Drum Tuning!

My drummer and I have been looking online for the answer! It seems there are several different approaches. Does anyone out there have a tried and tested method. The drums are used for metal.

If you are recording mic the drums then change the tom hits to samples, this is what most metal recordings are. You end up with easily controlled drum hits.

And how do i do this? How do you trigger the samples? I dont know midi for the life of me, and am staying away from it so my computer lives! Ah yes the drum dial! I was eyeballin one of those a few weekes ago!

What type (brand) drums does your drummer play?

5pc Pearl export, Evans hydraulic skins on toms, Remo coated emperor on snare, not sure what his kik skin is! They are primarily for jamming but we do record some of our jams! Thanx for yer help!

Check out Drumagog

Will do! Thanx!

ORIGINAL: yep

http://www.stack.nl/~erwint/multi/drums.html

Cheers.

This is essentially how we were taught at the big recording school. I like it because it makes you use your ears, not your eyes. Drum dials may be a great aid in a noisy environment, as is a guitar tuner, but why bother if you are in a noise free zone like a studio?

There are three different aspects to tuning drums:

1. Getting the heads into shape so they're evenly stretched and at the right tension for the player to play on. This is the first step and is pretty straightforward.

2. Getting the drums to have the right sound "character." Tubby or snappy or hollow or boomy or tight are words that might be used to describe what you're looking for. This is step two, and is simply a matter of personal preference and taste.

3. Adjusting the pitch of the drum to better suit the song. This is the hardest part for a lot of new engineers to get their head around, but it's really not that tough-- drums have pitch. In fact, they have a lot of different pitches going on, usually for a very short duration. All those complex waveforms add up to something that sounds sort of like an atonal sound, but it's not, really. It's more like a really complex chord. "Tuning" a kickdrum to play, say B sharp is not really necessary or even doable, but chances are good that tuning the front head a little tighter or looser WILL change the way that the kick sound sits with the bass. If the kick drum is not tuned to the song, the bass may sound sort of out of tune or tubby or or honky. Tuning the snare a little tighter or looser may create or eliminate "ringing" or annoying elements that conflict with the guitars. If the drums are not "sitting in the mix" quite right, tuning them might save a lot of eq and compression headaches later in the game.

Again, this is not about trying to "tune" the drums to particular notes, it's about getting them to sit in well with the other instruments. The best way to do this is to have the bass player play the part and try tuning the bottom head of the snare/toms or the front head of the kick by loosening or tightening every lug a quarter-turn, and listen for the changes. After a little practice, you get a feel for it and it starts to become obvious when the drums need tweaking. Do this AFTER the drummer has gotten their drums tuned up to "sound right."

There are rare obsessive-compulsive drummers and engineers who obsessively try and "tune" the toms, to say, a triad, and tune the kick and the snare to the root and fifth of the song key, but that's not usually necessary or even possible, unless you're recording timpani or whatever.

Cheers.

Thanx alot guys! This forum has been a God send! Tons of info

These links are really helpful.Thanks for it.

Hi James, It looks like this tread dates back to 2005.

But, I thought I would add to it anyways ...

Drum head choice is really the drummer’s preference.  There are 3 main brands, Remo, Evans and Aquarian and there is a boatload of choices amongst each manufacture.  In addition to the musical aspect of your drum head choice, economics may play a role.  You can easily spend in excess of a hundred bucks just to put new heads on one bass drum.

The choice of drum head can accentuate certain qualities of the drum which certainly plays a role in optimizing the sound of the drum for a particular genre (i.e., a jazz cat will most likely be playing different heads than a speed metal freak).

Some of the differences between the heads include the number of plies of plastic, coating on the plastic, “rings” to control overtones, “dots” to reinforce the striking point and also to add mass and control overtones and holes of various sizes and in different positions.

Calf skin heads are great in certain situations.  I once head an interview with Ringo in which he said that his early recording were done with a calf skin head on his snare … Prior to Paul breaking it.

When installing a head there are a couple of different methods … This is what I do for plastic heads only (calf skin require a different technique):

(1) Place the head on the bearing edge and then spin it once or twice (like a steering wheel).
(2) Start to gently tighten the head using a crisscrossing pattern.  For example, loosely tighten one threaded rod and the do the same to the rod directly across from it and not the one next to it.
(3) Continue this crisscrossing pattern until the head is very tight (tighter than you would play).  While you are doing this you will hear the glue cracking.
(4) When the head is nice and tight, I take the palm of my hand and with the drum on the ground, I push down on the head with a fair amount of force … at this point you should not hear any more glue cracking.
(5) Start backing the threaded rods out using the crisscrossing pattern to get the drum roughly to the desired tone.  When you are close, start fine tuning.
(6) To fine tune, turn the threaded rods only slightly while tapping the drum with a drum stick close to that rod near the edge.  The goal is to get the same tone around the entire head at each tuning point.