Drum tuning bible

Tricks, Shortcuts, Mics & Stuffyou are getting a drum that can tune deeper, but the trade off is less control over resonance thanyou will get on a shallow depth drum. Think of how tight and articulate a 3” deep snare is asopposed to one which is 6-7” deep. It works much the same way with toms, and bass drums.So with these concepts in mind, I find a 12” drum is better paired with a 10” or 14” drum than it is a 11” or13”. That is unless you have a 10” or 14” and really desire something in-between for pitch. Then the inbetween sizes make sense.The common belief is that even sized drums produce better tuning qualities. I don’t know why this belief isout there, I find they can all be tuned if tuned as the shell/diameter allows. If you try to make a 13” soundlike a 14” while pairing it with a 12”, you’re setting yourself up for trouble unless you want a smallincremental note difference.It just seems to be more melodic to skip 1 or 2 sizes in diameter in between drums (see the section thatfollows below “Musical Notes for Tuning, Suggested”).So here are some further suggestions:●Use a Power Tom as rack/mounted toms if you like big floor toms.●Use Fundamentally Accurate Sized Toms (“FAST”) if playing small venues, when size is aconcern or when you just want less “power”.●Small drums tune “low” fairly well, large diameter drums don’t always tune “high” well.●I find any combination of drums in the following sizes tune well and allow room to add: (Expressedin Diameter x Depth) 8x8, 10x9, 12x10, 14x12, 16x14, 18x16, 20x16, 20x18, 22x16, 22x18, 24x18.●If you like a tight sound, consider substituting a rack tom depth that is 2” shallower than thoseabove.Musical Notes for Tuning, SuggestedWhen I originally wrote this section, it got an awful lot of misguided attention and much debate was drawnfrom the concept of tuning to a specific note. An often received question was, what is a “standard” tuningfor my drumset?There is no standard tuning for Rock vs Jazz vs Country. By that I mean, every drummer playing RockDOES NOT tune their kick to a "C", etc. There are however a few interval concepts that drummers "tend"to use between each drum, and that would be a 3rd or 5th apart. Typical thoughts are to tune in intervalsthat mimic the note spacing heard in the song "Here Comes the Bride", however, not to those exact notes.Smaller intervals are more predominant in Rock, larger intervals in Jazz.True, most drummers don't worry about it. However, in my experience; the more seasoned the drummer,the more they are concerned with the relationship between their drums.But remember the job of the drummer, other than laying down a beat is to make a song sound its best. Ifyou are getting paid to work quick, you must be able to dial in the drum quick. The true studio drummerhas 1 to 3 songs they need to lay down in a 2 to 4 hour session and the song is the specific focus.Typically the drummer will balance the tone of the kit so that it does not clash with• bass or low octave keyboard textures, and• the drums when hit together form a melodic structure so that if or as they resonant, there areno dissonant overtones being picked up by mics, orhttp://home.earthlink.net/~prof.sound/id9.html (2 of 5)1/22/2005 4:12:01 PM