Tuning Percussion

gowans · Post by **gowans** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 1:05 am

I remember seeing a video on youtube of Florian Meindl (I think it was him) doing a track, anyway he had a little vst running beside his tracks that was some kind of chromatic tuner, could anyone point me in the direction of that very one? I searched for some free ones on google, downloaded it and it doesn't work.

I think it would be handy to help me to find out what note my kicks and other percs are running along as I've never really thought about tuning percussion, until I read a few threads over at deephousepage talking about it.

Thanks.

Atheory · Post by **Atheory** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 2:16 am

gtune is free, it is for guitars but it works. maybe not so much for lower sounds.

if you use ableton there is a spectral analysis plugin that would be better for tuning percussion imo. it also tells you what note each frequency is around too.

gowans · Post by **gowans** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 2:34 am

thanks for that i didnt realize that when you used the spectral analyser you can hover over a spike and it tells your what the note was too, am I right in thinking that the largest spike will be the note the sample is?

oblioblioblio · Post by **oblioblioblio** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 3:10 am

looking at waveforms is never really a bad thing.

and tuning percussion is also very much worth experimenting with.

hydrogen · Post by **hydrogen** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 5:03 am

gowans wrote:thanks for that i didnt realize that when you used the spectral analyser you can hover over a spike and it tells your what the note was too, am I right in thinking that the largest spike will be the note the sample is?

+1 thanks...

Gowans... i think this might be true for harmonic instruments... like Sinewaves and stuff... but its difficult with sounds that contain spectral noise... like a snare.

tone-def · Post by **tone-def** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 4:24 pm

i don't like tuning everything. i tune some stuff with a tuner and tune by ear as well. if it sound good it's right.

Phase Ghost · Post by **Phase Ghost** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 5:36 am

I always tune by ear. Although, using a tuner would be interesting to experiment with.

upekah · Post by **upekah** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 10:52 am

I just do that by ear for now.. I'm not a well trained musician (just learned to play the clarinet some years ago) but at the moment I just tune till it sounds "good" to my ear.. but couldn't really hear the exact difference between notes by ear..