12” Tom tuning from scratch to a random fundamental tone while exploring different tunings for it.
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- Опубліковано 26 лют 2021
- Quick video just to demonstrate the main principle & tuning basics.
This 12" tom is not tuned in the context of an entire kit.
I did briefly explore the sound, based on my preference of the moment.
I first tuned the tom to a random fundamental tone that felt right.
Only thereafter, I use the app for fine-tuning while clearing the heads.
Note that the app is used to clear the heads, but not for making the tuning decisions.
I listened with 'awareness' and tuned/tensioned the drum quick & dirty manner to get an OK sound with those heads, in the pitch range I was at.
Next, while staying around/at that same fundamental tone, I tweaked the tension of both heads, to change the drum's feel, attack, sustain, resonance, decay, timbre, etc.
Consider how you'll use your drums and tune for the purpose!
Knowing how to tweak the tuning of both heads while staying at the same fundamental tone to change the drum's behavior and sound timbre/dynamics, without messing up where the drum sits in the kit tone-wise, is an important aspect of tuning for a certain "purpose."
This way you can tweak the resonance duration, attack, feel, etc. of that drum, within its 'comfort range', without affecting its tonal position in the kit.
NOTE on the specific tuning in this video:
a. When you tune your reso to an octave above your fundamental tone, ensure that the targeted fundamental tone is low enough for the drum's diameter.
Overall, an extreme interval between both heads only is feasible when the reso is still well below its choking range.
Avoid that your reso gets choked out when tuned at its target lug pitch.
Don't forcefully chase a lug pitch of an octave higher, if you need to force the head too much because your drum would otherwise sound unbalanced, and lose tonal 'body'.
Often such an extreme tuning projects better, if the reso head is an octave lower than the batter, instead of above, but that inverted tuning gives a completely different sound and feel.
b. Such a more extreme tuning may sound good when listened to from right above the drum, but at the same time, its acoustic projection may be poor. When listened to from a bit of a distance, you may hear too much attack, with forced decay dynamics and little tonal projection, and an unbalanced timbre. This may become audible sooner on shallower drums which have a more direct acoustic coupling of the heads, but you can hear this happening already when listening to the sound from the side of the drum, but it becomes really audible from a distance.
Depending on your purpose, it's good to remember that a tuning that may be perfectly suited for close-up miking, and close-up PA amplification, may not be as suitable for situations that need balanced acoustic projection.
If you tune for an acoustic live performance, you should consider which tunings give you a reliable and strong tonal projection with sufficient body after the attack.
This means double-checking how your kit sounds from a distance.
It often means avoiding tunings that have both heads extremely far apart from one another pitch-wise.
When listening to the sound from centrally above the batter head, you may have good tone and dynamics.
For close-miked recording /amplifying, you may still get a nice & full-bodied tone. (However, be aware of 'mic bleed', as surrounding mics may pick up ugly sounds that you don't want in your mix.)
c.A wider interval between the batter head's lug pitch & the fundamental tone generates more rebound/stick definition together with more tonal dynamics & articulation possibilities depending on the impact location, for that same fundamental tone.
EXPLORE
While the app offers tuning estimates, and suggestions and has starting points built-in to help you start researching sounds, the actual tuning decisions are yours to evaluate and make.
That's where your tuning journey starts, not where it stops.
Experiment and listen to your sound while making the tuning decisions.
This app is a tool outfitted to help you explore sounds and different tunings.
It gives you the convenience of analyzing pitches so that you spend less time fine-tuning and you have more freedom to explore sounds.
There's also no need to be afraid of losing a good sound: the tuner is a like a GPS.
If you discover a nice sound along your tuning journey, store its 'coordinates or lug' pitches and fundamental tone in a custom preset.
Whenever you feel 'lost' when exploring, you could always 'track back' to your original sound, or to any stored sound later on.
Using a tool to clear heads, doesn't deprive you of practicing tuning.
It rather simulates developing tuning skills, as you may explore more tunings and tune more often.
Increased and methodic practicing isn't gonna make you worse, but better at tuning.
A tool like this could contribute to the development of your tuning insights.
