How Do You Tune Your Drums?

:drummer: :wall:

 

You spout such nonsence I know you don't have any idea what you are talking about.

I personally reconditioned all the bearing edges on my drums and have done it for others.

I learned how to recondition and tune drums long before the internet.

 

I have a simple set: snare, high hat, bass, high tom, floor tom, ride, crash. Normally I tune it to what I consider a jazz tone: I start with the bottom heads of every drum and tune them up real high, then tune the top heads up until it sounds like a note and less like a thud. Sometimes I tune them lower for more rock/metal tone. On the recordings I'm working on now, I typically tune them roughly to notes that are in the key of each song, and sometimes do weird things like put blankets/shirts on them. I used like 3 moon gels on the snare for one song. When it comes to recording I think mic placement can make a big difference too.

 

Some people try really hard to convince others that they know everything about everything, and disrespect those that do know something.....Trump wannabes, go figure.

 

Musician wanna-be's, go play with your drum machines you don't have to worry about tuning them.

 

And some people call bullshit when they see it.

 

I actually practice/play with drum machines. Especially while learning Afro Cuban music. You can't get a metronome to play a clave.

C/S,
Rev J

 

1. No
2. I don't tune my drums to notes
3. yes, bottom heads
4. external dampers

Interesting huh?

 

I use programmed drum parts for practice too. Those Afro cubano poly-rhythms don't nessesarily groove well in metronomic time though. I like human time.

 

Well , it's just on my mind say a drum-machine is incapable of perfect rhythm
and secondly a good drum head can have 5 resonate pitches available at any
time . As a player , first I think and hear a resonance I desire and then strike
( even if it's just jazz inat the air ) . It's of what I learn playing with other drum-
mers . Most stringy-thing players I wish would go away - but not banjos who
are kin .

 

my ear drums?

Oh, they are tuned.........

 

Oh I know for a fact your ears are golden, Moon! ;-D

 

P : piano , softly

 

I hear you. For me it's just a port in the storm. Plus I can't fit a drum kit in my apartment and play at 11pm.

C/S,
Rev J

 

Gotcha. It is really handy to just call up some clave pattern or something and jam to it

Right now I'm trying to learn to play a decent simple samba on the drum kit, in the few hours a week I get a chance to play.
I wouldn't say I'm a good drummer or anything but playing Latin poly-rhythyms is hard!

 

As you've said....I wasn't talking to you so STFU.

 

I got a book with Afro Cuban grooves that also has drum patterns transcribed too. I step programmed the drum patterns and 4 types of clave (6/8, Son, Rhumba, and West African), I'll practice the patterns with the clave first to see how the patterns fit then with the drum part to hear how the bass line locks in with the drums and which part of the percussion the bass line locks in with. Sometimes it is the kick drum, sometimes it is a cymbal pattern, sometimes it's the cowbell.

C/S,
Rev J

 

Cool! Do you get to play with a live drummer that can play those rhythms?
I'm really getting into it, I even got me a cowbell the other day, and tuned up my little popcorn snare so the rimshot pings like a timbale!

Some of that west african stuff is real voodoo rhythms...

A friend of mine told a story, he was playing some west african thing on his conga in the park. Some black woman approached him, and with a thick Afro-carib accent said;
"Why are you summoning the devil?!" LOL

 

Like wize. I learned working as slave/roady for a band that had 2 drummers--one lives down the street currently--that was 78,79 &80 the band went on till 95 and contunued under anouther name until their last show in Chicago this summer.

I googled "tuneing drums after seeing so many diverse ideas about turning drums. I'm just trying to help from experience, not here to make others look like idiots.

 

Sorry, but when you say such rediculous things it hard not to laugh.

The shells on pro drums have the note printed in the shell? thats just silly

"Some drums have bottom bands--you can tell if it has keys for fighting and losing."
What does that even mean?

I don't want to get into it with you. Don't take it personally, I mostly write for the 'dear reader'. I just don't like seeing misinformation bandied about. If you did search drum tuning, and actually read through some of the articles I'm sure you would found that the most comprehensive confirm all of what I've said. I don't know how you got by as a drum tec and I really don't care. Bands and drummers have done a lot different things an gotten away with it, and there are pro bands that have crappy sounding drums too. Don't worry, the sound man will fix it!