"Tune Bot" Drum Tuner - Product Review 

*Update* I tried the high frequency setting and still had the same issues with the small drums

I own a Tune Bot. To get the higher ranges, hold the blue FILT button for 3 seconds. "Hi Range" will appear in the screen. Per manual: Tuning Range: 30 - 400 Hz, 1C - 4G# Hi Range: 30 - 450 Hz, 1C - 4A

My personal experience with the Tune-Bot for drumset has been pretty positive, really for getting the lugs in tune with themselves. I've never had a great ear for cutting through the overtones during lug tapping so this helps a lot for me. I also have a DrumDial and this works a lot better.

the drumset is tuned to E+(b9/11)/C# or alternatively a F/C#min polychord The two sets of tenors are somewhat tuned to the F# major pentatonic scale, one found across many cultures around the globe. This forms an F#6/9 chord nice your snare is a G/G# the pitch is a little bit unclear the megatenors form a C7(b9/13) chord, lines up well with the harmonic series

Steven Sassafras has the most precisely tuned flub drum ever. He retunes between every note. Checkmate snared drummers.

The thing is, all drums have multiple "pitches", as in multiple frequencies resonating due to different things making noise. On a drum with two heads, the top head and bottom head both resonate, and the shell resonates. But if you tune both heads to the same pitch, you won't always get that pitch from the drum overall. In addition, the stick hitting the drum head produces a pitch (which is likely what was confusing your tune bot at the upper registers since stick noise is pretty high). I believe there is a feature on it to recognize higher pitches, but still, knowing the physics behind it is important. On a snare drum, when you tune the top and bottom head to different pitches because they're at different thicknesses, you'll get an overall pitch change, so when tuning drums, you may want to check the individual heads by dampening them, checking the pitch, and then checking the pitch of the drum overall. For example, when I tune my snare, my bottom head sits around F#, the top sets around C#, and the drum overall resonates around an A. Of course, you could also opt to not use tune bots or other devices like this and trust your ears to tell you what's good. As you figured out with the top bass, sometimes a drum can't stick around the pitch you want it to even though it could in the past. That can be due to the heads stretching and aging, or the effect of humidity and temperature on the drums. I generally don't use devices like this, instead I feel for tension, pitch-match the lugs to each orher and tune to nice intervals. I have perfect pitch so I have a leg up and know where I like my drums to be generally, but I think its important for people to develop their ears and trust them to know what their drums should sound like. Bob Gatzen and Bill Bachman have taught me most everything I need to know about tuning, the rest comes from experience doing it. Great content as always dude, keep it up!

I have one...isolating the drum you are trying to tune helps. Doing so might kill any resonance from other drums which might throw the tune off a bit. Plus if you hold one of the buttons for 3 seconds...which button is different for every model..you can tune for higher pitched drums.

I think that if you'd use the tune bot outdoors, you'd get much better and quicker accuracy. The acoustics of the room probably sends the sound out as say a C# and comes immediately back around to the bot as an F. Try it outside brother and do a video to show if there's any difference in accuracy.

The unidentified candy was probably a root beer barrel! Yummy! (You made me finally open my candy. ... I had smarties in mine, too! ... no fireball)

I would think that the overtones and sympathetic vibrations from other drums would greatly interfere with the device's ability to properly register the singular frequency you're aiming for. I use a DrumDial for my drum set which measures tension on the head near each lug. While this doesn't specifically help with determining a specific pitch, it helps ensure even tension which allows for me to better dial-in on the intervals between the drums.

Hey there! I work MIT for the Blue Man Group in Chicago and use the tune bot almost everyday. At 13:11, you noted that the bot was giving you the same note/hz as the previous drum. This will happen quite commonly with the bot whenever drums are very close together. More often than not it will pick up the resonance/vibrations of the neighboring shell/head and get confused. The fix for this problem is to remove the bot from the rim and either A) Move the bot above the head about 6"-12", or B) Move the bot directly under the shell to encapsulate (only works with single head drums). When it comes to the bot not giving a consistent answer, just tap the head a bunch instead of doing 1 tap and waiting for the resonance to dissipate. Works a bit like a tap metronome and you just take the average. Usually it'll lean more towards 1 hz than any other. (PS - this strat works really well with high pitched drums like spocks. You just have to keep hitting it and you'll want to get very sharp with your hits (sharp>hard/upstroke>downstroke)). Love these tuners a lot and I'm happy to see it works well with marching equipment! Thanks for this video!

