fader8 Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 I guess you're f@cked if the song ever modulates too! OMG, this is gonna change everything! OK, here's what we'll do... We'll mount a tympani sideways to replace the kick. Instead of the tymp's pedal we'll give the drummer a big floor lever. If we couple that with a bike chain to a bunch of roto-toms/snare like the ol' Pearl vari-pitch kits. We could ratchet the lever, (one click per semitone), or make it a big hand wheel crank! At the end of the show, the drummer could crank it up and pop all the skins at once! Accompanied with suitable pyrotechnics, of course. All we gotta do is figure out how to warp those cymbals and we're all set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darude Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev. Juda Sleaze Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 OMG, this is gonna change everything! OK, here's what we'll do... We'll mount a tympani sideways to replace the kick. Instead of the tymp's pedal we'll give the drummer a big floor lever. If we couple that with a bike chain to a bunch of roto-toms/snare like the ol' Pearl vari-pitch kits. We could ratchet the lever, (one click per semitone), or make it a big hand wheel crank! At the end of the show, the drummer could crank it up and pop all the skins at once! Accompanied with suitable pyrotechnics, of course. All we gotta do is figure out how to warp those cymbals and we're all set. You should've kept that to yourself, I bet someone's already applied for the patent now. There must be a way to do the cymbals... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fader8 Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 There must be a way to do the cymbals... Yeah, might require a little hydraulic assistance, but hey, that's OK. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redlogic Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 You should've kept that to yourself, I bet someone's already applied for the patent now. No......He should've kept it to himself because I almost peed myself reading it. At the end of the show, the drummer could crank it up and pop all the skins at once! Accompanied with suitable pyrotechnics, of course. Loved this part! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm Jeffery Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 Lots of top dance producers make sure the kick is the root note of the bass line, especially when you have a bass that is in between kicks as the kick makes up the first note of the sequence! John 00 Fleming does it all the time, to name one, some people who feel the vibe is right may be simply detecting the correct tuning or a complementary one. there are indeed tracks out there with out the correct tuned elements and they just don't sound quite right, people sometimes drop a drum loop in that's totally out of whack with the rest and it sounds horrible. As to logic's tuner no longer detecting the pitch of kicks, you are correct it don't work as good as it did, in logic 8 it worked on all my kicks every last one of them, now in logic studio 9 it just don't even register most of them , so something has changed. over to you Apple Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fader8 Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 in logic 8 it worked on all my kicks every last one of them, now in logic studio 9 it just don't even register most of them , so something has changed. Could be. If you optimize a tuner to listen to sustained pitch, (like a guitar tuner does) then by definition you have to ignore the attack. In a kick drum, the loudest fundamental is really close to the attack and you're lucky if you get a full wavelength of that to look at. This method is pretty bulletproof if you're set on needing to know the exact initial pitch. But even then, the exact initial pitch may not be what you're hearing as the perceived pitch. So if you're into tuning kicks, there's still no substitute for your ears. Unless you're tone-deaf of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minimoog Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 I read this thread,...geez guys. Of course drums have a pitch. Kicks are tuned to the fundamental pitch of the song most of the time and yes,...this is the same freq that the bass is centered around...of course! In rock most kicks get a bump "around the 80hz range" E,... (makes sense.....and the bass an octave apart maybe? this depends on the track but it is common. Toms are most often tuned to 4ths as well. This said,..it's not a rule and usually isn't needed to use a tuner,.....it is something that the drummer does to make the kit fit in the track best,...they probably don't give it any more thought than a gtr player who tunes up. Kick could be set and forget in most rock due to the relationship of the fund and overtones....to a fat E.. not rocket science though..i dunnooooo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fader8 Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 I read this thread,...geez guys. Of course drums have a pitch. No one's disputing that drums have pitch, they do. It's just never a constant pitch, it always has an envelope. It's the nature of the beast. Kicks are tuned to the fundamental pitch of the song most of the time "Most of the time"? I have never, ever seen a drum roadie retune a kit between songs, or even sets, at a show. And I've been doing this stuff for over 30 years. I have seen roto-toms retuned between songs, sure, but never a kick. not rocket science though.. Well, it kind of is... Drum tuning is a deep craft. Lots of stuff going on there. Initial pitch, pitch decay, sustain pitch, how that changes depending on how hard it's hit, skins, tubs, etc. Takes a while to get good at that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev. Juda Sleaze Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 ...they probably don't give it any more thought than a gtr player who tunes up. If they're any good they put a lot more thought into it than for tuning a guitar, it's a far more arcane and esoteric art that takes years to master. You also have to take into account the fact that the tuning will also affect how the drums resonate, for example if you ever see a drummer with padding in the kick, you can be pretty sure that's due to a lack of knowledge of tuning. Kick could be set and forget in most rock due to the relationship of the fund and overtones....to a fat E..not rocket science though..i dunnooooo That only works if the band is so creatively bereft that they write all their songs in E. