Tuning drum samples?

[Sleepgolfer]

I saw a tip in last Future music about tuning drum samples to better suit your song...Does anyone have any experience with this tipe of sample tuning? How do you go on about tuning velocity layered hits and with what tool do I check the pitch of my samples?

[Markleford]

and with what tool do I check the pitch of my samples?

They're on either side of your head.

- m

[Sleepgolfer]

ooooh, I'm having spasms from laughing...If you can determine the pitch (CDEFGAH) of a kick drum or a snare just with your ears then, my dear, you are really blessed...

[eDrummist]

Some drummers tune their drums to notes.

- eDrummist

[simonhans73]

...then my ears (and many others) are blessed

...every sound you hear in this world has a tune.

You can try pitching any sound and you hear that it changes

you can play a note on a piano and compare it to the pitched drumsound

The drumsound schould fit somehow with the key of your tune

Some sounds is more importen to tune than others as it has so many differet overtones that it can fit in

but other drumsounds like percussion has more clearly a note/tuning

an other way to tune the drums is with an EQ. U can remove freequencies that intefeeres to much with the tune of your song


...yes I tune the drums all the time.
And yes real-drummers do also tune their drums
It very importened for modern music as it almost only rythem parts that they fit perfect in also.

[peejunk]

1) Manual labor way: Use a sine reference tone and your ears.

play the drum sample together with the sine. You can layer them in your sampler/synth and it would be great if you could set it up so that the pitch of the drum is fixed (i.e. not keytracked), then just play the keyboard unti they "lock in".

2) Tools

Most sample editors can determine pitch, most "WAV to MIDI" programs can also give a nice shot, as well as some other tools like Awave or AnalogX Autotune.

None of these are guaranteed to work, but they can (especially if you can use multiple software) narrow your search pretty well, and then you can just try to nail it precisely with 1)

That all said, it's best to use these (1 and 2) as hints but tune the samples to your track by transposing them around until they sit well, because drums don't always sit that good on tonic but on fifths, fourths, even thirds and sevenths.

And you could just remove the offending freq. with EQ. A decent enough solution if you don't want the change of sound's character that transposing will cause.

[freeztar]

because drums don't always sit that good on tonic but on fifths, fourths, even thirds and sevenths.

Interesting...how come we don't hear much of chordal drum sets (ie snare=c, h tom=g, l tom=f)? I wonder if Art Blakey experimented with this?

[Bonteburg]

If you can determine the pitch (CDEFGAH) of a kick drum or a snare just with your ears then, my dear, you are really blessed...

You needn't be that anal about your drums sleepgolfer (in my opinion)
A general direction should do. Tweak them til it fits!
Be careful with pitching drums too high tho, they're likely gonna lose all the punch.

Marco

[Alive In Chernobyl]

because drums don't always sit that good on tonic but on fifths, fourths, even thirds and sevenths.

Interesting...how come we don't hear much of chordal drum sets (ie snare=c, h tom=g, l tom=f)? I wonder if Art Blakey experimented with this?

Almost all serious drummer experiment with this.

[Sleepgolfer]

I always EQ the hell out the drums but I was wondering if it was also necessary to pitch the up/down to fit the song better...But what if the key changes in the middle of the song?

[Alive In Chernobyl]

I always EQ the hell out the drums but I was wondering if it was also necessary to pitch the up/down to fit the song better...But what if the key changes in the middle of the song?

Then change your drum line! No rule to make the drumline always same in the entire song! You can tune drum to note common to different keys too!

Have you ever try to write music with roto-tom sound? Marching bass drum sounds? Talking drum? These all use pitch to make melody with percussive drums. This is a common practice with people who have experience in percussion.

Tuning a drum to a pitch is first thing percussionist learns when entering school. No super ears needed for this task This is much easier than making a guitar itonated well!!!

[Alive In Chernobyl]

I saw a tip in last Future music about tuning drum samples to better suit your song...Does anyone have any experience with this tipe of sample tuning? How do you go on about tuning velocity layered hits and with what tool do I check the pitch of my samples?

Why do you need to to use future music tip? The drums you use are your decision to do! If the idea is not one you have began to think of then it will never give you best results. A tip only gives inspiration to bring your own ideas. If it is your desire to sound like future music says to then you are doing the right choice. If you wish to make music that is yours then I think you can look for better original idea!

[Haghi]

sorry, need my 20 posts for KVR contest

BTW, I think he's right... or not, who cares... actually, what is this topic about ?

CU!

[Markleford]

Sleepgolfer, do not worry about it! The only time you need to tune drums is if you have a drum with a strong fundamental tone and a long decay and feel that it's clashing with the other instruments.

In acoustic drums, these typically come from toms and ringy snares (and sometimes unmuffled kicks). Most often you'll tune the drums so that their top and bottom heads are equal to a longer sustain via sympathetic resonance. If you want the pitch to go down after you hit it, then tune the bottom head lower in pitch (I believe). And it's a good idea to pitch your toms to cover a good range, say with your high and low tom being an octave apart. But you'll never come up with one tuning to fit all songs, and a real drummer isn't going to retune between every song. (Note: all bets are off when it comes to Terri Bozzio!)

Unless you're always playing in drop-B tuning in a nu-metal band: then you want to tune your ringy piccolo snare to F for maximum tritone pleasure!

In electronic music, many kick drums have a strong tonal component, even to the extent to having a sub-bass sine wave as the basis for the sound. In that case, you'll definitely want to tune it to the key of your song.

But the bottom line is: work on songwriting! Songwriting! SONGWRITING! Nobody gives a f**k about your drum tuning if they get bored with your piece after 10 seconds!

- m

[peejunk]

Basically, I start a lot of my tracks with a drum kit I just transpose around a bit until I think it fits. Then I continue writing, and if I think that drums clash with my track I transpose them around until I'm satisfied how it sounds.

I usually resort to anal tuning I described ONLY when I cannot do it by few quick transpositions. So it's quicker to run them thru few tuning apps, nail them with a sine, and if I'm not satisfied with anything (and don't want to ditch the sample(s)) I use some music theory to figure out which tuning would be easiest to get used to. And get to EQ-ing.

However, tuning drums to eachother is ESSENTIAL for layering them, a practice that I suppose is pretty rare in majority of musical styles, but is used all the time in breakbeat and DnB, and to some extent, other forms of electronic dance music.

If you want two e.g. snares to blend seamlessly into sounding like one sample you must tune them together (snares, cymbals, long boomy kicks, don't bother with hihats). Sometimes I cannot rely to my ears to do the best job here, and I use described cheating methods. Tuned drums often add tightness to dance tracks.

Tuning or deliberately detuning percussion to your track is also usefull (you can add quite a rush to the 'feel' of the track with a dissonantly, and slightly higher tuned bongo or conga).

Thise are just neat tools, not some important rules, or anything you should loose sleep over.