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Thread: Tuning a snare to perfect 4th's with a Tune-bot

  1. #1
    scottyp is offline Senior Member (Respected Chatter)

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    Default Tuning a snare to perfect 4th's with a Tune-bot

    Here is another quick video I made on tuning my snare to a perfect 4th with the tune bot as well. I seemed to have pretty good results on it and it sounds amazing in the room. Lots of body and a nice crack. I find it let the overtones show just enough to give the snare some character and not be too dry.


  2. #2

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    Default Re: Tuning a snare to perfect 4th's with a Tune-bot

    I tune my batter head to K#. I tune the reso head to B# (I know there is no B# but who really cares. Same goes for K#).

    This is the Kate Beckinsale tuning for snare drum.
    YOU MESS WITH THE DEVIL YOU KNOW.

    YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE DEVIL YOU DON'T KNOW.

    VAE VICTIS

    ONCE YOU HIT A CERTAIN AGE, YOU BECOME PERMANENTLY UNIMPRESSED BY A LOT OF CRAP.

    I HIT THAT AGE 20 YEARS AGO.

    IF DOGS CAN'T GO TO HEAVEN, I WANT TO GO WHERE THEY GO

    WILL ROGERS

  3. #3

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    Default Re: Tuning a snare to perfect 4th's with a Tune-bot

    I tune mine to sound like a snare drum
    RDM/Damage Poets
    UFiP TAMAHA Zildjian
    REGAL TiP
    AQUARIAN

  4. #4
    scottyp is offline Senior Member (Respected Chatter)

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    Default Re: Tuning a snare to perfect 4th's with a Tune-bot

    I was expecting those reactions and comments here. I also Usually tune it to sound like a snare drum without a tuner. But once AGAIN I tried this as an experiment and had pretty good results.

    This is more to help people new to tuning than guys who are 100% happy with their tuning and anti every tuning device on the market. For a beginner having a tuner and plan will make the difference between having a good sounding kit or a kit they might not want to play. Heck for many advanced drummers it helps them achieve great tuning faster.

    I know of many professionals who love using these, and studios.

    I like to use it when changing heads in a hurry. If I am at 385 on the bottom, I'll slap the new head and tune to 385. no screwing around, and my snare can sound the exact same as it did before. That is perfect if your head has an issue mid session.

  5. #5

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    Default Re: Tuning a snare to perfect 4th's with a Tune-bot

    I tension my snare batter pretty tight for action and sound and the reso very tight for a crisp defined biff. I find a semi "choked" condition sounds best on a snare. I like it to go "bink" when struck without snares instead of "toom" I hate snares that have a tom sound lurking underneath the snares. Ring to varying degrees is desirable. As a matter of fact when my toms are all tuned up, if there is a sympathetic buzz from the snare I tweak the snare heads, usually the reso, to eliminate the harmonic relationship with whatever tom(s) are involved.. My toms are all lugs to the same "pitch". It's just so much easier (7 toms if all in use) than going for harmonic intervals and risking more potential dissonance.

  6. #6

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    Default Re: Tuning a snare to perfect 4th's with a Tune-bot

    Quote Originally Posted by scottyp View Post
    I was expecting those reactions and comments here. I also Usually tune it to sound like a snare drum without a tuner. But once AGAIN I tried this as an experiment and had pretty good results.

    This is more to help people new to tuning than guys who are 100% happy with their tuning and anti every tuning device on the market. For a beginner having a tuner and plan will make the difference between having a good sounding kit or a kit they might not want to play. Heck for many advanced drummers it helps them achieve great tuning faster.

    I know of many professionals who love using these, and studios.

    I like to use it when changing heads in a hurry. If I am at 385 on the bottom, I'll slap the new head and tune to 385. no screwing around, and my snare can sound the exact same as it did before. That is perfect if your head has an issue mid session.
    Scotty, you know that when you play out, the acoustics of a club can wreak havoc on your sound. Set your drums up in a club that holds 250 people, has a lot of hard surfaces,a higher (or lower ceiling) and and you are going to have to change your tuning. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little.

    Go to a club that holds 350-400 people with a lot of carpeting, curtains, and, back mainly in the '70's, went rampant with acoustic tiles which soaked up your sound. Also what a lot of drummers (even experienced 1's) didn't take into account was during a sound check maybe all that was needed was a little tweaking, and your drums sounded good. Then you go back at night and there are 300 people in there and your drums don't sound quite as good because some never took into account that people soak up sound. So the (arbitrary 385) might sound great where you're at, and sound like crap in a club.

    The toms were a little easier to work with (every drummer I knew carried duct tape) and I carried 5 snare drums, all tuned differently. I gave up trying to get a "perfect" drum sound wherever I played decades ago and just tried to have a consistent sound from venue to venue.
    YOU MESS WITH THE DEVIL YOU KNOW.

    YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE DEVIL YOU DON'T KNOW.

