Attention Tune-Bot Owners!

I've had mine for a few months now and my absolute favorite feature is "save"

I saved my top and bottom pitches on all the drums....changed the heads and was immediately back to my sound

this is a beautiful piece of equipment .....even for someone who has been tuning drums for nearly 30 years

it makes everything so much easier and with zero questioning or second guessing

I love it more and more all the time

this is coming from someone who hated drum dials and such and rendered them absolutely useless

this is something ENTIRELY different
 
Not working! I 'm trying to tune the fundamental to a "C". I tuned the top head to a "C", tuned the bottom head to a "C". Fundamental is not a "C" but some other freq. I spent an hour trying to find the freq. but couldn't find the right combination. I thought this could tune to notes.

It sounds like you're doing it wrong. You don't tune a head to the desired pitch you want the drum at. Rather, you tune the lugs to some multiple of that pitch. So, for example, I tune my drums with "medium resonance" which has the resonate head a little higher than the top head (or one could do that vise versa). According to the tune-bot instructions, that means that I multiply the desired fundamental pitch's frequency by two and tune the bottom *lugs* to that frequency (lugs will always have a higher pitch than the fundamental pitch). Then I tune up the top head until the fundamental pitch of the drum is at my desired pitch (keeping the lugs in tune with each other, of course). When hitting the drum for the fundamental pitch, make sure it is free floating, i.e. you don't have any heads laying on a surface.
 
It sounds like you're doing it wrong. You don't tune a head to the desired pitch you want the drum at. Rather, you tune the lugs to some multiple of that pitch. So, for example, I tune my drums with "medium resonance" which has the resonate head a little higher than the top head (or one could do that vise versa). According to the tune-bot instructions, that means that I multiply the desired fundamental pitch's frequency by two and tune the bottom *lugs* to that frequency (lugs will always have a higher pitch than the fundamental pitch). Then I tune up the top head until the fundamental pitch of the drum is at my desired pitch (keeping the lugs in tune with each other, of course). When hitting the drum for the fundamental pitch, make sure it is free floating, i.e. you don't have any heads laying on a surface.

Thanks JBoom, I modified my original question to make it more clear. I get what you are saying, but I think that I am trying to make the tunebot do something that it cannot without a lot of lug adjusting on my part. I thought that it would be more like the Resotune and automatically filter and tell me which lugs needed adjustment. For me it is just to complicated. I am trying to give it an honest try, but is proving to be very problematic.
 
Thanks JBoom, I modified my original question to make it more clear. I get what you are saying, but I think that I am trying to make the tunebot do something that it cannot without a lot of lug adjusting on my part. I thought that it would be more like the Resotune and automatically filter and tell me which lugs needed adjustment. For me it is just to complicated. I am trying to give it an honest try, but is proving to be very problematic.

You need to muffle the opposing head, and tune the pitch at each lug to something a bit higher than the fundamental pitch you're going for. It takes a bit of experimentation at first...

There is a "spreadsheet" on page 1 or 2 of this thread with some lug pitches and their resulting drum pitches. Here is the one I've been keeping. I don't know how "portable" these lists are (ie it may be different for your drums than it is for mine).

Code:
Drum Note	Drum	Batter Pitch	Reso Pitch	
3G		10	322		322	
3F#		10	307		307 *
3E		12	273		273	
3C#		12	230		230 *
3C		14	230		230	
3A#		14	202		202 *
2F#		16	161		161 *
2G		16	172		172	
2A		16	192		192

This is all "top/bottom equal." I haven't started messing with tuning the bottom head higher yet...
 
I just throw the felt bag the unit came in onto the head i'm tuning... it's consistent pressure, doesn't dampen out the main freq and actually let's me hit more often since the sound dies very quickly. I get very consistent results this way.
 
I just throw the felt bag the unit came in onto the head i'm tuning... it's consistent pressure, doesn't dampen out the main freq and actually let's me hit more often since the sound dies very quickly. I get very consistent results this way.

That's a good idea I'll have to try it. I was using my finger. I wonder how moon gel would work?
 
I picked one up today. I tuned my 12/14/16 toms using the recommendations for maximum sustain on the Tune-Bot calculator. My FTs are singing for days at the moment. I'm not excited about these settings for my 12" tom. I'm getting ready to tinker some more. Does anyone have a hertz recommendation for a 9x12 DW tom?
 
Thanks Gvd. I used those settings for 3 toms. The FTs were a winner but the 12" isn't doing it for me at the moment. I'm going to do some experimenting.

is ti ringing too much or not enough ?
 
