

I personally like to tune the snare to the song, especially high pitched snares, because if it's ringing at a note that doesn't suit the song it can be really obvious and make everything sound off (IMO)

Kenny Malone was the first drummer I worked with that always tunes his snare (and toms if he has time) to the song. He can do it in about a minute. I'm not a drummer so it takes me awhile! But most drummers just dampen their snare differently if something isn't sound right. If you take all the sustain out the pitch of the drum doesn't make as much of a difference.

The Tune Bot is a fun tool. I like to use it to guide me towards finding what note the drums I have sound best at. The type of heads you use also make a difference especially when trying to tune way down low.

Now that I think about it, Danny Carey from Tool does tune his kit to the music, but 90% of tool songs are in D, so it works for him. Unless I was doing something like that, I don't tune to keys.

Then again, Danny and Tool are on a different musical plane than others, and their music suits tuning percussion to the song very well just due to the tribal and ethnic influence of their stuff.

+1.. OK one more time around this tree... "Tuning" suggests adjusting drums to specific notes. This is complicated by typical drums that voice multiple different notes for a given tension depending on how struck. Of course those different notes can be "tuned" to note targets but it helps to understand which notes you are targeting the relationships between them.

About Drums | Circular Science here is TMI about drums and notes they make.

here is a link to good general tuning/voicing advice. http://circularscience.com/wp-conten...ning-bible.pdf

Tuning drums is about getting them happy with themselves. Lugs matching each other is probably more important than what note they are pitched at. It all matters but somethings matter more than others.

John Roberts

PS: In the studio at least too much sustain can be gated out. For live, detuning the batter and resonant lug notes apart will reduce sustain and damp resonance somewhat.

Hey, thanks for those two links!

...Lotsa useful stuff there.

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You're welcome... I think the guy who wrote the "drum tuning bible" died and then his webpage went dark due to non-payment. I found a copy and hosted it on my site because it is such good general info.

The "about drums" article I wrote myself, sharing stuff I've learned designing my electronic tuner.

Hope it helps

There is a broken link to the drum tuning bible in the links section here https://www.gearslutz.com/board/drum...ted-links.html I gave the mod my new working link but he hasn't fixed it.

JR

For new drummers reading this post:
Forget this perfect note tunning ****.
A drum is never giving a note and its not supposed to.
It can only tend to if you put your ears and mind trying to hear a note.
But again, it should not give a note.
These theories are for amateurs.
After having a well tuned drum THE WAY ONE HITS THE DRUM ,FEELING IT ALL AROUND ,MAKES THE SOUND .
Your hand and your ear will create the pitch for what you play. Feel the drum's respond hitting it and make it sound nice.
That's all......

Very nice sound on your kit unfiltered!
Love that it sounds so natural and open.

To my personal taste your snare (i think it's the snare without the snares on?) still has little too much ring to it. But maybe you just like that. If not you could try to loosen one or two lugs on the batterhead or some small mufflin.

Thanx for sharing!

Lennaert

www.lennaertkoorman.nl

Thanks. Yeah, the ring is totally intentional, and if you notice, much more focused and tonal than a normal snare. THis is partly due to being a smaller snare which has less wild overtones, but mostly due to my tuning scheme.

And I cut some of the snare wires off to get a more open and ringing sound. I don't like using snare wires on/off, so I have a combination of both. If I had any more snares, there would be too much buzzing. I like an initial attack of the snares, then a quick decay while keeping a long sustaining ring. This comes from playing the tabla, which has a long sustaining drone.

It's not something people are used to in a snare drum, but it makes the entire kit much more tonal, and without it, the kit would sound pretty normal.

Drum resonances tend to blend in more with other instruments as well, and I still intend to post the sound with other instruments, although I'm lagging on that.

This is patently false:

...To start with, all 'notes' (from ANY instrument) are NOT necessarily pitched. (eg: A note could be played by a synth generating broadband noise, with no determinable pitch at all.)

...On the other hand, some drums (like timpani, congas, bongos, tabla, etc.) have quite definite pitches!


If you doubt this, just take a listen to "Those Shoes" by The Eagles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57-bBwiIsWU

...There are overdubbed octobans, which are not only tuned to specific pitches, but which actually change pitches every time there's a chord change. (They start about 12 seconds in.)

.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In général, you don't tune a drums kit with a perfect note, it's more
a " tone " than anything else, in some exception you will look for a précise
Pitch to match the song.If you talking about Timpani.Tabla, or some other
percussion instrument,that's another discussion.

In my 30+ years of playing/recording, not once did anyone mention my toms being out of tune with the song. That's because the pitches from the toms are generally not well enough defined, mixed with a lot of overtones, and therefore are a wash in context. Yet, they still tend to really stand out.

I usually just tune to where the drum resonates the most and don't even pay attention to pitch.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Same here, never in my 25+ years of recording did i was ask to tune the toms
or snare to a specific pitch, more of a tone who will fit the style of the song.

Horses for courses. As a drummer and recording engineer, I always check the drum tones against the music (at least the tonic). I rarely shoot for specific notes, but when you turn a lug while listening, there are clearly spots that feel better with the music than others. Just like shooting out different snares or cymbals for a song, the more of these things you pay attention to before hitting record, the easier it will be to mix.

Ah well then it's totally cool. And yes, it does sound focused and still open this way.

That explains a lot. I must admit you've got your own sound going, that's great!

Yes please do post some samples of how this blends with the rest of the band. I am really curious to hear it.

Cheers
Lennaert

www.lennaertkoorman.nl

+1

So true!

Of course, otherwise drums wouldn't work. They are generally considered and used as unpitched percussion. I think what you are saying is even true with some pitched percussion, like timpani. I have seen the percussionist from Les Claypool's Frog Brigade (and i think John Bonham as well) play timpani out of tune with the song, and it just sounds percussive and does not clash. Also if you hear conga players play solo they sound very tonal while still being able to play over chord changes and modulations. It's all about context. Also I think it has a lot to do with miking. You can get a much more tonal sound by close miking.

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Just for kicks & giggles...

Check THIS guy out:

...A combination of "pitched" and "non-pitched" percussion instruments (and everything in between).

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You can tune toms to exact pitches.
Top head root, bottom head up a minor third. Total drum sound would be the third. This is very repeatable.