    VAE VICTIS

    ONCE YOU HIT A CERTAIN AGE, YOU BECOME PERMANENTLY UNIMPRESSED BY A LOT OF CRAP.

    I HIT THAT AGE 20 YEARS AGO.

    IF DOGS CAN'T GO TO HEAVEN, I WANT TO GO WHERE THEY GO

    WILL ROGERS

  7. #7

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    Default Re: Tuning a snare to perfect 4th's with a Tune-bot

    Quote Originally Posted by noreastbob View Post
    I tension my snare batter pretty tight for action and sound and the reso very tight for a crisp defined biff. I find a semi "choked" condition sounds best on a snare. I like it to go "bink" when struck without snares instead of "toom" I hate snares that have a tom sound lurking underneath the snares. Ring to varying degrees is desirable. As a matter of fact when my toms are all tuned up, if there is a sympathetic buzz from the snare I tweak the snare heads, usually the reso, to eliminate the harmonic relationship with whatever tom(s) are involved.. My toms are all lugs to the same "pitch". It's just so much easier (7 toms if all in use) than going for harmonic intervals and risking more potential dissonance.
    NEB, I thought that I've heard every description of sounds that a drum makes. Apparently I was wrong. I have heard choked, hollow, thud, and I've lost track of all the various descriptions of the sound a drum makes, but "bink" and "toom" are new 1's on me. I guess 1 man's "thud" is another mans "toom". I have no idea what sound would work with "bink" so I'm leaving that sucker alone.

    Same for "trashy" cymbals. Once I got the "trashy" sound down (I think) I knew that I had played that sound on my hats hundreds of times. I called it "the sound I've played on my hats hundreds of times". I thought that description was original.

    Then came the "china" cymbal. Without doubt the worst sounding cymbal of all time. I've heard a ton of drummers that had nice progressions on their cymbals until they hit that train wreck of a cymbal. They go on my list:

    1) cowbells
    2) china cymbals
    3) metronomes
    4) drum gel
    YOU MESS WITH THE DEVIL YOU KNOW.

    YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE DEVIL YOU DON'T KNOW.

    VAE VICTIS

    ONCE YOU HIT A CERTAIN AGE, YOU BECOME PERMANENTLY UNIMPRESSED BY A LOT OF CRAP.

    I HIT THAT AGE 20 YEARS AGO.

    IF DOGS CAN'T GO TO HEAVEN, I WANT TO GO WHERE THEY GO

    WILL ROGERS

  8. #8
    scottyp is offline Senior Member (Respected Chatter)

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    Default Re: Tuning a snare to perfect 4th's with a Tune-bot

    Bink to me sounds very bright and short and choked. toom sounds like pitch bend. But I have never heard those words to describe either.

    I agree with the venue statement. I have a backpack with gel, tape, tools etc I carry on gigs. My biggest gripe is a good soundcheck, then if we are headlining the sound guy turning things up to 11 and making peoples ears bleed in a smaller venue. Once EVERYTHING is that loud it really doesn't matter how you are tuned. Also, 99% of venues put a gate, compressor, heavy eq on the drums so I go more resonent. You can always take out a few frequencies, scoop the eq, and put on a heavy gate. You can't add tone to an awful sounding drum.

  9. #9

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    Default Re: Tuning a snare to perfect 4th's with a Tune-bot

    Hey Scotty P. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

    "Also, 99% of venues put a gate, compressor, heavy eq on the drums so I go more resonent. You can always take out a few frequencies, scoop the eq, and put on a heavy gate. You can't add tone to an awful sounding drum".

    It's not that I understood a word of ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ but I now know what words to use.

    BEAM ME UP SCOTTY, THE KLINGON DRUMMERS ARE RIGHT ON MY A$$.
    YOU MESS WITH THE DEVIL YOU KNOW.

    YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE DEVIL YOU DON'T KNOW.

    VAE VICTIS

    ONCE YOU HIT A CERTAIN AGE, YOU BECOME PERMANENTLY UNIMPRESSED BY A LOT OF CRAP.

    I HIT THAT AGE 20 YEARS AGO.

    IF DOGS CAN'T GO TO HEAVEN, I WANT TO GO WHERE THEY GO

    WILL ROGERS

  10. #10
    scottyp is offline Senior Member (Respected Chatter)

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    Default Re: Tuning a snare to perfect 4th's with a Tune-bot

    I must have missed something. If you play larger gigs, or spend time in the studio that is all pretty common stuff. Almost every sound guy will EQ your drums to take out many of the mid range frequency's. It goes for both live gigs and albums. It gives the punch and attack to cut the mix. Then they compress the sound to keep things from clipping further bringing out attack and many go overboard on this. Finally they put a noise gate on all the close mics so the toms don't ring for 5 seconds and it kills the bleed from the other drums.

    Maybe I spend too much in the studio or gigging but that isn't space talk. I thought it was common knowledge...

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