Finding the fundamental note of a drum and tuning the heads to that sounds like a good idea but it would've been useful to actually hear the drum being played through the mics before and after tuning.
I’ve never turn lugs anecdotally in my life. I don’t even know what that means. I think he means arbitrarily. But, I usually tune my drums allegorically.
@@JerridFoiles an anecdote is a story, usually used to illustrate or prove a point, but is not really evidence of a truth, but simply the way something happened one time. Arbitrarily means randomly or without cause. Allegory is a literary term used to mean metaphorical stories (such as pilgrims progress). I was just being sarcastic and irritating with my comment. But I liked it. Never tried to find the pitch of my drum shell. Good content.
@@thomasfoster4091 I gotcha. The comments have been a mixed bag, so I wasn’t able to pick up the sarcasm. Glad you enjoyed it. Hope you don’t turn your lugs erotically… or keep doing that. Who am I to judge?😜
Learned something new from this video. I've long used 'shell tapping' as a baseline for tuning drums: tap the shell lightly with a drumstick then tune both heads roughly to the same pitch as the shell itself as a starting point. This I've used for wood shell snare drums and toms and metal shell snare drums. However using an electronic tuner or a tuning app on a computer to give a more accurate pitch value is a great idea. Putting a cymbal felt on the drumstick makes sense too thereby eliminating the sound of the stick itself. Recently used a Drumdial to tune up two pipe band snare drums to get them consistent with each other (consistency counts in drum corps drums) and I got compliments from the band on how good the drums sounded. I wrote the Drumdial reading on the heads to keep as a reference point.
Shell tapping has always made the most sense to me. And yea. You use the DrumDial to basically tell the players “this is where you should set your tension.” I wish I could take credit for the cymbal felt on a stick, but always happy to share the hack.
I've been using the D.D. for years now and have watched numerous videos on how to tune your drums with it. Thought I was using it properly but never really achieving that drum sound that I so much wanted, until today. Thanks for explaining it in a way that I, and I'm sure many others, have a better understanding of how to utilize the D.D. My Tama's have never sounded better.
I didn’t know that Steve Fischer is president of DrumDial, and my name is Steve. So when he said “that means you too, Steve” at beginning of video, I got scared and thought he knew I was watching. 😂
Thanks for a great video! Very useful information and a new spin on how to use a Drum Dial. On the subject of Steve, I recently sent both my Drum Dials (one original that I have owned forever, and a recently-purchased digital model) in for calibration because they weren’t giving the same values when placed at the same spot on the same drum. Steve was a pleasure to talk with on the phone and had me fixed up in no time with a warranted adjustment to the digital unit. I am totally happy with both of my DDs, and my experience with Steve and his Customer Service was top notch. I personally, have always used the chart provided with the DD as a rough guide or starting point when tuning my drums. Those numbers get me close, but I always experiment with each different kit and whatever heads I am using at the time and eventually find the sweet spot for each drum. As shown in this video, there are different ways to use a DD. It is a tool, and there are always different ways to use any tool. Thanks again for the great video.
Thank you. Contrary to what may seem like a popular belief, I am not intending to start a beef or talk bad about Steve, just that this is an approach he himself has never considered. I'm sure he is a nice guy.
Cool video! I learned a lot! I have a birch star classic and a few of my lugs are weirdly sensitive and irregular compared to the group- making a significant impact on neighboring pressure points when tuning.
I use a digital Drum Dial on my Ludwig kit and on the various Timpani we use in the Community Orchestra I play in. It's a good tool for helping to clear the heads (assuming they are mounted correctly), and then I use my ears to fine tune. The Cleartune app on an iPhone is very useful as well. Thanks for your suggestions.
Was wondering if I took the heads off a drum and used the tune--bot then tap the shell would that give the drums timbre note? Any thoughts on this? I don't want to go through the expense of a computer and a program of a tuner, I'm pretty sure not all people can afford that.
Excellent! I've been wondering how to find the note of a shell. I can't wait to tune up my kit this way. I have a Tune Bot, so I hope that will tell me the shell note. Thank you for the amazing information that I have been wondering about for several years now! Have a wonderful day!
One of the only other people I've seen do this. I'm in the middle of tuning my Starcalssic Maples with my drum dial, and the first thing I did was pull the heads, and find the note. I Instead opted to hold the shell on a fingertip or two, and play notes on the piano until i felt the shell resonate due to sympathetic resonance. It NEVER occurred to me to strike the shell and listen for the note. I'm tearing down a rack tom tomorrow to start on it, so I'll give this a whirl. Thanks for the HAck!
