Larry
"Uncle Larry"
You have to get past that nervous feeling. Just keep going till you hit 400 and you'll know see for yourself how much tension they can take. The 3 mil snare side film stretches quite a bit.
Drum dial or Tunebot?
- Thread starter Stuflyer
- Start date
You have to get past that nervous feeling. Just keep going till you hit 400 and you'll know see for yourself how much tension they can take. The 3 mil snare side film stretches quite a bit.
Oh boy, OK. How can I not trust the advice of Uncle L. It would be nice to get my snare to my intended tuning target as I do for the toms. I'll report back.
dboomer
Senior Member
So are you thinking the overwhelming number of tunebots are defective?
Look, you can define a tuned drum any way you want. And a quality measurement machine can get you back exactly there every time better than human ears can.
bud7h4
Silver Member
I don't tune to notes per se. But it's good to know what the notes are once you get the tuning you like, so that you know exactly what to tune that drum to every time. I don't particularly care what each tom note is, but I do like certain intervals between toms. Knowing those notes sure makes the process shorter.
I use Tune-Bot, but no matter what it reads, I still listen for that wavy modulation in the note when it's out of tune, and try to flatten that out.
C.M. Jones
Diamond Member
I'm not trying to crucify the tunebot. I know quite a few drummers who swear by automated tuning tools, and I have no reason to derogate their preference for such devices. I'm merely positing the following fact: Machines, like people, can be prone to error, and when machines break down, they don't repair themselves. Using a machine as a tuning guide is just fine. Not being able to function without one is another matter entirely, especially when you need to tune a drum on the fly .I just don't want to see an entire generation of drummers tell themselves that they needn't learn the complexities of tuning because they can rely upon a mechanism to do it for them.
When I was in high school, I was hired by Promark (in Houston, TX) to work as a tuner on a line of anniversary-edition snare drums they were producing. Herb Brochstein, the lone owner of Promark at the time, put five of us in the factory and had us tune each drum by hand using nothing but simple, classic drum keys. We tuned snare drums all day long (all summer long), and we compared our results side by side, as Mr. Brochstein wanted the drums ready to play right out of the box and also demanded consistent tuning across the line. He would walk in randomly to inspect quality control, and the man new his stuff like no one I've ever met. That's how I learned to tune. That's the method I trust the most.
C.M. Jones
Diamond Member
I don't lay claim to possessing the capacity to perform a given action any better or worse than a device or an automated program. You're presupposing that my goal is to replicate the precise rod tension on one day -- without the slightest hint of almost imperceptible variation -- that I achieved the day before. I've never had practical cause to apply that expectation in thirty-six years of playing, neither in performances or studio sessions. Moreover, about 99 percent of all listeners wouldn't know the difference either way. Tuning a drum, which I will state again is not a melodic instrument and has a rather loose association with pure pitch, to the same tension in every single instance is an academic proposition with minimal real-world purpose. There may be drummers out there who are obsessed with it. I'm not one of them.
yammyfan
Senior Member
That's the thing with the Tune-Bot: it doesn't do anything but take the guesswork out of determining the pitch of tuning lugs, drum heads and individual drums. It's up to the drummer to seat the heads, tension the lugs evenly, decide on the amount of desired resonance and so on and so forth. How you arrive at the fundamental note of each drum and the intervals between them is entirely up to you.
C.M. Jones
Diamond Member
I get that. I'm not trying to persuade anyone to abandon the use of a given device. I'm just never going to acquire one.
I see no measurable benefit to attempting to tune a drum to a given "fundamental note." Here's what Buddy Rich stated in an interview in Modern Drummer when asked about his tuning practices:
"I don't tune them, I tension them. There's a great difference. If you tune a drum, that means you're looking for a note. If you try to tune to any given note, as soon as the audience comes in, or the weather changes, or it gets hotter or colder or damp, the heads go down. They can't be tuned. You can only tension them."
And no, Mr. Rich wasn't referring to calfskin heads. At the time of this interview, he had been using modern Remo Ambassadors and Diplomats for quite some time. I largely agree with his stance. Environmental factors aside, after you strike a drum for a given interval, the nano-tuning required to achieve a given note will be altered. Furthermore, even if you maintain that precise tension, overtones will corrupt any sounds that can be legitimately called notes. Drums, save perhaps the timpani, aren't designed to convey notes; they're designed to convey tone and percussive noise. I tension my drums for tone and percussive noise. I don't need every single rod to meet the approval of an automated program. I don't need the assistance of a machine to manage a set of drums.
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C.M. Jones
Diamond Member
My central point is this: I have no ambition, under any circumstances, to repeat an "exact" tuning. Being within a tonal range (high or low) is more than sufficient for me. We aren't dealing with a guitar, piano, or violin. We're talking about a cylindrical wooden formation over which a piece of plastic is held in place with the assistance of metal rods. It's rhythmic, not melodic. You cannot tune a drum to a perfect D sharp or B minor. Its anatomy defies that very principle. Even if you could, after you pounded it for ten minutes, it wouldn't stay in exact tune long enough to matter. The whole pursuit, as Buddy Rich professes, is an utter waste of effort.
