The Secret to Easier Tuning | Season Six, Episode 36

[@jameshicks3847]

I’ve been playing drums for 20 years. I have never ever ever been able to tune my drums. On a SLAD episode I saw recently, you guys hit a lug, and played the sine wave of the pitch you were listening to. I’d been hearing my drums wrong my entire life. I spent a full day sat with a frequency analyser, and a frequency generator, working out what I was supposed to be listening for. My ears suddenly latched on to the right harmonic, and that was it. After 20 years I could finally tune my drums. I have never felt joy like I did playing them for the HOURS I did straight after. That’s the first in tune kit I think I’ve ever played. It was incredible.

[@robertbufford1562]

Awesome ❤

[@erictorres4889]

When I was new to drums I couldn’t tune them to save my life then one day I said I’m going to learn to tune them it took months and then I learned it was a great feeling

[@curtisdegeorgio]

I really enjoyed this episode - maybe you guys should do a series of episodes where you focus on a given interval for an episode, then tune the drum up through it's usable range with that one interval. Could be cool to see how the same interval reacts through various tensions. Love the show, cheers!

[@reread2549]

I started out on Bongos and Timbales. I learned to tune to the first bar of “the assembly of buglers” or “first call”. I now apply that to the five piece drum set at the lower octave. Once you learn it, it becomes so natural that when a drum does drop out of tune a little bit, you’re tuning it back up in no time. Just don’t overthink it tuning is a very natural thing. Thank you.

[@jeffreywegener8841]

Brilliant work . I’m much better than when I started decades ago & still have a clear idea what I want . But the information you provide helps exceptionally.

[@gostbatsohg]

definitely intervals interested would love to see this in future episodes

[@octaviohenrique.n]

dude i'm not a drummer but i have a acoustic drum in my home studio which i always love to play, but i'm starting to study just recently. Your channel is really awesome! Aways really gerat advice, and your channel is one of the reasons i'm more and more addicted to drums. thanks! Please give us more videos about low-mid budget (for everything, snares, cymbals, solutions of low costs, etc) which could be a good choice for your best selections stuff. Brazil suffers way too much because of our currency. This would be a life saving for all people from 3d world country. Cheers

[@octaviohenrique.n]

I find my heads (evans hidraulic - that red one) way harder to tune, because it's more of a dry sound... thinking about changing it

[@ruffryder13]

I got an A+! It only took 30 years of obsessing over music and playing instruments. Really useful video.

[@TsunamiBeefPies]

Wonderfully explained! No news here for me in this one, but many compliments on how quickly and succinctly you managed to disseminate a mountain of information. But by far the very, VERY best part of this video was that every time you took one of your "groove breaks" where you move on to a new topic/section, Cody's groove was even more cool than the last one he did! Pulled some of the best out of your seemingly bottomless barrel of rhythmic figures, you rascal you! It's easy to see why you're an in-demand session guy. Thanks, guys! Consistently great work.

[@occhilcoat4641]

Would love a deeper dive into this stuff!

[@waynebaker2452]

Great episode. Never thought about relating to a movie theme or maybe easier a song.

[@allenmitchell09]

I think about the first 3 notes of “have yourself a merry little Christmas” as good intervals to shoot for on 3 tom kits as they’re 3rds. I have some different sizes going on for my toms and I tune an octave between high and low with a 5th note as my middle tom.

[@allenmitchell09]

Let me clarify, I don’t try to tone match like Cody shows here but that’s where the intervals lie when I get them tuned well.

[@willymccabe6602]

This video was super interesting and informative. Thank you!

[@ptronicmusic]

Great lesson! Singing is so important with finding and internalizing pitch. I have a small nit though. In the singing part at the start the sine wave and the tom are both in tune with each other (about 45ct flat of D or halfway between C and D) but the piano sound was bang on D so they aren't quite the same. I had to pull the audio into Ableton and check a tuner because thought I was going crazy 😅

[@SoundsLikeADrum]

Thanks! You're spot-on regarding the three demos at the start- excellent ear! We started with tuning the tom, then matched the frequency with a sine wave, and then went for the closest piano note. Since this was about matching the pitch with your voice, we weren't at all concerned about the (relatively small) difference.

[@ivanmolina9243]

Amazing video !!.. great info 👏! Thanks Cody.

[@DavidOakesMusic]

Thought that said EASTER tuning... What, so..E. G. G. ? 😆

[@Joethedrummer]

Super cool.

[@EmondJeremie]

If you ever get lost in the tuning process, feel the pressure in front of the tuning lugs. Tight : High sound Loose : Low sound

[@williehamilton1533]

So .... would you choose a dailtune brass snare over say.... a black beauty ... similarity in sound but ease and speed of control tuning??

[@kushking420]

The piano helps from just hearing the percussive sound when it strikes the key

[@cDisturbed.]

I use hydraulic Tom heads but I have a lot more sustain on my 12” tom, what should I do to the reso head to reduce it?

[@bavingeter423]

You could throw a few cotton balls inside the drum

[@kt-nf2jx]

I believe that the problem is that those who need ear training (me included) do not have a tool to confirm if the pitch they hear is lower or higher that compared to another pitch of a drum. And that's because a sound from a drum is not as simple as a sine wave. It's more complex, it's the fundamendal mode of vibration and the higher modes. I mean, there is tune bot, but you don't really know what exactly is it focusing at when it gives you an answer. Is it the fundamental? is the second mode? what is it? It would make a lot of sense to many people, if you could somehow use some visual aid, a waveform or some other type of graphical representation of sound, so that we can get a good understaning of what we are hearing and where are we trying to go with this, especially when we try to even out the pitches among lugs around the drumhead. Show the same graph before and after changing the tension so that we can see what exactly is changing. It would be tremendous help if you did that!

[@SoundsLikeADrum]

Would you be interested in a course that provided these sorts of aids with a collection of "quizzes" to help you practice and aid you in focusing on what to listen for and how to identity the pertinent elements?

[@kt-nf2jx]

@LikeADrum Sure I would! But just quizes by themselves (even if the answers are given afterwards) won't be enough. I would like to understand the parts comprising the drum sound that I am hearing (fundamental, overtones, attack, sustain, resonance), all with visual aids, waveforms and other sound-related graphs, on cubase or something (you can also try these while using a tunebot for comparison), so that: 1) I can do the experiment on my own using a DAW over and over again, as many times as needed untill I absolutely get it and see how each of these sound characteristics change on my drums when playing with different tunings 2) I am confident about what I am hearing when I sit to tune a drum. If I know what I am hearing, then it's a matter of practice I learn to do it more accuretly and quickly. But if I don't know what I am hearing, (should I focus more on the initial note, or the note that rings afterwards?) I am just going blindly and give up.

[@SoundsLikeADrum]

Yep, that’s exactly what we’re talking about. Visual aids, exercises, quizzes, the whole deal. Thanks for the feedback!

[@kt-nf2jx]

@@SoundsLikeADrum I will be more than happy to be involved in the shaping process of this course and give you feedback on your ideas once you put them on paper and become more specific.

[@allenmitchell09]

I’m big on the whole sound thing