What kind of interval did you end up with on your toms? Seems like this method is basing the tuning on a random occurrence of what note the shell happens to produce rather than logical intervals.
Well, you're right that in the case of many manufacturers the shell timbre might be random, but as mentioned with DW, it's more intentional. But, what you call "logical" really is just preference. I have 7 toms (Soon to be 8) and my 8x8 is an octave higher than my 11x13 (the tom in the video). so if 3rd intervals work for you, great, but only one of us deals with undertones...
To determine the fundamental pitch, you need to tap the interior of the shell. The actual wood from the shell. I would recommend using your normal sticks as that is your fundamental tone. Not something that mutes overtones and will have a different attack. Let the shell resonate fully. It won't harm anything. Don't hit the shell hard and only do it long enough to determine what the tonic is. If it's an issue, then just knock on the middle part of the interior with your knuckles. That should yield similar results. Striking the drum wrap exterior with the lugs installed and with a homemade mallet (the cymbal felt is a great idea!) is not the fundamental pitch. You could also check the exterior shell's pitch , but just for reference. Either way, I have never found the fundamental pitch to be the best metric for tuning drums. It doesn't translate to the drumset. The pitch you get from the shell is without any tension on the head. Plus people do not know how to tune and just rely on drum dampeners and gunk and claim they have good tone. All that other stuff about grain and the cut is just marketing BS from DW from the 90's when they first came on the scene. This is similar to the guitar tone wood debate, which I am not interested in arguing.
First of all, the mallet really doesn’t hinder as much as you might think. Secondly, it’s been proven by other content creators that when you add lugs and wraps to the drum, the fundamental pitch starts to change that being the only flaw in John Good’s approach. if you feel comfortable using a regular stick on the shell, be my guest, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
You know how most tuners like tune bot give you two readings(HZ) in the middle and on the lugs. So for example if Im reading 100HZ in the middle, if I check each lug individually they end up being higher, like 170HZ or something. So Im abit confused, with drum dial does it just give you the one reading? Because I noticed you said in the middle it was 73HZ, but then you said you were gunna dial in each lug to 73HZ. So shouldnt it give you different/higher readings on the lugs vs the middle?
The Drum Dial doesn't work like a Tunebot. That 73 isn't hz, it's tympanic pressure. Use the Tunebot to get the same tone at each lug, and if you have a Drum Dial, place it on the middle of a head to get that overall tympanic reading.
@@JerridFoiles well, Im not really a drummer. Just a sound engineer trying to get some better understanding of what are good drum tunings, because it seems that knowledge might be helpful for me as well. But its kinda difficult to judge without hearing it. And I don't have access to drums to just try it out myself. Other than that, it does make sense what you showed.
@@rist98 I’m glad you see the logic. The idea of this approach eliminates that annoying “undertones” drummers complain about. It happens when the head(s) make a different note than the shell.
Thanks for this really helpful video, I appreciate it. I agree with matching the pitch of the heads to the shell, and what I am curious about is, what if the pitches of the entire drum set don't work or make sense together? If each individual drum sounds awesome because it is in tune with itself but that ultimately creates a dissonant sounding kit, what is the best solution? Thanks Jerrid. Again, I enjoyed learning from you.
Thanks for the question. I’m assuming you’re referring to the approach of tuning your drums to 3rd, 4th, or 5th intervals. I see this approach as fundamentally flawed. A good drum manufacturer would design the drums to intentionally make a chord or key scale. So this approach allows that to happen. Maybe your kit is in the key of D, maybe F#, etc.
@@JerridFoiles OK, I got it. Not sure about my drums... I haven't determined their shell pitches yet, thank YOU for making me aware of doing this!. They are almost 40 year old Tama Swingstars, so I won't be surprised if they are not at all arranged in nice sounding notes, LOL! And thanks for your really fast response.
Yes, this does apply to kick & snare. Like I said in the video, bronze will create a note. It just might be hard to get that perfect chromatic note. Just get as close as you can. This will eliminate undertones.
Something you forgot to mention is type/thickness of heads. I notice you use different heads on the top and bottom. If you are not using the same type head the DD is going to give you a different number for the same pitch because the head thickness will drastically change the tension reading.
