Drum Tuning iPhone App

I tried it...and it's useful if you want to double check your ears if you are already familiar with tuning and your ear is trained. For .99 cents it's a great tool but I dont think it would make anyone a master at tuning on it's own. Putting in the time of learning to tune is the secret and this app is a useful tool when in doubt.
 
Hey Rob

Picked up your app and have been playing about with it.

Just one question regarding the reso head. In your app you say that both batter and reso should be the same. But you hear of people tuning the reso a 3rd higher. Is this what you are talking about with F1 frequencies?
 
Maybe it's my phone but I can't get it to register notes very easily.

I thought I could hold it near each tension rod and get the pitch in that particular area so that I could even them all out the way I would with my ear but I end up having to hit the drum harder and I'm pretty sure the only note being perceived is "F0".
 
The fundamental is the batter head, the entire column of air in the drum, and the reso head moving down in unison when the drum is struck, and continuing to vibrate up and down, in unison, after. So the fundamental has to be the same for both heads, since the reso head can only react to the air movement in the drum.

Theoretically, at least. The presence of a vent hole throws the results off a little, since some of the air column inside the drum ends up breathing in and out.

The overtones are different and indepedent for each head, as they move as a ripple across each head, and don't incite the same movement of the opposite head.
 
Hi guys - thanks again for your feedback and for an interesting discussion. Thanks Soupy, you are very right with your comments about F0. Actually one of the key drivers for developing the iDrumTune software is just to help drummers learn a bit more about the science of their drums and to be inquisative of how and where all the sound comes from. Ideally everyone would be able to tune with their ears alone, but hopefully iDrumTune helps accelerate the learning curve.

Dre25 and Planet_boom - to analyse the F1 frequnecy you need to hold the iPhone at the edge and also hit the drum at the same place at the edge. If the F0 frequency is still being picked up then look at the spectrum view and you should be able to identify the F1 frequency too. Yes when people say 'I tune the resonant head to a 3rd of the batter head' they must be refering to the F1 frequency, as F0 is the same for batter and resonant. Whereas F1 can be different for batter and resonant. In my research I've expeimented with tuning F1_batter to 1.5xF0 and F1_resonant to approximately 2xF0, giving a harmonious relationship, similar to that of tuned tympani.eg F0=100Hz, F1b=150Hz F1r=200Hz. Its not always possible to be exact, and it can be quite hard to achieve, but this relationship does give a very 'musical' sound to your toms.

It's amazing how complex a simple thing you hit can be from an acoustic point of view!

I'm working on extra iDrumTune features to assist better with clearing the drumhead, tuning the resonant head and also analysing decay times, as well as a recording feature for storing prefered tuning setup data, so there's still plenty of future enhancement to iDrumtune to come!

And yes, supported devices are as follows: iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later.

And hopefully one day Android! But unfortunately we don't have a completion date yet :(

Happy tuning!
 
I tried it today. It seemed to struggle to hear certain lugs no matter where I put it. I detuned a lug one full turn and all the app could pick up was the lower fundamental of the whole head not by each lug - no matter where I put it. Plus it takes a long time to register new hits. I would imagine the mic in the phone is the weak link.

The drum dial is much more effective.
 
imispgh said:
I tried it today. It seemed to struggle to hear certain lugs no matter where I put it. I detuned a lug one full turn and all the app could pick up was the lower fundamental of the whole head not by each lug - no matter where I put it. Plus it takes a long time to register new hits. I would imagine the mic in the phone is the weak link.

The drum dial is much more effective.
Click to expand...

I believe I've read this in at least two other locations. Are you entirely sure the results didn't get better by the third time you typed this, lol.

Dennis
 
you should work on a PC versión, so that you can plug in a real mic and have better and faster readings.
 
Hi Rob,

I don't have an iPhone, but I do have an iPad. Will the app work with the iPad?

Thanks!
 
Rob,

I purchased the app for my iPad this morning, but I'm getting strange readings. For one thing, my 8" tom and my 14" floor tom are measuring roughly the same (151 Hz and 148 Hz, respectively), though the difference in perceived pitch between these drums is (as you would expect) massive. Second, I'm finding that the Hz reading on my floor tom varies widely -- more than 30 Hz -- from one hit to the next. The fluctuations seem to be tied to how hard I hit the drum, as if its measuring volume rather than pitch.