Very good explanations and great video. Made me realise how much of the tone and mood you can influence with the different combinations of tension!
Hi Innerwolf, thanks for the appreciation. I appreciate the good vibes in return. :D All the best exploring sounds & have fun playing your drums! Cheers, Bram
Very interesting and easy to understand with that explanation
Glad it was helpful!
Good explanation. I appreciate a bit more detail as I have been using this along with my experience of tuning drums before. I was a little stymied with my new Hendrix Bubinga kit. This has helped, plus I am getting advice from the shop that sold the kit to me :).
Thanks, Tony... It's really worth the effort to explore your drum's tuning range methodically by tweaking both heads and trying to grasp how that affects tone/feel/decay dynamics. Once that insight is gained, you'll be acquainted with your drum and you will know which head(s) would need to be tuned up/down & how far to reach sound & effect A or B, so that your sound will fit your desired style & musical needs. Explore in all freedom, and listen to what you get! You can use the app as a kind of GPS while exploring. It'll give you coordinates to tell you where your tuning is at. If you have a good sound and created a preset for it, then the app will bring you back home if you get lost, or too far off-track while exploring. If you discover another nice sound while experimenting, you can always make a new preset for that sound so that you can retrieve it later on. In the end, the more you explore, the more you practice, and the better you'll get + the more you get acquainted with your drum's sound potential! If any questions, just ask! Cheers!
Really good explanation thanks !
With pleasure. Thanks for the feedback. Cheers! :)
Good video!!! 😊🥁🇵🇭
Thanks, Kyle! We're glad you find it useful info! All the best & Happy drumming. :D
Very helpful. I have the paid subscription for drumtune pro. But I'm not completely understanding how to use it. With the batter/ reso versus batter/fundamental notes. Why does it show two different frequencies for the batter/reso tunings between the two tuning option? I'm a little slow on some things I guess. Anyways thanks for any advice you may have and the video. Was very helpful. Thanks.
Hi Jason, thanks for asking!
The "fundamental tone" you're hearing when hitting a drum in the center of the batter head (with both drumheads vibrating freely together) is the result of both drumheads working together.
(It's their lug pitches combined that result in a sound with a given fundamental tone, timbre, feel, and decay dynamics.)
You can get to the same fundamental tone, with different combinations of lug pitches, indeed.
Let's look into that:
1. First, if you tune a drum with both drumheads to the same lug pitches. If you hit it in the center, that drum will have a given fundamental tone of, imagine, a symbolical 'Y' Hz.
2. Next, if you tune one drumhead down, of course, the sound of the drum will become lower too. If you hit that drum in the center now, its fundamental tone will have dropped in pitch from 'Y' Hz to, say, 'X' Hz.
3. Finally, when you tune the opposite drumhead up the right amount to compensate for the drop in pitch from the other side, the fundamental tone of the drum will rise again to 'Y' Hz.
You'll have tuned the same drum to the same fundamental tone but in two different tuning ways.
The first time both drumheads were tuned to the same lug pitch.
The second time, with one drumhead looser, and the opposite one tighter, so with both drumheads further apart in lug pitch.
You'll notice the color of the attack, timbre, rebound feel, etc... would have been altered, for the same fundamental tone. It's not only what fundamental tone it is, but also how it's created, thus with which drumhead tension/ lug pitches at both sides it's achieved that determine the entire feel, decay behavior & color of the drum's sound itself.
This way, you can achieve any fundamental tone, within the tensioning ranges of the heads, with different combinations of tension/pitch at the drumheads of both sides.
For different tunings, thus with both drumheads tuned to be equal or further apart in lug pitch, when staying at the same fundamental tone you'll get different rebound feel, timbre, fundamental tone prominence & sustain projection, and decay dynamics of the drum's sound.
TIP:
The tensioning ranges of the heads determine the tuning range of the drum:
The more you remain centered in the tuning range of a drum, the more tuning options there are to reach it. (EG One head slack, the opposite head tight.)
The more you approach the extremely high end of the tuning range of a drum, the fewer tuning options there are to reach it. (EG both heads slack for the ultimate low end, both heads tight for the ultimate high end.)
