As you get a bigger sized kit, it becomes more important to think about the pitch of the drums, and how to "spread out" the pitches you'll use when you tune the toms. A common approach here is to choose some regular interval tuning (some set of half steps) between each drum, and then tune those drums close to those pitches. I'll show you one such approach, including the exact settings I'm using on a Tune-Bot. My Tune-Bot Studio is a great tool which allows me to recall this tuning easily whenever I replace the heads. Purchase Tube-Bot Studio here: amzn.to/3RJvqui *If you purchase through the above link, I'll make a tiny commission. That'll make me super happy, as I could buy more drums!*
Good explanation! I tune my drums alternating m3 and M3 so that I get a P5 between the 10" and 14" and a P5 between the 12" and 16". That gives me basically the same pitches you are getting and my drums sound really good. That also gives me a P5 between my 12" and 1st snare. Multi strikes sound like chords.
I tune my drums in thirds. Also I tune the batter head and the bottom heads the same exact pitch. By doing that technique the drum will have it’s greatest sustain and to control how sustain you want you go to the fairest lug and hit the dum and loosen that lug very slowly and that is you control your sustain. I always start with my biggest tom first, get that to as low I can get it. Then I use the medley of reveille. That’s the medley you hear at horse races with the horns playing it.
Excellent vid! Someone that actually knows how to use a Tunebot. 😂 I have the same DW setup as you. I've experimented with a lot of tunings over the years and a recent tuning I've tried, and I am happy with is a Cmaj9 scale with the root C on the 16 tom and working your way up. C, E, G, B, D. The reason I chose C as the root was so the 12 inch tom at G matched the note of the shell. Naturally, there is room for adjusting the scale up or down a bit, but the 12 inch has a sweet spot in the F# to A range. So I built the scale around the 12 inch tom sweet spot. Also, it sounds great with either a max res tuning or min res. I'm using Evans UV2's on the batter side and Evans black resos on the reso side. Another experiment that I recently tried was to tension the heads with a Drumdial in the center of the head so that they were all at the same tension, 80 in this case. Then take the Tunebot and measure the lug frequencies of the top head, even them out, and then tune the reso head to the same frequency. This would be a max res scenario. It actually worked out quite well in terms of the intervals. Not any specific scale but it sounded fine. The goal here was to have all the toms FEEL the same. It actually worked.
Great video and explanation! I have a Ludwig Accent that was a rebuild project. My wife saw it out in the trash one day a while back! I grabbed it and it was in almost perfect shape. I took off the covers and painted it a flat blue color, ( think the Mapex Mars series) and it sounds so open now! The shells ring for days. I use close to the same tunebot settings, but I have 8,10,12,13,16” shells. My fundamental tunings from high to low are 165hz, 131hz, 104hz, 82hz and 65hz with Remo colortone batters. Still playing with the tunebot for the bass drum. I play with my snare tucked up under my 8 and 10” snare, so I do get a lot of snare buzz. I’ll have to try to flatten the 10” tone to see if that helps. Thanks!
Is there something about these kits that people are missing? I picked up a Ludwig Accent CS Combo kit recently from a charity store here in the UK. Complete kit with 22" kick, 12" and 13" rack toms, 16" floor tom, 14" snare, Sabian Solar hihat crash and ride, Ludwig cymbal stands, Premier hihat and a store brand kick pedal. It has clearly been stored somewhere damp as all the metal bits have a rust issue and one cymbal stand has a bent leg but it all works. From the wide spread of hit marks it looks like it was played by a beginner but it's a fully functional kit that cost me £85 as is. So about $100 for the international market. Its a winter restoration project while I use my Roland kit for neighbourhood volume reasons but at the price it seemed an absolute bargain.
Any reason on your 8” you flipped the tension on the bottom head to be lower than the batter opposite the rest? At those tunings with only about a half step between batter and reso heads those drums should be ringing for days. ?
I sometimes also like to tune to chords. Like a major chord, second inversion major chord, something like that. For me, having a bigger difference between the 14 and 12 than the 12 and 10 makes sense musically. (I dont have a 8 or a 16 sadly)
Other videos I have seen had the reso heads tuned a specific number of semitones below the batter head. Here there is no clear pattern to the relative tensions (or maybe the maths is too complex for me? 🤷♂️) What is the thinking behind these relationships?
In my experience a minor third works well beteeen the toms for bluesy and fumky music, major thirds are good for caribbean, latin and afro music and if you only have one mounted and a floor tom a quart will mostly do the job.
![Tom Reso[lution] Tuning | A Pattern of Change](/img/n.gif)
As you get a bigger sized kit, it becomes more important to think about the pitch of the drums, and how to "spread out" the pitches you'll use when you tune the toms.
A common approach here is to choose some regular interval tuning (some set of half steps) between each drum, and then tune those drums close to those pitches.
I'll show you one such approach, including the exact settings I'm using on a Tune-Bot. My Tune-Bot Studio is a great tool which allows me to recall this tuning easily whenever I replace the heads.
