I LOVE my new Tune Bot!
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Mike Armstrong
Senior Member
Just curious, using the Tune Bot, if you wanted to try to find the Note a shell sings at where do you think you would place the TB's mic, inside or outside?
Also, I've watched the John Good video of him Timbre Matching shells and how he just holds a bare shell knocks on it to hear the Note he's going to stamp inside. I've read many a post about how different the Note of a shell will be with all the hardware on so tuning to the stamped Note will not be accurate. I guess I agree with that, I don't know. Would it then make sense to use the TB to find the Note of a shell 'with' all it's hardware on? I tried this but the lug mount rattle too much. A solution is to turn the hoops upside down and screw the lugs down evenly just enough to stop the rattle so the shell is again quiet enough to try to get a reading.
What do you guys think?
Also, I've watched the John Good video of him Timbre Matching shells and how he just holds a bare shell knocks on it to hear the Note he's going to stamp inside. I've read many a post about how different the Note of a shell will be with all the hardware on so tuning to the stamped Note will not be accurate. I guess I agree with that, I don't know. Would it then make sense to use the TB to find the Note of a shell 'with' all it's hardware on? I tried this but the lug mount rattle too much. A solution is to turn the hoops upside down and screw the lugs down evenly just enough to stop the rattle so the shell is again quiet enough to try to get a reading.
What do you guys think?
BigDinSD
Gold Member
Re: I don't get it
Thanks for the note info! Sounds like you've got a kick ass kit.
The 12" tom gave me the biggest challenge in finding the sweet spot. The tone had to fit in between the 10" and 14" toms. My note stamped inside is a "F", but it really sang at D# on the batter, and E on the reso.
HI buddy
I play DW's. 96 Keller Green Sparkle gems in fast tom sizes.
I tune the Batter and Reso to the notes stamped inside. No tape, no gel. I let the toms just sing.
8" F# (add on... eBay a few weeks ago. Thanks everyone here for the Blick tip. Easy as pie getting this to a nearly identical match with the Sparkle Bright!)
10" Bb (original)
12" D (original)
14" C (original)
16" G# (add on from eBay a few years ago - finish ply already matched... Traditional depth, 1" deeper... 2002 non-Keller DW shell. This thing thunders, but at G# its barely tight enough to take out the wrinkle!)
20" Kick - Tune to taste. I don't tune this to a specific note.
14 X 5.5 Craviotto Snare from 2001 - Tune to taste. I don't tune this to a specific note.
10 X 5 DW mini side Snare from 2007 - Tune to taste. I don't tune this to a specific note.
Evans Black Rezos, DW Remo Batters on all toms.
Evans G1 on Snare batter with tiny Gel patches, Remo Snare Membrane on rezo
DW Rezo on Kick, Evans EMAD batter
Daz it.
Love this kit. Its my Anti-kit. Played Yamaha Custom Recording through the 80s. Spitting blood and setting myself on fire on the strip throughout the 80's So funny. 2 X 26, black piano laquer, the whole 9. Big Tommy A Kit. Wanted something small and tasty for the last half of my life - so I grabbed this teeny DW. All I needed to do was hit the toms in the shop, and I knew this would be the kit to take me home. To me, tone is everything in a drum. I'm a nut about tuning, and there is a very specific tone that moves me. I get that tone from this kit.
I've played a thousand kits. This is mine. And to me, nothing else sounds like it.
Love this kit. Taken it everywhere. Play it every week - sounds amazing.
Rhone Blend my friend. MSG
-K
Thanks for the note info! Sounds like you've got a kick ass kit.
The 12" tom gave me the biggest challenge in finding the sweet spot. The tone had to fit in between the 10" and 14" toms. My note stamped inside is a "F", but it really sang at D# on the batter, and E on the reso.
BigDinSD
Gold Member
I too read those posts about the note stamped inside the shells. I think I actually started a post asking if we could use those notes to tune. You're right - most felt that the hardware would throw off the note.
For example, my 12" tom is stamped "F". However, that tom really sings at D# (batter) and E (reso). None of my drums are tuned to the notes stamped inside :-(
I want to learn about what audiotech said about finding the sweet spot...
An interesting addendum to my thread, I got my toms all tuned the exact way I want them, and my 10" tom rattles the snares unbelievably. The 8 and 12" are the same proximity to the snare, and they don't cause any sort of issue. So, I measured the frequency of the top heads on both the 10" tom (133 Hz) and my 14" Pearl snare (267 Hz). Notice anything peculiar?
bobdadruma
Platinum Member
The 10 inch tom is always a snare buzzer on my kits too. It is the nature of the beast for some reason. I have to back down on the reso a bit to lessen it.
A
audiotech
Guest
Yes, the snare head is almost a perfect second harmonic of your tom's batter head.
Dennis
A
audiotech
Guest
What I heard was really going on with those stamped notes inside DW shells is, John Good hits the shells with the side of his fists to hear an approximate timbre or note of the shell. My understanding is this helps to organise the shells for use as a complete drum set before the finish and hardware are applied to the shells. After the shells are finished, those notes really don't have much correlation to the basic stripped down shell. John calls it timbre matching and he feels it's important to get the greatest sonic balance as a set of drums. I wouldn't use those stamped figures to aid in the tuning of the drums. The drum's sweet spot is where I would rather have my drums tuning based, not on some number that may or may not be of any significance at this stage of the game. What I did though was I supplied the information of what notes were stamped on my 12 x 8 and 16 x 16 toms when I ordered my 14" x 14" floor tom for my DW Classic kit. Would this have made a difference if I hadn't, I'll never know.