That is correct. That’s why I suggest that you use the drum dial this way. I forgot to film myself getting the number for my batter head, but I believe it was coincidentally the same.
That’s cool I remember once upon a time they didn’t have spacers and that was the tension watches major flaw back then. Do you have an updated version?
@JerridFoiles yes I have a few and once I got my target numbers set for the different styles that I played I never had any problems . . Always got compliments on my sound
I sometimes tune using this method when time permits. What I have found is that the shell fundamental shifts a bit with changes in humidity, temperature, and.... the type of head and tension it is under. Just an observation.
What you’re missing is a bigger picture to doing it like this. Think of you shells pitch and both heads being at a tuning sounding out a chord rather than a singular note.
A Surface Tensiometer….I own one…wanna but it? Tuning shouldn’t be a root canal and neither rocket science. Actually, Buddy Rich called it “ TENSIONING.” Buddy said to tension top to feel and “tune” from rezo side. You will know when it starts to sing. That being said, finger tighten, tap to balance, screw gun bit to torque tension one, star pattern, bring it up to desired pitch a click at a time. Set Resonant head a couple of clicks higher. Tweak pitch with a piano or TuneBot. Good video all the same.
OK, so what pitch are you targeting? The point of my video is I give you a reference pitch to match. Maybe there should be a little science to it instead of just "when it's tight enough..."
I think you owe Steve an apology. First of all, the pitch of the shell could be a small factor in the overall sound, but tuning the heads to match the shell is pointless. The relative pitch of a tuned drum is decided by a combination of head pitches. A drum with a 3rd octave G over A# will produce a 2nd octave A, NO MATTER WHAT THE PITCH OF THE SHELL IS. If you tune your heads to D# over D#, the resulting relative pitch is not going to be a D#. You would need to tune the heads to a C to end up with a D#. You may actually be creating dissonance by tuning your way. Since the tuned drums were never played, we don’t know the results. But the individual head that we did hear did not sound exceptionally good.
I owe Steve an apology? if you read the comments, some people have actually purchased the Drum Dial BECAUSE of this video. And what kind of nonsense are you spouting about a C becoming a D#? It's clear you know nothing about music theory. Thank you for your comment tho. Engagement helps my video's further visibility.
Thank god John Good isn't a violin builder. Imagine him trying to tell people: "This is the pitch of the violin corpus if you tap it. Tune every string to that note." FACEPALM
@@JerridFoiles well, they're tunable acoustic instrumenta. Also, 'Sounds like a drum' has already proven, that if you put tension on your heads, the tapping pitch of the shell raises from the pressure, so it's an impossible chase to match up the drumhead's pitch with the shell's untentioned pitch.
Yea, I saw that video and 'Sounds like a Drum' isn't what I would call an expert. I'm quite familiar with his videos and he really just likes to sound intelligent. While he did point out that his particular drum shell pitch changed when hardware was added, he failed to mention that some manufacturers like DW use thicker shells and lighter-mass lugs to maintain that shell pitch. Fact is, you're not putting pressure on the shell, the raising pitch is coming from the head stretching the plastic. That's what a lot of people seem to forget. Drum heads are like guitar strings, they're gonna fail long before your shell or lugs. Dankpods/The Drum Thing was brave enough to test this recently. He took a power drill and just full sent it. Tension rods and rims broke, but the lugs and shells were just fine.
I will never understand as long as I live how anyone can sit in a freakin room and make a video or watch tv or do ANYTHING with a single bare overhead lightbulb as a light source !!..Buy a gd lamp ! how can you stand that ??!! Its horrible
I will never understand as long as I live how anyone can go on a RU-vid video and nitpick lighting like it's supposed to be a Hollywood set! Get a gd life! how can you stand that??!! It's horrible
I'm not going to tell you that I hate your video and I'm not going to say that you know certain other things that I got to bite my tongue on I just don't like how you downgrade people that create devices just because they tune one way does it mean that you can I just don't like it when you downgrade people or other drummers
@@georgelayton2450 yea, I had a feeling he told his friends to come shit on my video. It’s cute, because I actually say good things about the DrumDial. You would know that if you watched the whole video.
@@georgelayton2450 at 1:50 “tuning is all subjective…” You know what I appreciate about these comments? You guys don’t seem to understand how RU-vid works. All these comments are helpful to my video. So thank you for the interaction. 😂