Any ideas on what I might be doing wrong?
 
Hi soren-k
It sounds to me like the app is picking up the F1 overtone on the floor tom. If you put it in Spectrum View mode you'll probably see another peak at about 100-120 Hz, which will be the floor tom's fundamental (F0). It means that there is a lot of ringing F1 on the drum (which you may or may not like the sound of), so you may even want to dampen the outside (or use a head with damping within) and that will make the fundamental stand out more.
When you hit the drum harder you will excite the F0 perhaps more likely, so I'm not suprised its jumping between 110Hz (F0) - 140Hz(F1).
Actually as you hit the drumhead harder it causes stretching of the head, so its not unusual for higher frequencies to be observed when hitting harder (like a guitarist bending his string to raise the tone a little).
Hope that helps, feel free to let me know how you get on or email me at [email protected].
Cheers
Rob
 
Rob_iDrumTune said:
Hi soren-k
It sounds to me like the app is picking up the F1 overtone on the floor tom. If you put it in Spectrum View mode you'll probably see another peak at about 100-120 Hz, which will be the floor tom's fundamental (F0). It means that there is a lot of ringing F1 on the drum (which you may or may not like the sound of), so you may even want to dampen the outside (or use a head with damping within) and that will make the fundamental stand out more.
When you hit the drum harder you will excite the F0 perhaps more likely, so I'm not suprised its jumping between 110Hz (F0) - 140Hz(F1).
Actually as you hit the drumhead harder it causes stretching of the head, so its not unusual for higher frequencies to be observed when hitting harder (like a guitarist bending his string to raise the tone a little).
Hope that helps, feel free to let me know how you get on or email me at [email protected].
Cheers
Rob
Click to expand...

OK Rob, that's helpful. I'll take a look at the spectrum view and see if I can see it there. Thanks!
 
I am really glad to have found this website. I purchased Tune-bot before iDrumTune came out. I am very happy with Tune-Bot. I have to say that I was a somewhat sceptical that iDrumTune would be comparable. After using it I have to admit that I am really impressed. The accuracy is spot on, and I get very similar readings from both products.

Although not too bad at tuning drums by ear, I love having an objective way to check my tunings. It also lets me experiment with different tunings, safe in the knowledge that I can go back to my standard tuning at any time.

In terms of value for money, iDrumTune is a great product, as is its ability to display the sound waveform and spectrum.

A few of improvements would make this product even greater for me:

- adding a note display on the left of the Hz display, e.g "A" preferably in the same size as the Hz display. I find the current note display quite small, and you have to hunt for the green arrow left and right to check what note has been picked-up. An alternative would be for the note display to be centered on the green arrow, as psychologically it would mimic the sharpness of flatness of a pitch.

- adding an Octave value to the note display e.g "A4" (for middle A). This would be a very useful addition for musicians used to thinking in terms of notes and octaves.

- on older hardware (e.g my iPhone GS3) it can take up to four seconds for the pitch to be calculated and the new waveform displayed. The first few times I used the app I thought it wasn't working as the display didn't change when I hit my drum. It would be really useful if the moment you hit the drum the display could either clear, or change colour to signify that a hit has been registered. For instance the green iDrumTune logo at the top of the screen could change colour to red, and then back to green once the pitch was calculated. Or maybe a small LED light type display going from green to red and back again to show the app is busy calculating the pitch,

- another possible improvement would be to display both F0 and F1 pitches as the app calculates them anyway. That way you'd have the fundamental on one line and the first harmonic underneath, with maybe the fundamental in a bold font and the first harmonic in a regular font.

- finally, some sort of user tuning library would be very useful too.

Thank you for a great app,

Rudi
 
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Rob,
I recently had a problem with an iPad iOS update and had to re-download all my iPad apps. For some reason, iDrumTune no longer appears among my apps list, and I can't find it in the app store even when I search for it. Any idea what's going on?
Thanks for your help!
 
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