Tuning Drums

hydrogen · Post by **hydrogen** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 10:45 pm

Anybody have any good suggestions for tuning drums?

I tend to try and put most of my drums in the same key, or at least I think I am.

there has to be some sort of good technique for this.

Zoiberg · Post by **Zoiberg** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 2:47 am

just use your ears

Android · Post by **Android** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 4:39 am

bring your tuning key

joking aside

yes mix in a similar key / scale

experiment
listen to different styles and see how they tune

I don't layer much in techno, and only occasionally when writing dnb and hip hop...

thom · Post by **thom** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:11 am

Get that: http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1670.html (freeware)

With a filterbank such as this one you'll be able to pull a fundamental frequency out of anything you feed it... albeit not without altering the timbre completely (that said, a very bassy, sine-wavey kick you'll feed in there will lose much of it's punch and roundness because of some phase cancellation from the new harmonic generated by the filter). A comb filter will also do something to give percs a pitch, a melodic function, so to speak.

Zoiberg wrote:just use your ears

Yeah... ultimately. Don't aim at some inaudible technical, theoric perfection...

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:13 pm

Zoiberg wrote:just use your ears

good advice !
i dont even think in terms of drums, i just work with waveforms, envelopes, frequencies etc. i dont really understand why we need to relate our sounds, textures, percussive elements etc. to real world instruments. electronic music shoudn't be limited like that.
i find working in keys limiting to, especially the western scale, try listening to tabla players, or other ethnic percussion styles like the kodo drummers of japan for inspiration. the scales they use are so much more interesting.
try using harmonics for your high percussion, with the kick drum as the fundamental, but always make the final decisions with your ears !

Zoiberg · Post by **Zoiberg** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:50 pm

steevio wrote:i find working in keys limiting to, especially the western scale, try listening to tabla players, or other ethnic percussion styles like the kodo drummers of japan for inspiration. the scales they use are so much more interesting.

True!! I'd like to see some innovative midi controllers, I'm quite bored with common keyboards

532nm · Post by **532nm** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 3:08 pm

Zoiberg wrote: True!! I'd like to see some innovative midi controllers, I'm quite bored with common keyboards

right! i thought about a metric scale,(no black keys) where every tenth note is an octave. i'm still not sure about the tuning of the notes in between. i suppose i should make them all 1/10th of an octave, that might have some intresting effect.

oblioblioblio · Post by **oblioblioblio** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 3:37 pm

i kind of like having the western scale on my keys when playing with alternate scales, it reminds of what I'm trying to avoid... a situation where I don't need to think about what I'm doing because I'm relying on the familiarity of learned responses. i.e. it forces me to think on my feet a bit more.