Drum tuning bible

Tricks, Shortcuts, Mics & Stuff• they know their kit and insist upon a very specific relationship between drum to drum and inmost cases are only willing to alter the tone of cymbals or the snare (by choosing one of manythey own and listening to the track back to hone in on the decision).When playing live, especially if you are a cover band playing all types of music, you need to get real onwhat you can and cannot do. You will not have the luxury of altering your tuning to fit a particular song.IMHO, the concept of tuning is essentially centered on knowing how to get the best tone (that suits you)out of each of your respective drums. Above all, it’s about being realistic and being satisfied with what youhave. Most frustrations come out of unrealistic expectations and not understanding that you may actuallyhave the wrong sized drums to achieve your objective.So bottom line is, any two drums struck together make noise and will get you by. However, it is not nearas pleasing as how you will sound if they work together as a "chord" type sound. And that in a nut shell isthe concept I have tried to get across. Hit all your drums together and make sure they sound melodic,whether tuned in 3rds, 4ths or 5ths, it doesn’t really matter too much if they sound good as a “unit” ratherthan as individual drums.The best advice I think I can offer (other than learning your instrument) is not to have you and yourbass/keyboard player sounding the same. This is a basic concept of engineering. Each instrumentneeds to have its space in the mix for clarity. So while each bass player will no doubt play a notethat is the same as one of the drums at some point, the timbre or tonal characteristic between the 2needs to be different.You should get to know at what note your drum sounds best. Why? Because if you go to the trouble offinding that note, you’ll also see that from a musical standpoint, playing 2 notes together directly next toeach other on a keyboard sounds pretty bad (for the most part) and that’s what we want to avoid. Playany combination of notes by counting 3 or 5 notes apart and it becomes very melodic. Hence your drumswill sound better and can also sound bigger due to complementary vibration from drums, which aresympathetic to the one being struck. This is not an absolute rule. But in general, you should try playingyour drums in combinations of 2 and try to make them melodic so they produce kind of a 2 or 3 finger cordwhen struck. Make notes of these types of things when tuning for different venues.I need to stress that the idea here is not to try and match cords used for songs so much askeeping the whole of the drum set from clashing. And you may find that the result is farsuperior. Somewhere along the way, you’ll find a sequence that fits your style and model ofdrum.For example, I know my drums will sound best tuned as follows:10”x 9” tom: D sharp12” x 10” tom: A sharp14” x 12” floor: F16” x 14” floor: C22” x 16” kick: Batter F (octave lower than floor); Resonant EMain snare 14” x 6” YAMAHA Anton Fig: G above the 10” x 9” D#, both heads the sameHow I know this is by working through all the same steps I’ve outlined. It can also help me dial in my kitquick by simply hearing the note and then tuning to it.Microphone Use, In Brief – How they can affect the soundPlaying without a microphone versus with one is very different. This is not a tutorial on Mic use, simply anelementary understanding of one key factor. When “close micing” a drum, the type of microphone can andusually creates proximity effect. If you look at typical mic’s associated with use on toms, you’ll see a dropoffon the frequency curve associated with most dynamic mic’s. This drop-off can be compensated forhttp://home.earthlink.net/~prof.sound/id9.html (3 of 5)1/22/2005 4:12:01 PM