Tuning

[kev]

You may wonder why I created this thread? In the interest of accessibility, I'm just going to provide a link to sources for tuning, as some haven't been able to find it.

Here

[nils]

You want to attend a tuning clinic? You want get into tuning deeply? You are from Germany? PM me.

nils

[kev]

You want to attend a tuning clinic? You want get into tuning deeply? You are from Germany? PM me.

nils

I wish I was in germany!

[nils]

I wish I was in germany!

Scatland is not that far away from here. Just take the ferry to Bremerhaven and come over here.
If the clinics really start off well here, then I might go to Britain some day.

[Frederik W]

Please come to Denmark! And bring your kit with you

[StrayedFromThePath]

Then come to Aus. Your Kit, would have to be one of my top 3 on the forum

[nils]

Thank you mates.

I'm really putting some effort in this tuning clinic thing, because the economy in Germany is not very prospering nowadays and I want to have an opportunity if I'd loose my job someday. Until then, I'll do the clinics as second job besides my first as system administrator.

I'm 36 now and have put much attention on how my drums should sound and how I can achieve this goal over the last 20+ years. My taste has changed, but it has always been important to me. After reading Prof.Sounds Drum Tuning Bible, many things I knew by experience became much clearer.
Then I added some theory about waves, oszillations and signal processing I learned during my time as student of electric engineering.
That's what I teach: a good theoretical fundament and then I show what it means. Afterwards the participants have the guided chance to experience tuning themselves.

Nils

[nils]

Anyone who likes physics

Hi mates,

there's something you might want to check out. It's a Java applet simulating an oscillating circular membrane in 3D and with sound. I found this while researching for the abstract of my tuning clinic. i was "Ohhh..." and "Ahhh..." when I first tried it.

Go here: http://www.falstad.com/circosc/directions.html and click on "Click here to get the applet" - wait a few seconds and then have fun with it.

There is also a downlodable version of this and other applets.

[Misterblues]

This is no wonder. You can't tune drums.

Steve

Sorry, not with changing the heads I mean. You 'tune' them when making the shells. Just to make that clear. Once this volume is defined (the inner volume of the shell) which at the end firstly remains defined thru a bottom head, the tune is in the drum (tom tom). The drum got a tone, and that is what you tune up on other, but music instruments.

And please not now with the big hole in bassdrum reso heads. This is what is wrong here. This one rhythm missing ruins all that you would be playing and not one was left.

Important is that the volume material, that is the volume of the drum if you want, is the right amount according to the volume which is defined. If you have much more than the tone gets it might be tone and sound are hard to distinguish. To little would hardly work? I never had this at least. This is the impression I have when I listen to what I play and is confirmed by considerations I did. It's matching up.

Thank you;

Steve

[nils]

@drummers in Germany: new clinic TUNING AND DRUMSOUND

Hi,

if you are interested, CLICK HERE

Nils

[nils]

Tuning for use of rods

Yes,
a special post for those who play small gigs where you need to use rods to be silent enough.

Some of you might have such a superb technique, that you can play everything with stix, regardless of the loudness that is bearable in that situation. But for those of us, who suck at playing silently (like me ), rods are good.

Now this is what I did with every tom:
- mounted single ply coated batter head
- tuned reso close to the sweet spot of the drum (fundamental note)
- went through the zones in small increments with the batter, frequently hitting it with a rod
- stopped at the point where the tone was best and most resonant

To my surprise this point is when the batter is slightly higher than the reso.

This is what I did with the snare:
- tuned reso close to lowest possible note
- mounted batter and tuned it low
- then went up with the batter tension and after every increment hit the drum with a rod
- stopped tightening batter when the sound became choked and loosened the batter a bit to gain back sensivity
- tightened reso up to the point I got a satisfying tone
- went through the zones by adjusting strainer after every incrementation of reso tension to find best tension

Well, the result is a rather sensitive drum, playable with rods. The sound is OK, but a bit too washy IMO if you compare it with my ususal snaresound. But at least it has a nice ring and some tone when played with rods.

I don't know if this can be done with better results. I'll give it another shot with different heads.

Nils

[kev]

Thanks nils, great post!

[nils]

Finding the fundamental note of a drum

If you want to know something about this issue, go HERE

Nils

[twjohn16]

hey nils, man your sound sample of just the drums is awesome. is that the kit your using now and if so what kind of heads you using because that is pretty much the sound I'm wanting to achieve. thanks, and very nice setup and groove.

[nils]

Thank you!

I wrote everything about that recording in this thread:
My BRX/BLX-Sound

The head combos are explained HERE

nils