AudioWonderland
Silver Member
Like many things, Buddy was wrong on this point. By his argument, the guitar player simply tensions the strings. Its nonsense. Guitars go out of tune with temperature changes too. The difference is they bother to retune their instrument. Whether its to a specific pitch or not, its done to achieve a specific result. Either way, its tuning
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Stroman
Diamond Member
Citing Buddy Rich on drum tuning isn't the way to state your case, IMO. As much as I enjoy his talent, sometimes his drums sounded horrible. Again, my opinion. He could play so well the drum sound was secondary, but the sound itself? Sometimes not so good. I saw his big band from the second row, and let's just say the sound of the drums was not what I'd want to hear from my kit.
That said, I understand what you're saying. For your needs, the tunebot is unnecessary. That's great, but if a drummer feels differently about tuning and the value of repeatability than you do, a tunebot seems a great option. (I know you aren't arguing against that point, BTW)
Winston_Wolf
Platinum Member
I've read that Buddy quote many times and I've heard it paraphrased many more.
The thing is, drums make a note. Just because a drummer can't be bothered to learn what that note is and (more importantly) why sometimes drums sound good and sometimes sound bad doesn't change the fact they're making a note. But hearing pitches and learning those pitch relationships takes time, and can take longer if one can't be bothered to really listen to what their ears are telling them. I do 95% of my tuning by ear the old fashioned way but that last 5% I use a Tune Bot.
Most of the time I use the Tune Bot it isn't in the initial tuning phase, but once I've tuned by ear and I want to know what I've got. Repeatability isn't a bad thing when you've finally found a tuning that sounds great. But sometimes when I feel like something new I'll pull up some Tune Bot settings and give them a whirl. As far as I'm concerned any tuning helper is just another tool in the toolbox, and anything that streamlines the "whack and fiddle" portion of drum tuning is a plus for me.
The thing is, drums make a note. Just because a drummer can't be bothered to learn what that note is and (more importantly) why sometimes drums sound good and sometimes sound bad doesn't change the fact they're making a note. But hearing pitches and learning those pitch relationships takes time, and can take longer if one can't be bothered to really listen to what their ears are telling them. I do 95% of my tuning by ear the old fashioned way but that last 5% I use a Tune Bot.
Most of the time I use the Tune Bot it isn't in the initial tuning phase, but once I've tuned by ear and I want to know what I've got. Repeatability isn't a bad thing when you've finally found a tuning that sounds great. But sometimes when I feel like something new I'll pull up some Tune Bot settings and give them a whirl. As far as I'm concerned any tuning helper is just another tool in the toolbox, and anything that streamlines the "whack and fiddle" portion of drum tuning is a plus for me.
C.M. Jones
Diamond Member
You're right; I don't need to cite Buddy Rich, as your account helps solidify my point. We can state quite objectively that a guitar or a piano is out of tune, as specific criteria apply to the melodic parameters of those instruments. We cannot, on the contrary, label a drum out of tune, for strict guidelines do not govern the sounds projected by drums. When you declare that Mr. Rich's drums "sound horrible," you express merely that the sonic qualities of his kit at a given time -- the night on which you heard him play -- depart from your personal tastes. It's impossible, however, with any grounds in logic, to assert that his drums are "out of tune." In reference to drums, that description has no grounds. Disliking the sound of a drum doesn't mean the drum is out of tune. It means merely that you disapprove of its character.
I'm not a Buddy Rich fan. I don't even play jazz. But I believe Mr. Rich makes an irrefutable point on the misguided notion of "tuning" drums. Through adjustments to head tension, we can get a drum into a higher or lower range of sounds. That range is percussively broad, not melodically focused, and it's riddled with overtones. The overtones are necessary. They make drums wild rather than refined. Drums are supposed to have untamed identities. We play a primitive instrument, not a cello or a French Horn.
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C.M. Jones
Diamond Member
When a vocalist, guitarist, pianist, and drummer gather to make music, the first three participants must adhere to the dictates of pitch, key, melody, and so on. Otherwise, the result will be horrifying. For a drummer to serve as a competent accompaniment to this ensemble, he needn't "tune," if we must use this term, his drumkit to any particular pitch, key, or melody. His job it to keep time. He can just as efficiently do that by playing a table top, which cannot be "tuned" at all. A drum kit should not, I agree, sound like a carelessly tensioned hodgepodge of incompatible parts, but claiming that it projects "notes" or "pitch" in the way a voice, guitar, or piano does is erroneous.
Please explain to John Goode that he is a moron for stamping shell pitches inside of his drums. Apparently he doesn't know anything about drums at all. Let him know, it will save the rest of us any headaches.
Rock Salad
Silver Member
I agree, which is why i like the Bot. If it made a true note, I could easily just tune it by ear.
I first learned from the Bob Gatzen VHS, and he did a really similar thing. He would vocalize the pertinent tone as he was tensioning the lugs. So one could discern, out of all the tones, which was the relevant/dominant one.
Tune-Bot is your own personal Bob G.
C.M. Jones
Diamond Member
Look, folks are free to do whatever they want to their drums, as well as to approach both theory and technique in the manner of their choosing. Tune-bot to your heart's content if doing so you grants you a sense of security. Hell, take daily showers with the thing to measure water pressure if you wish. To each his own, and goodwill toward men. Let freedom ring.
It just seems to me that a lot of drummers would rather be guitarists. I'm not among them.