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minimoog Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 Good for you F8,...a couple questions, Did I say,...? A drummer gets out of his chair and retunes his kit between every song live? No, I did not. Are we NOT talking about recording? maybe I read wrong then? You copied just the parts of my post. because I also said that. "Kick could be set and forget in most rock due to the relationship of the fund and overtones....to a fat E.." Come on man,..are you just trying to be a contrarian and bring live performance into the issue? Because that was not the initial question..or what I was talking about. Again Guys...live and recording 2 separate approaches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fader8 Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 Did I say,...? A drummer gets out of his chair and retunes his kit between every song live? No, I did not. Weeellll..... No. You only implied it. Forgive me. Are we NOT talking about recording? I thought we were talking about drums in general, actually. Even so, I've not seen the same kick retuned for a song in any sessions. A different kick , yes. I've seen kicks swapped out for different songs in a session because of tuning/timbre. I also said that. "Kick could be set and forget in most rock due to the relationship of the fund and overtones....to a fat E.." But that's more about the size and type of the kick used in a lot of rock. Which is different from the size and type used for a trapset in acoustic ensemble jazz for example, requiring a different tuning. Come on man,..are you just trying to be a contrarian and bring live performance into the issue? Because that was not the initial question..or what I was talking about. Again Guys...live and recording 2 separate approaches. No, not trying to be contrary at all. What pitch a drum gets tuned to has more to do with the physics of the drum itself. How it gets voiced by the tuner, eg how much tighter the front skin than the beater side skin, etc., determines how it sits in the music. Even though it's pitched, that pitch constantly modulates over the envelope of the sound. But its initial pitch, ie the loudest fundamental after the attack, is set by the tuner based on the drums characteristic size and design. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minimoog Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 Alex;.. you were checking out producer techniques and inquiring in general about Kick pitch, and its relationship to bass line pitch. There are drummers that claim tuning is "all a feel thing" anyway,..not to digress. Rather than make it seem like some kind of snake oil,...I have no pie charts or graphs to include. sorry. didn't mean to come across as a "know it all" I tried to give you a couple of starting points and general areas worth reading and studying. good luck in your quest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redlogic Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 All in good fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev. Juda Sleaze Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 Yeah, the few drummers I know, and think of as really knowing their stuff (they're few and far between in my experience), never talk in terms of pitch when they're talking about how they tune their kick drum. They say stuff more like: "I tuned it to go THWACK!", or "I tuned it to go DUD!", or "BOOoooom" (or my favourite: "It really gives you a punch up the arse") or whatever, but never "make sure you guys play in E, 'cos that's how I tuned my kit, and anything else will sound like balls". I'm not having a go, or trying to be divisive, this is just my experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
route-electrique Posted September 18, 2012 Share Posted September 18, 2012 Hell, there's engineers who tune even overheads and as we know it happen always sound better when kicks, snares whatever are tuned . Not saying that they've HAVE to be tuned to songs key, just saying it's always good to experiment . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Franckten Posted August 26, 2017 Share Posted August 26, 2017 Hi, from my own experience on tuning kick with logic i use Audio Finder a small app it can detect note of drums one shot and you can spot it to an audio track of logic. That's very useful for actual music, and when i compose now for actual music like EDM, DubStep, Hip hop, Trap, i tune my kit (Kick - Snare - Clap - Hit hat... in the scale of my track) Tuning can help you to resolve problems with mask frequency... I hope i can help you with that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prophecy99 Posted January 16, 2020 Share Posted January 16, 2020 sorry for the necro bump, but I am having the same issue with loaded samples in ultrabeat with my kick drums, before I tried the tuner plug in, out the gate i did tune it with the pitch slider to the proper hz of whatever the key note of my project is. I get the ear thing, and we all must trust our ears, but sometimes especially as a newbie its nice to get confirmation/affirmation on paper (the screen). i am going to try to load the kick samples raw into audio tracks and see if the tuner works that way with out ultrabeat in the mix, and if that works I will just label the audio samples accordingly and no more trusting newbie ears. if it doesn't then i will run with the fact most percussions don't have a super audible pitch. I will say in my production book it does talk about how some people tune all the kit pieces in drum kits so it does seem possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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