1:40 That bag of candy is nostalgic because over the summer our school actually boosted enough money for a SUPER nice sound system for us pit percussion, and the candy was one of the first things we saw lmao

Tunebot rules. Every drummer should have one; especially if you have a home recording studio. I found toms tuned to certain notes cut through mixes much better and require very little processing. For example, my 12, 14 and 16 are tuned to 2nd octave C, G and D. I tried different notes and intervals, but when I use that tuning, the toms really stand out in guitar heavy mixes.

The reason you were having inconsistent readings and some which said a couple drums were the same, were because the drums were too close together. One drum would make the other resonate and the Drumbot hears both (or several)

12:33 I'm hearing a G on the snare. I'd have to look at a spectrum analyzer to determine the octave. Disengaging the snare wires could help make the pitch clearer. Another trick is to play a recording of it back at half the speed (twice the speed for bass notes).

Just can't get over how cool the spockinspiel is and how I want one. lol!

I would love to see a video specifically about snare tuning, I'm entering year 2 of drumline instruction and I'm terrible at tuning marching snares and break a lot of falams snare side heads

EMC, I sent you my band homework!

perfect pitch here. The marching snare seems to be tuned to roughly a G4. interestingly, a rimshot seems to be a Bb4, a minor third above

Happy Birthday Eric!!!!! Hope you continue to have success with your channel!

This is an interesting experiment. The comparison of the octa-tenors to the full size set was most revealing to me; the shell of a drum has a big influence on the pitch of the drum. I have so many more thoughts about this (harmonics, top/bottom head combos, shell/head combos). BTW : check the bearing edge on that top bass when you change heads next time. If it’s not the drum head pulling from its hoop (failing to maintain pitch); check the bearing edge (I’ve had a bearing edge fail on me before.)

Video 22 of commenting until EMC makes a front ensemble out of spocks

Drumset: Eaug11 b9/C# Or I guess C#mMAJ7 (b11 #13)

11:06 I’d consider it an Fmaj/C#min, but it could also be thought of as a C#min(add#7,b11,#13)

5:37 YOO LETS GOO

Hmm 🤔 12 days ago? Alright cool. I just got my tune bot studio in the mail a few days ago so it’s nice to see a recent video.

When tuning with the Tune Bot, you should use a towel to mute all the other heads in the room so you can get the most accurate reading. Also, the room's acoustics could affect the reading quite a bit. I assume the Tune Bot would get better readings in a room with acoustic treatment.

🤣 omg the spockenspiel, SO GOOD

My chord for your drum set going in order from bottom to top is an E augmented addb9 add11 over C#. Have fun jazz composers

11:00 it’s a bit difficult to configure but to easily say….it’s a FminorMajor7/C# or technical terms C#Major7(#9, b13) Way I got it was get the root note C# and get the rest of the notes C#1=Root E2= sharp 9 G#2=Fifth C3= seventh F3=Third A3= flat thirteenth

11:04 Well it’s kinda like a C# minor and F major poly-chord (FM/C#m), but if you want it to be one giant chord it’s technically an F major 7 with #9 and b13 (FM7 #9 b13). Yes I’m sad that I took the time to figure that out too.

One of the problems at the tenors could be mechanical coupling between the drums. Every drum head resonates when you hit one of the drums. To the ear it might not be recognizable but the measurement maybe has a different opinion on which note was the loudest. Try to cover the drums which are not being tuned with a blanket or something, maybe that helps.

you and rdavidr should take a marching snare, tune it down, take a set of tenors apart, take a marching bass drum and finally, take some marching band cymbals and take the straps off, to make a drum set out of marching band stuff

I’m a tune bot believer. Money well spent.

