The sound I'm talking about is what I think is a timpani that  is being tuned upward in real time somehow.
In real life there are two ways I can think of that might have worked, one would be to hit the skin and adjust the tuning pegs on the side of the drum at the same time.
The other would be raise the pitch by hitting the skin and pressing down on the skin with another stick at the same time.
Either way I would love to know how to create the effect in a drum vst but so far my attempts have failed.

I tried using a tuning envelope in BFD2 but the tuning doesn't seem to effect the pitch once the skin has been been hit which I guess makes sense so I'm thinking it probably can't be done that way.
I tried using the frequency shift effect in BFD2 but it changes the whole tone and resonance and sounds too artificial.

Anyway, the sound I'm trying to recreate is in this classic Tiny Tim track at 0.52.

Anyone who's seen old tom & jerry cartoons or carry on films or any bawdy slapstick comedies of the 60's and 70's should recognise it as soon as they hear it 


Here's the song  Tiny Tim - Living In The Sunlight


Steve

A tuned Timpani typically has a pedal underneath than can be operated in a continuous manner and the tuning changes in a smooth manner. Timps are pitched at concert notes and hence the pedal is used to change their fundamental notes. There is also some sort of indicator on the top of the timp to tell you what the notes actually are.    

A sampler could do it by applying a pitch bend right at the start of a tympani hit note and bend upwards. You must be able to do that with a VST as well.

I believe it's called a pedal glissando. Aside from the tuning pegs around the side, there is also a foot pedal which tunes on the fly.
Bibs

That's interesting about the pedal, I think I have seen them a long time ago.
I think it would be really hard to recreate and make it sound natural using a pitch bend but I might give it a try.
I don't have any songs that are crying out for it but it was just something I wondered whether or not could be done easily
that I could experiment with.

Technically BFD2 is a sample player but I'm not sure if it can manipulate the audio in that way since it's triggered by midi.
As I said, using pitch bend envelope in sonar doesn't alter the pitch of the note after it's been hit which makes sense.
I might have to bounce the hit to a wav file and maybe try a pitch bend in sonar.

Steve

Steve, you can approximate this using Dim Pro.

Load up the Timpani from the Garritan Orchestra, set the bend up/down range how you want it in thr Dim Pro GUI and bend away!

Yeah, I'd definitely try another synth with a timpani sound over BFD. I don't think I've ever seen mention of being able to pitch bend drum samples in BFD. That said unless the timpani patch you are using was specifically programmed for such a pedal effect (it is a timpani pedal... I knew a guy who had one) then I don't think it will sound exactly like that. As the skin stretches the different vibrations across the skin give different overtones. You might be able some of those overtones by creating an intricate mod wheel program in the synth you end up using but that's far beyond my capacity. Also... hi, twaddle. ;-)

derp... didn't fully read Jonesey's post. If the GPO is programmed for it then that's pretty cool.

Good stuff Jonesy, beepster and everyone.

I have managed to do it in DP as jonesy suggested. It does sound like a timpani but I would so much prefer to be able to use 
the BFD2 timpany as it's so much fatter and more resonant but hey ho, beggars can't be choosers.
I'm submitting  it as a feature request for the BFD3   

That's what I want.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC3WAh0dqB8


Steve

hmm... Seeing as how BFD uses samples is there a way maybe you could try accessing the sample and loading it into Dim Pro or another sampler/synth? Not sure if those files are proprietary or if it would give the desired effect but could be an interesting experiment. Or maybe bouncing a couple hits of the BFD timpani to audio and turning it into a DimPro compatible sample (are they called REX files?). Probably too much work for possibly little to no reward but it got me thinking about it. Cheers.

Oh and if you can automate the tuning knob within BFD that might get you close. Not sure if that's possible though.