Somewhat ironically, I recently threw away an original Resotune, which I bought new and just couldn't figure out how to use. I was totally sold on the idea when I got it, as I am now. Maybe I'm too old to get it. I DO get the TuneBot, and if the Resotune II was as easy to use, I'd probably try it again.
The original one was really just too hard to use for a layman. Even the directions were confusing.
Is this new one genuinely simple to use?
The Tune bot is a note sniffer. Strike the drum head near a lug and it reads the pitch. In theory if you hit the exact same spots each time, with the same force, by each lug and make them all read exactly the same you will have a clear drumhead. RESOTUNE has an additional step after tuning the lugs to pitch where we set up a standing wave in the drumhead at the lug resonance then measure the phase or delay response between the sent and returning waveform. This allows a higher level of precision for lug matching (sorry other guys it's patented).
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I invested a lot of time and effort making the second generation easier to use than the first. One complication in the first generation is that I was learning about drum physics on the job so to speak (no textbooks describe how to do this. I bought the only percussion physics book-ROSSI.).
The original mechanical design came first and I did not have enough of the right buttons in the right places, so some operations that I later determined were useful required two or three button presses to get there (mea culpa). I could have thrown away the first production run but then it would be even more expensive to sell these. So I added the extra functions with more complicated software. :-(
For the current version I tried to make the user interface intuitive and seamless. Press any button from any mode and it should do something useful and logical. Want to jump to another mode just press the other button.
#1 sit it on top of the drum and press "Find Both". It will scan the entire note range and read the lowest fundamental (drum note) and next higher resonance (lug note). After that it will jump into tune mode and fine tune the lug note. To tune to a different lug note just start twisting lugs and it will follow you on the display. If you want to target a drum note just press tune drum and it will fine tune that. Of course for lug note you will need to move resotune around to read by each lug. Tune drum can read from one spot, but you still need to adjust all the lugs a similar amount. After tuning to a target drum (fundamental note) you need to jump back to tune lug mode and make them all the same (no matter what note they are).
#2 when finished targeting your note voicing, or just capturing the current lug note, press "Clear Lug" button to jump to clear mode. Now the clear mode display will indicate the clear status of the lug that RESOTUNE is pointed at. The first will be the reference, then move around to each lug and clear them one at a time.
The RESOTUNE II is already a few tears old, but the review is new (Thank you Magnus).
John Roberts