2:00 'cause sock is looking at meeee

The best chord names I could come up with was: C#m(maj7,b11,b13) for the drum set, and C7(b9,13) for the mega-tenors Very jazzy

my marching band instructer tunes my 14 inch bass drum to an e4 and ive heard cracking when he tunes it

have to be careful when tuning drums close to each other because it picks up the vibrations from the surrounding drums - which is why it had trouble with tenors

Love the Daria poster! 👁️

I am coveting your Spockenspiel. Going to have to make that happen for myself.

C13(#13#15) with the way its written, but I'd normally write something like that out as C7b9 add 13 (assuming the A# would be written as a Bb, and the C# as a Db for those jazzy upper extensions, even though the A# and C# are an octave above the triad and should be listed as the #13 and #15 respectively)

One thing that could also perhaps help with the tuning would be a just the head size to the head size of the drum because that should also help with finding the pitches as well

Perfect pitch boi here: If I had to put 12:37 at a pitch I'd say it's a G.

The "I don't know what that is,"piece of candy was a root beer barrel.

Your drumset is a... C# min add (b8,b11,b13) I’m sure there’s a better name but looking at the components, the C#minor triad in the bottom stands out to me so I called everything else a compound interval of that, no 7 so it has to be an add chord in that case. Also your spocks on the quads sound like an f# in the lower, and a b in the higher. Also if you want the snare note turn the snares off

The big tenor drum one is a C7(b9 13) which unlike the drum kit is like an actual chord which is cool

The chord that the drum set is tuned to is a C#maj7(#9,b13)

Happy Birthday, Eric! 🎂🎈🎁

Hi Emc!

Happy Birthday EMC! cool to share a birthday

13:07 the first one was G 3/4 Sharp or Ab Half Flat and the second one was G Half Flat

13:28 i believe it is a C major add #8, 12,#12

I recently played timpani with our county honor band and I can tune pretty accurately with a pitch pipe and my ears

they were basically the same note on the Xtreme tenors... but the one was a littttttle more flat than it said

Your drumkit chord is a C#m6#7#11 (treating the C as a B# for the purposes of note labelling, as you don't tend to see b8 nearly as much as you do #7) I also have perfect pitch (but drum overtones can make this a bit werid to figure out) and the pitch of your marching snare sounds like it might be a G As for the mega-tenors, uh... C6b7b9 (again doing some enharmonic substitution - treating the A# as a Bb and the C# as a Db)

I would probably call it Dbmaj7#9, as the most basic version of what it could be (you would spell it Db, F, Ab, C, E) but it could be different in context (I didn't include the snare because you never hear the pitch of a snare and it was easier not to include it). Also I think your snare is D4.

The tenor chord is a CMm7#9 with a 6 thrown in

The drumset chord is basically just an F major over c# minor polychord

I know someone probably already did it but the notes on that drumset make up a Db minMAJ7 flat 13 or F MAJ second inversion /Db min there might be a better way to describe it though

I’m guessing it’s either a limitation of the algorithm it uses to determine the note OR a limitation of the sensor they used as far as the higher frequencies that drummers don’t normally encounter in standard drum kits.

*Video 23* of Loopy Grandma asking Lil' Peanut dressed as a surfer dude to play -Wipe Out by the Ventures- *Any surfer song* !!! ... Great for another video using the kit!!! And I know you are very creative, so I expect something EPIC! (Wipe Out would cause video to be copywrite claimed! ...

Pro tip: Flatten bass 2 by 14 cents to get a just intonated major 3rd

You should see if a clip on guitar tuner would work for drums

Especially with the last one, you might want to try tuning them in isolation. The resonance of all of the last drums, is likely to have carried over as you were testing... just a thought... That might explain differently tuned drums registering the same pitch. It is a microphone, so with many drums, if some were in harmony, you would get "noise" when trying to do your tuning.

The marching snare sounds like G#

The drum set chord is C#minor-Major7, add b11, b13.