Purchase Tube-Bot Studio here: amzn.to/3RJvqui
*If you purchase through the above link, I'll make a tiny commission. That'll make me super happy, as I could buy more drums!*
Good explanation! I tune my drums alternating m3 and M3 so that I get a P5 between the 10" and 14" and a P5 between the 12" and 16". That gives me basically the same pitches you are getting and my drums sound really good. That also gives me a P5 between my 12" and 1st snare. Multi strikes sound like chords.
Nice!
Great video
Thank you 😊
I tune my drums in thirds. Also I tune the batter head and the bottom heads the same exact pitch. By doing that technique the drum will have it’s greatest sustain and to control how sustain you want you go to the fairest lug and hit the dum and loosen that lug very slowly and that is you control your sustain. I always start with my biggest tom first, get that to as low I can get it. Then I use the medley of reveille. That’s the medley you hear at horse races with the horns playing it.
Excellent vid! Someone that actually knows how to use a Tunebot. 😂 I have the same DW setup as you. I've experimented with a lot of tunings over the years and a recent tuning I've tried, and I am happy with is a Cmaj9 scale with the root C on the 16 tom and working your way up. C, E, G, B, D. The reason I chose C as the root was so the 12 inch tom at G matched the note of the shell. Naturally, there is room for adjusting the scale up or down a bit, but the 12 inch has a sweet spot in the F# to A range. So I built the scale around the 12 inch tom sweet spot. Also, it sounds great with either a max res tuning or min res. I'm using Evans UV2's on the batter side and Evans black resos on the reso side. Another experiment that I recently tried was to tension the heads with a Drumdial in the center of the head so that they were all at the same tension, 80 in this case. Then take the Tunebot and measure the lug frequencies of the top head, even them out, and then tune the reso head to the same frequency. This would be a max res scenario. It actually worked out quite well in terms of the intervals. Not any specific scale but it sounded fine. The goal here was to have all the toms FEEL the same. It actually worked.
Good info!
Great video and explanation! I have a Ludwig Accent that was a rebuild project. My wife saw it out in the trash one day a while back! I grabbed it and it was in almost perfect shape. I took off the covers and painted it a flat blue color, ( think the Mapex Mars series) and it sounds so open now! The shells ring for days. I use close to the same tunebot settings, but I have 8,10,12,13,16” shells. My fundamental tunings from high to low are 165hz, 131hz, 104hz, 82hz and 65hz with Remo colortone batters. Still playing with the tunebot for the bass drum. I play with my snare tucked up under my 8 and 10” snare, so I do get a lot of snare buzz. I’ll have to try to flatten the 10” tone to see if that helps. Thanks!
Thank you!
Is there something about these kits that people are missing? I picked up a Ludwig Accent CS Combo kit recently from a charity store here in the UK. Complete kit with 22" kick, 12" and 13" rack toms, 16" floor tom, 14" snare, Sabian Solar hihat crash and ride, Ludwig cymbal stands, Premier hihat and a store brand kick pedal. It has clearly been stored somewhere damp as all the metal bits have a rust issue and one cymbal stand has a bent leg but it all works. From the wide spread of hit marks it looks like it was played by a beginner but it's a fully functional kit that cost me £85 as is. So about $100 for the international market. Its a winter restoration project while I use my Roland kit for neighbourhood volume reasons but at the price it seemed an absolute bargain.
Any reason on your 8” you flipped the tension on the bottom head to be lower than the batter opposite the rest? At those tunings with only about a half step between batter and reso heads those drums should be ringing for days. ?
I was experimenting a bit. Eventually I might make the reso and batter closer on the 8. I like as much sustain as I can get. :)
I sometimes also like to tune to chords. Like a major chord, second inversion major chord, something like that. For me, having a bigger difference between the 14 and 12 than the 12 and 10 makes sense musically. (I dont have a 8 or a 16 sadly)
Didn't listen to the whole video sorry
Put some aquarian classic clear on the resos and aquarian response 2 on batters and those beautiful d dubs will sing even more❤️🔥
Other videos I have seen had the reso heads tuned a specific number of semitones below the batter head. Here there is no clear pattern to the relative tensions (or maybe the maths is too complex for me? 🤷♂️) What is the thinking behind these relationships?
I've been keeping them pretty close to each other (for now). The 8 inch is the odd man out there, but I'll probably change that in time.
Generally, I don't like hearing a big pitch bend when I hit the toms, so that's why I keep them pretty close.
In my experience a minor third works well beteeen the toms for bluesy and fumky music, major thirds are good for caribbean, latin and afro music and if you only have one mounted and a floor tom a quart will mostly do the job.
I have a 6,8,10, 12,13,16 and 18. I tune them fairly close to what you do. The 18 is at 52 hz. Massive!
Let's hear what they sound like not Mic'd
Common dude!...not every kid out there has a tuner!...laymen terms please!!
The subject of the video is tuning intervals. There are millions of other videos that don’t use tunebots.
Tune Deez Nutz.