Thanks Gvd. I used those settings for 3 toms. The FTs were a winner but the 12" isn't doing it for me at the moment. I'm going to do some experimenting.

Just a thought but you might try tuning it the way you did when you didn't have the tune bot. Then put the tune bot on and tweak it then write down those settings and I think you will be happy with that. I found that I was not off that far from what tune bot has. I just can get the lug tuning a lot closer than with out the tune bot. Right now I'm getting ready for recording.
 
should actually be a little higher

around 3rd octave C....around 225Hz

I might be a bit rusty with this especially not tuning my drums to specific notes, but 3rd octave C should put you close to 130 cycles. Where as 212 cycles should be getting you closer to a 3rd octave G#.

Dennis
 
I might be a bit rusty with this especially not tuning my drums to specific notes, but 3rd octave C should put you close to 130 cycles. Where as 212 cycles should be getting you closer to a 3rd octave G#.

Dennis

you are absolutely right
 
Am I missing something here? I just checked out the tune-bot tuning calculator. The results dictate a fundamental pitch for a size of drum. To assign a fundamental pitch based purely on drum size, you have to assume the shell's fundamental tone plays no part in the equation relating to sustain. In other words, you're just working off the heads in isolation/totally non resonating shells. This does not relate to many real world applications.
 
Am I missing something here? I just checked out the tune-bot tuning calculator. The results dictate a fundamental pitch for a size of drum. To assign a fundamental pitch based purely on drum size, you have to assume the shell's fundamental tone plays no part in the equation relating to sustain. In other words, you're just working off the heads in isolation/totally non resonating shells. This does not relate to many real world applications.

the tune bot bods use these as reccomended settings to get you close, not bang on.

For instance, the reccomended tuning for my 10" rack is C, 225 over 225 (lug pitches). If I go to this then the overall fundamental is a little flat of the note, so I adjust by tuning 226 over 227, which achieves the correct pitch for C (3rd octave).
 
After a couple of days of experimentation and getting familiar with the Tune-Bot, today I really tried to dial in the best sound "I" could get out of the toms I'm currently using.

I started with a 9x12, which for me is my most stubborn tom to tune. I detuned the drum and brought the heads up to where they just start to resonate. I increased the lug tension by 5 hertz intervals, top then bottom, evaluating the tone after each increase. Per the TB calculator, it recommends 212 hertz, for a 12" tom, at each lug for maximum sustain. I had already tried that and this just didn't work in my case. The drum was choked causing a short sustain and wonky overtones. I found what I believed to be the sweet spot and continued past it with the 5 hertz increases. Realizing the drum's tone wasn't getting any better, I worked my way back down. I ended up with 175/170 hertz for this drum. I had planned on tuning this drum with equal tension top and bottom for the greatest sustain. That 5 point spread, albeit very minimal, just sounded better to my ears. This is interesting because I believe the drums' manufacturer recommends a higher batter tension on this kit.

My 12x14 and 14x16 floor toms seem to have a wider tuning range (again to my ears) than the 12" tom and I've had a hard time deciding what sounds best, because they sound good at many options. For the moment I've settled on 152/147 on the 14" and 109/104 on the 16". I really like the way they are singing at the moment.

Now that I have my settings stored, getting back to this is almost like having a reset button on each drum.
 
What a nice freakin tool this thing is! I picked one up the other day at a Chicago GC and yesterday played with it a little but did not have time to really get comfy with it so today I had some time and I got very comfy and acquainted with it.

I will say that my Tama starclassic performers were tuned very well to begin with and this was confirmed by a couple other drummers with more experience than myself.

So today first thing I do once I figured this thing out is to just check my lug readings on all toms and I felt really pleased that all lugs were very close to each other in Hz. Next...I go to the TB website and go with the recommendations off the "high resonance" chart on my 10 and 12 rack toms, then my 14 and 16 floors and I must say I felt like my drums sounded real good before I used the TB and now not only do they sound better but I also have a better understanding about tuning and my ears know what to focus in on a little better.

I'm so happy with this tool and a few weeks ago I had no desire to buy it lol. Funny thing is the guy at GC tried talking me out of it and suggested I just use a cheap chromatic tuner and explained to me it would do the same thing the TB would do but for a lot less money but my curiousity based on what I was reading here on DW told me to ignore the sales guy and just buy it.

I think the numbers on the chart are 50% of what make this thing so quick to use. I did not save any numbers to slots because the chart numbers that I used worked so well for my starclassics but I'm sure my curiousity will have me experimenting eventually.

Again.....So happy I bought this, best $100.00 I've spent in a long time.
 
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