Drum dial or Tunebot?

My take precisely. Another important point: The timpani is the only drum with pure pitch. Your drumkit can't be tuned to a perfect A, C, or D. Drums have tone, not absolute pitch. I hear a lot of players talking about the pitch of their drums. That's a misuse of the term.
Actually, toms can produce a clear pitch, especially with clear heads. My floortom is definitely a G. My upper tom is a D. Easily confirmed by playing those notes on a piano. There are some overtones, like every instrument, but the fundamental pitch is clear.
 
Actually, toms can produce a clear pitch, especially with clear heads. My floortom is definitely a G. My upper tom is a D. Easily confirmed by playing those notes on a piano. There are some overtones, like every instrument, but the fundamental pitch is clear.

My 12" toms are a 2B, and my 14"/floor toms are a 2G.

Tunebot.png
 
No ... it is telling you where you are (80). It doesn’t know that you want to be at 85.
I still don't get it. It's as if you're saying seeing 80 is the kiss of death, you're caged in and can't possibly decide for yourself ...the drum is too low, I need to go higher! So what happens when you tap a head, hear the tone and say...hmmm, too low...BUT, since I don't have a gauge telling me anything, I'm free to crank the head down a bit more. Is that i?

Listen, we can get wrapped around the axle all day long. It comes down to this....at least for the idiot writing this. I can and have tuned by ear. I've followed the Gatzen methodology with good results, but I need a super quiet room and a ton of time to tune out unwanted overtones. Drum dial helped to some extent and still the tool I use if setting up for a gig where I need to check things in a noisy place. Haven't gigged for a year, so that hasn't been my go to tool.

At the moment, I'm mostly playing with L80s and Aquarian pads. When I get the opportunity, I rip those things off, get out the Tune Bot and spend maybe 10 minutes tops getting everything where it needs to be and play while I'm free to make noise. If I didn't have the tool, I'd either just put up with a detuned set of drums, or spend my available "noisy" time chasing down the right tuning.

Using the Tune Bot helped me to experiment and find the tuning I liked, then saved those settings, so I could get back very quickly. When I've changed head brands or plies, I've had to re-evaluate, then note the changes to save time. The tool really taught me how good my set could sound, so I fully realized their potential. That became my tuning baseline. Something I only guessed at before. If that makes me brain dead somehow, then so be it. I'd rather reach for the tool and save the time. I'll leave the drum tuning hero label to the ones who are way cooler than me. I'm okay with that.

To me, tuning tools are like anything else. I'm fully capable of making a killer margarita by crushing the ice by hand. I could be on my third one though in the same amount of time by using a blender. Same results, less time, more margaritas. That's a win! Same goes for toting luggage around. I see the cool guys muscling stuff around through airports too, I just prefer to do the same with wheels.
 
Cool. there's a bit of a learning curve the first time you use it. After that, you can spend way more time playing and far less reading this thread!

Agreed. Since I've been a little...bored lately I decided set up a bigger kit with more toms and I needed to dial in the tuning on all of them. Using the Tune Bot I was able to tune all seven toms quickly because I didn't need to go through the trial and error phase of figuring out intervals between that many drums.
 
It is simply a measurement tool, like a thermometer. It just measures where you are, but doesn’t assign a value judgement. You are left to decide if where you are is where you wanna be.
Isn’t that the same when doing it by ear?
 
Sure, but the thermometer analogy would be putting your hand on the forehead and saying "nope, not a fever." Both the same thing, but with a different level of precision.
It’s the point I was trying to make. Ears, drum dial and Tune Bot will all tell you where you are. With the tools, you still have to have a goal or end state. With tools, you can just get there faster and can establish a baseline, which helps remove guesswork.
I just don’t understand the hate for tools. No different than picking up a hammer to drive in a nail. Can do it with a rock too, but hammer is just more efficient. It’s always the same hammer, same handle, same weight. You know what it’ll do. With a rock, there are just constant variables and much more room for error.
They can all drive in the nail, but I rarely find folks pushing back on the idea of a hammer than we get with tuning tools.
 
I resisted getting a Tune Bot for a long time because I figured I really didn't need it. And I've discovered since getting one that I don't really need it, but it allows me to get what I want with a lot more precision.

But when I said it's "one more tool in the tool box" what may not be obvious is it can help you tune no matter what your experience level with tuning is. If you're just starting out, it allows you to get to a workable sound more quickly and with a lot less trial and error. But it also helps train your ear because the sound you're hearing while tuning is being reinforced by what the digital readout is showing you. So even using a Tune Bot you'll get better at tuning naturally anyway, especially since it might make you feel more comfortable trying to tune.

But if you already are experienced in tuning, it still helps because you can use the Tune Bot to double check your perceptions and stop second guessing yourself. I usually like to tune by ear as normal and then pop on the Tune Bot to get everything really fine tuned. I think what many anti-tuning helper folks miss is that the Tune Bot isn't replacing my skill or ear for tuning, and I use as much or as little of its guidance as I see fit.

It also helps you record and save tunings you like, and I think that is a option that becomes more valuable once you've tried it. Maybe not if you're a one up one down kind of a guy, but if you have multiple toms or multiple kits it's nice to not have to reinvent the wheel every time you come back to a particular set up. Plus, I know a lot of guys are terrified to re-tune or change heads because they're afraid they'll lose the "magic" tuning the drum currently has. A Tune Bot just takes a lot of the mystery out of tuning, which is not a bad thing.
 
Listen, we can get wrapped around the axle all day long. It comes down to this....at least for the idiot writing this. I can and have tuned by ear. I've followed the Gatzen methodology with good results, but I need a super quiet room and a ton of time to tune out unwanted overtones. Drum dial helped to some extent and still the tool I use if setting up for a gig where I need to check things in a noisy place. Haven't gigged for a year, so that hasn't been my go to tool.

THIS, it the only reason I ever started using the Tama Tension watch. It saved me time.

There is NO PLACE in my drumming world where I can get a quiet room for 2 hours to do it "the old way". All of my drum tuning happens in the band room at school. Even my personal set gets tuned there cause that is where it lives.

I use the TW to get the heads seated - so that I know that they are at an even tension point, and won't pull out of the counter hoop as I tighten them. After that, I do it the old "tune and tap way..or, I actually do a number of rotations system that I have developed and that I know works.

And the initial number is arbitrary. For the marching drums, my initial number on the Tension Watch is around 85...that is where the heads are wrinkle free, and have a nice sustain. In the summer that number is different than in the winter. But either way, once the head is seated, I can get it to where I want it from there. On my set, the number is more in the 50's cause the heads are way less tight.
 
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