My TuneBot purchasing decision went like this: Thumbnail photo - Buying it! 👍🏼 Video at 12:30 - Doesn’t work for Snare. Not buying it. 😐 Having issues with tuning a WhiteMax batter on a Pearl FFX. Perhaps I’m a bit too meticulous? I used Virtuoso (iPhone piano app) for my tenors and the snare side Falams XT.

13:06 I don't claim to have perfect pitch, but the Tunebot was right. The second tom was a bit flat, but otherwise sounded almost the same. This is where I would suggest you get creative. Tune one up to G# or tune one down to Gb...

Awesome

first

My High School Had issues with those bass heads, our top two basses maxed out the heads I think its because of the foam on the inside Also the chord was a c# minor major 7 chord with a b11 and an added b13... maybe

that marching snare was tuned to popcorn.. i don't think it is meant to be a note ... is is somewhere between popcorn and sped up machine gun

Video number 2 of asking for a collab between EMCProductions and EMC Dump

He literally tuned his lower basses into a power chord. man this shit is metal af

Extreme tenors: A strangely voiced C13 b9 (-11)

4:00 you should try tuning a piano or a guitar that has a floyd rose tremolo system

13:02 -I'd say those are actually the same note, with the first a bit sharp and the second a bit flat, just like the tuner says.- _[EDIT: on re-listening, I now hear an F and a D.]_ Since they're close together and even physically connected, hitting one leads the other one to resonate as well, but the effect doesn't seem to work equally strong in both directions, perhaps leading to a different sound? _[EDIT: I'm pretty sure sympathetic vibration from the adjacent drum adds to the confusion.]_ You could try dampening all other drums (wallet/pack of tissues/towel...) except the one you're tuning, though obviously that's a bit of a pain. Another idea would be lightly put a finger on the rim to dampen the overtones, as they can be louder/more prominent than the fundamental sometimes, which may throw off the tuner. Also, even if they're tuned to the same pitch, if they're different builds/sizes/head tension/woods..., they still will have a different timbre with different overtones being emphasized more or less (same reason middle C sounds different on e.g. a trumpet and a clarinet).

drum set chord is C#maj7(#9) add(#5) i believe

So with all the notes you have on your drumset it makes an FMm Augmented/C# chord. Meaning you have an FMm chord with 2 more major steps after the Mm. so the chord youd play without the inversion would be, F, A, C, E, G#, C#, making quite a nasty chord.

You've got a lot of over/under tones coming off the drums you're not playing for this test. It's very "real world" use and there's nothing wrong with that, but I'm curious if the tuners would work better without the additional drums in there. My general suggestion for tuning marching snares is to find a tone on top heads that you can focus on and tell whether it's flat or sharp. There are so many tones coming out of the high tension head, that I personally can't say it's "this" note when tuning, just that the snare sound matches across the drums.

The mega tenors are a C Major b9 sus6 #13 or something like that lol

The drum set chord is technically a C#maj7#9b13 but it’s not really an actual chord.

I think that the snare is a G,

Cool

Second

Based off what I heard, I think your mega tenors make some sort of dominant 7 chord with a sharp 5!

alternative title: EMC learns why drum sets have different sized drums

On the spockenspiel How about the intro to Porgy and Bess? Do it!

great video, you are cool. I hate tuning drums, but when I do so I prefer to use a drone.

Noice

Video #1 of commenting until EMC makes a set of tenors using snares.

2nd inversion F major over C# minor or a C# major and minor with both a 5th and a minor 6. (didn't bother with the 2nd one)

That weird candy is call a root beer barrel

The root beer barrel was a refence to Steven sasafrass

The unknown candy is actually a root beer barrel

Ok watching the video I’m curious if you were able to figure out the high and low frequency modes. The tune bot according to instructions can only go up to 450Hz and you gotta be in the high frequency range.

On the ultimate tenors it’s probably the overtones the tuner is hearing so it’s probably interpreting it as the base

I think I would call it an F/C#m(maj7) polychord.

Would a drum dial be better for the marching snares and tenors for finding a consistent tuning with multiple drums in a line?

I flubbing love your shirt