Tune Bot ordered

BlakeN70

Senior Member
So I decided to order myself a Tune Bot. When it comes in this week, I will give everyone a review of how I feel about the product.
 
Sounds good,

I was thinking about a tune-bot, but I am happy with my tuning skills. Maybe ill try one out at my local store sometime and see how much it can actually help my tuning. I think If you can get the bottom head to the right sensitivity and the batter to a comfortable tension to play on, as long as the lugs are at the same pitch, you should be fine. And then again just use your ear to fine tune.

I already get a nice punchy full sound from my drums, so I think the best use of a tune-bot for me would be to use it for consistency.
Would like to hear your thoughts though.
 
A Tune-bot is no different from a guitar tuner. Some don't need it. Most do.

Thx

Jorn

There is a big difference, drummers dont need to tune several times a night or in a middle of a song and annoy the audience while doing so, therefore an electronic tuner is mandatory for a live guitar player to tune silently during a show but not necessary at home, rehearsal, or before a show, etc.
 
"Another ear training opportunity wasted"

Another troll being an ass.

I got into playing music with a 1960s Ovation Balladeer and a pitch pipe about 20 years ago, and I never looked back the day I got an analog electronic guitar tuner a few years later. I would rather play than tune, and anything to automate and improve that process is welcome. So as far as I'go concerned, this attitude can go ride off into the sunset, so that polite society never has to hear this type of trolling again.
 
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So I decided to order myself a Tune Bot. When it comes in this week, I will give everyone a review of how I feel about the product.

If you can't tune or hear the differences between two pitches or tones worth a darn, it might help. If you have any skills at all in tuning your kit, it may stunt your musical growth by having you ignore what your ears are actually relating to you. I own a Tune Bot, in fact I had two in my possession for about three weeks to check their unit to unit accuracy. They are interesting to play around with, but I would never rely on it for tuning my drums. I found a more useful and more accurate feature of the unit than trying to have it differentiate between a couple of hertz when trying to get a head in tune with itself, your ears should be able to do that with a little practice. In my opinion, there is just not enough time in the day to play around with a Tune Bot, but if you really need it, all well and good, there shouldn't be anything standing in your way in improving the sound of your drums.

Dennis
 
The tune bot is great. I love it for repeatable results. I think it's better at quickly getting back to that "great sound" you got by ear and experimentation than a dial. The dial always needs some fine tuning afterwards to clear the lugs. A pitch pipe is also a great way to get repeatable results, but that will limit you to an actual note. The perfect tuning you arrived at by your own experimentation may not lend itself to a static note. It may be C-30 cents or something. Having the exact frequency is really nice.

Whatever it takes for you to achieve the results you desire is what is "correct" for you. I'm quite put off by others who will call people out for not doing it "their way" and talk down to you. Just let it roll off your back. Don't expect a miracle though. It's a tool, and one that I appreciate for what it does. Check out this thread where I compared two different batter heads (clear emp vs. clear vintage emp). I used the tune bot to keep the tuning as consistent as possible between head changes, and you can hear how accurate it put it right back to the note I had it tuned to.

http://www.drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96412
 
I wanted to add that a big downside to the tune bot is that if you're playing in a noisy club with dance music pumping through the PA while you're setting up...forget it. It will pick up every bass hit from the subs and you won't be able to use it whatsoever. Your ear isn't going to work too well in this situation either, so the dial is a life saver when your on the line. You know, drums have been in the van in winter on the way to a gig 2 hours away. You arrive at the club, dance music pumping while you set up, drums slowly coming up to temp of the room. As soon as you get a chance to hear anything at all, it's time to count off the first tune. This situation is what the dials are designed for IMO.
 
A pitch pipe is also a great way to get repeatable results, but that will limit you to an actual note. The perfect tuning you arrived at by your own experimentation may not lend itself to a static note. It may be C-30 cents or something. Having the exact frequency is really nice.

Alternatively, you can try out a software tone generator. There are plenty of free ones available (such as Audacity) that allow you to generate a sine wave at any frequency you choose.

I've been using this simple tone generator for awhile now and have been able to produce very accurate and consistent results. You can adjust the tone by cents or by hertz to dial in an exact pitch, if a standard note is not what you're aiming for.
 
I tune by ear and then use the tune bot to verify what I can do by ear. Snares I am dead on by ear. Some of my toms my ears get a little lazy. For some reason I notice I am usually off on a couple lugs on my toms.

Overall I like it because I can record the exact setting I prefer for each drum. This means near 100% accuracy each time and quickly. I see nothing wrong with the tune bot as a tool to suppliment what you can do by ear. If anything it has made me a better drum tuner by ear.

I think its a great tool overall and for me well worth the money. Those small differences at the lugs I could not detect by ear made a huge difference with overtones, sustain and the overall sound of the drum.
 
I bought a TuneBot about a month ago, and I love it! I think it's a great tool to not only help tune your drums, but to also help tune your EARS. I think this is the part that people are missing about this thing. I've only used it about 4 or 5 times so far, but I've already noticed a difference in how I hear the drum while tuning. The reason is quite simple really, it gives you a visual respresentation of not only the absolute pitch, but also the relative pitch between lugs. This visual respresentation combined with what you hear is what makes it such a great learning tool, and it reinforces your learning of how to tune. It's kind of like how the Rosetta Stone language stuff works (minus the speaking part of course).

Frankly, all of you who knock the product because you already know how to tune perfectly by ear, well, good for you. Give yourselves a medal. I also know how to tune by ear, but this tool gives me the ability to do it faster, with more accuracy, and provides highly repeatable results, with the added benefit of helping me fine tune my own ear.

By the way, the more I use it, the easier and faster I can tune a drum. It's really not hard to use once you get the hang of it. I can tune a drum much quicker now with it than I could back when I didn't have this thing.

That's my 0.02
 
It's a tool that also builds your tuning skills. For those like me that can't strictly rely on my ears. I'm pleased.

I'm sure my household is pleased since I don't have to hum notes any more next to the keyboard.
 
Frankly, all of you who knock the product because you already know how to tune perfectly by ear, well, good for you. Give yourselves a medal.

Thanks, but there's no need for the medal, I get compensated very nicely in my paychecks for the accuracy of my hearing. ;)

I'm glad it is of help to you though.

Dennis
 
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