Dennis
Yes! My thoughts exactly. So, I tuned both the batter and reso head on my snare up a bit, and the rattle is gone. Without the Tune Bot, I wouldn't have been able to figure this out.
Mike Armstrong
Senior Member
I was thinking about Timbre Matching. It makes sense that any given drum will resonate best at a given Note and that what Good is looking for when he thumps the shell. That Note is the point at where that particular drum resonates at it's natural best and that's the sweet spot for that drum. Even two shells of the same kind, depth, mass, ect., will have their own particular sweet spot where it resonates best and the Note it produces may be totally different from it's twin. That's why Good is using those Notes to select shells for a perfect kit. makes sense I think, for initially building a kit that is.
But as soon as the hardware is bolted on the mass changes, the resonance changes and so the Note changes too. So you can no longer tune to the 'stamped' Note but instead you have to again find where that same shell, with it's new hardware mass, now resonates best and what the new Note it now produces is. Hopefully each drum in your kit will naturally, with it's hardware on, resonate at a Note that blends with the others drums. Otherwise using the heads aren't you having to force that drum to a Note other than it's best natural Note and hence the drum won't resonate or sound the best that it could otherwise.
So, what is the best way to find a drums Note with it's hardware on so that you can tune the heads to match shell? Is it as 'easy' as just thumping it with a Tune-Bot attached and reading what the new Note is?
But then again, I'm making the assumption, which might be wrong, that it's best to tune your heads to the Note that the shell best resonates at.
But as soon as the hardware is bolted on the mass changes, the resonance changes and so the Note changes too. So you can no longer tune to the 'stamped' Note but instead you have to again find where that same shell, with it's new hardware mass, now resonates best and what the new Note it now produces is. Hopefully each drum in your kit will naturally, with it's hardware on, resonate at a Note that blends with the others drums. Otherwise using the heads aren't you having to force that drum to a Note other than it's best natural Note and hence the drum won't resonate or sound the best that it could otherwise.
So, what is the best way to find a drums Note with it's hardware on so that you can tune the heads to match shell? Is it as 'easy' as just thumping it with a Tune-Bot attached and reading what the new Note is?
But then again, I'm making the assumption, which might be wrong, that it's best to tune your heads to the Note that the shell best resonates at.
bobdadruma
Platinum Member
If I were to take a 5a and bang on John Good's head I wonder what timbre it would be 
MikeM
Platinum Member
Hey, you didn't order add on drums sight unseen, did you? What is this world coming to?!!
I'm not too shabby at tuning toms and bass drums, but snare drums are in a class all by themselves. Finding a sweet spot at high tensions is nowhere near as easy or straightforward, IME. Cranking a 3 mil head way up who-knows-how-many octaves above the batter, which itself is tuned higher than any nicely resonating tom head can be a real headache. Not that I can't get it close within just a few minutes, but getting just the right amount of sympathetic vibration between the two heads at just the right pitch happens often only by accident, and even then can be fleeting as the drum works its way out of tune (though sometimes it works its way INTO the sweet spot
. I would love to have one of these devices around to capture the batter and reso frequencies when the drum is "in that spot" so I can have it consistently nailed down forever after. That would be worth the price of admission for me. I held out hope that a drum dial could do this, but found that it was nowhere near capable of this.
A
audiotech
Guest
There's nothing wrong with ordering add on drums, especially when you've already heard the same size drums in the shop. "Sky blue pearl" just didn't quite go with my color scheme.
Oh, here's a picture.
Dennis
Amorsolo450
Junior Member
yes agree. i love it.
Les Ismore
Platinum Member
You're going to love TUNE BOT if you spend $150 on it, that's the nature of merchandising.
I would wait till the competition comes out with a $30 model. The electronics involved are really cheap, this isn't hi-tech stuff.
I would wait till the competition comes out with a $30 model. The electronics involved are really cheap, this isn't hi-tech stuff.
Depends on whether anything that the Tunebot does uniquely is protected by patent. Could be 20 years before there is competition.
Have you used a tunebot? A regular chromatic tuner does not do what a Tunebot does when tuning drums. Its application is much more limited owing to its inability to filter the myriad of overtones produced by a drum, particular those created by an out-of-tune drum. Suggesting that someone use a standard chromatic tuner is quite possibly setting them up for a huge disappointment.
Also, for anyone wanting to try using a chromatic tuner app, I'd recommend Cleartune: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cleartune-chromatic-tuner/id286799607?mt=8
Works very well, has frequency readings in Hz as well as octaves / notes / cents. Knowing whether the tuner is reading a 110Hz A in the 2nd octave vs a 220Hz A is the difference between telling an overtone from a fundamental, makes it much more informative.
I was at a drum clinic Tuesday night and there was a gentleman there who was the drum tech for The Blue Man Group and he gave a demonstration on the Tune Bot. He had 5 or 6 with him to sell. He showed all of us how to use the Bot and not one tom was in tune while he was showing us. He was not the best person to be demonstrating the Bot and I had hoped that he would be spot on so that I could really see how it worked. So have I tried one, No. But i was as close to one and a drum set as one could be to see how it didn't work. He turned on the filter and it seemed to be better but my ear at this point is better from what I have seen.
Deathmetalconga
Platinum Member
If I didn't already have a Drum Dial, then I'd be tempted to try this out. The Drum Dial works good enough for me but there's always something out there that's better.
tard
Gold Member
So I guess its still comes down to either train you ears or cough up $250 for a resotune. Im glad I learned how to tune many years ago, just wish I never fell for all the hype about drum dials and torque keys when they first came out and saved a few bucks.