For any given tuning, you can check the lug pitches for both sides and the fundamental tone and get a bit mathematical to 'describe' the tuning.
For example, when you express the relationship of those three pitches, towards one another, you express their relative proportions in a ratio, like B/F or R/F or B/R.
B/R is the ratio (or the interval) between the lug pitches batter and reso is to get to a fundamental tone.
B/F is the ratio (or the interval) between the lug pitch of the batter head and the fundamental tone.
R/F is the ratio (or the interval) between the lug pitch of the resonant head and the fundamental tone.
The B/R slider in the app provides estimates (+/- 10%), like when you want to get guidance on what pitches you should aim for on batter and reso if you wish to tune your tom to a selected fundamental tone while having a selected interval between both drumheads. (Like when you wish to tune to a fundamental tone of eg. D2, with an M3 interval between both drumheads.)
The B/F slider in the app proves estimates (+/- 10%) and gives you a guide on what pitches you should aim for on batter and reso if you wish to tune your tom to a selected fundamental tone while having a selected interval between the batter head's lug pitch and the fundamental tone. (Basically, this one estimates how to tune the resonant head to get to a fundamental tone with a given batter head pitch. Like to tune to a fundamental tone of 100 Hz with the batter lug pitch tuned to 150 Hz, tune the reso to X Hz +/- 10%.)
Those ratios mostly have their use if you want to research sounds and learn more in-depth about them.
These ratios offer 'numerical' insight into why the drum sounds & behaves this way or that way at any given point.
You're not slow! No worries.
These features are just nerdy drum tuning-geek stuff.
You may as well ignore those. :)
Another side-note w.r.t. your perceived "slowness": In fact, nobody's fast with mastering tuning!
It's time-consuming to get truly acquainted with all these tuning insights. Tuning a lot and exploring a lot, eventually results in mastering tuning, with or without the aid of a tuner.
Like mastering paradiddles, mastering tuning takes a lot of focus and practice and even then it doesn't happen overnight.
Back to the ratios... They may be a nerdy way to look at a drum's tuning, however, there's a perk to them when diving in deep.
At least, for most people, it's harder to understand where they are within the tuning range, at any given tuning when exploring the tuning range of drums by going through all intervals and combinations by ear & feel alone, as compared to measuring the pitches from time to time with an aid that quantifies the pitch.
It also allows one to take proper notes or store settings.
When measuring the pitches while experimenting, you know where you are in the tuning range and that can help to develop insight faster in a more methodical way.
In general, a tuner visualizes a tuning and quantifies it in numbers.
Numbers are especially handy to fine-tune.
Numbers equally function as GPS coordinates to know where you are within the tuning range when tuning, and numbers make any tuning reproducible for future sessions...
Yet, numbers can also be overwhelming at first (especially when there's also some overtone confusion in the mix)...
The more you get the hang of it, and the more your tuning insight develops, the less confusing and the more meaningful the numbers will become.
My 50 cents:
When tuning, tune with awareness. Don't focus on the numbers too much to first create your tunings.
Tweak & try. Hit, listen & feel.
A tuner is mostly assisting with the fine-tuning process, but it's up to the drummer to make the right tuning decision in the function of the musical needs and drums at hand.
When you're creating your tunings, focus on your needs and how the drum sounds & feels, in the first place, like how I demo it in the vid above...
Try to discover where your drumheads need to be lug-pitch/tension-wise, and when creating your 'personal tunings', use the tuner as a GPS to 'drive' to a fundamental tone (so you can 'tonally' space the drums nicely in proportion to one another) and to clear the drumheads nicely at their preferred spots to get rid of excess overtones, while achieving a suitable bounce, articulation, attack, timbre, sustain, resonance and decay dynamics for your needs.
Once you have created your own tunings, for future tune-up sessions, you can store presets of your 'personal tunings' and then go by numbers later on, in the future tuning sessions. :)
Explore by experimenting, I'd say...
I hope this clarifies things a bit!
Should you have questions or doubts, feel free to email support@drumtunepro.com. Thanks.
We'll gladly think along.
Cheers & Happy drumming!
9:48
What phone app is that ?
Drumtune