I LOVE my new Tune Bot!

DrumEatDrum said:

More than likely:

It's a brand new product from a new manufacture they recently discovered, so it may not be built into the website yet. A lot of new products come out in January, and it can take a while to get everything up.

As a brand new product from a new manufacturer, the initial order may be a test run to see how it goes before they fully commit to stocking it full time on the web and in all the stores.

But I agree it is a bit odd that there is no mention of it anywhere on the site. Not even a "coming soon" listing.

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You'll probably have to call your local store. The 3 stores in my area had them (SD)

DrumEatDrum said:

As for why? Well, any decent guitar player can tune by ear, but we still expect every pro to have a guitar tuner on them. If it's good for the goose, maybe it's good for the gander too.

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The only reason guitar players are expected to use a tuner is because they need to tune every few songs or so and there is nothing more annoying or unprofessional than to go see a band and the guitar players are tuning by ear between songs, bowong, bowong, tawang, tawang, towong towong, well you get the picture. If they could tune their guitar and it stayed in tune for the whole show no one would care if they used a tuner or not. But hey dont get me wrong, if the tune bot actually does what they say it will and actually speeds things up, then I am all for it but Im still a bit skeptical as there has been a list of drum tuning products in the past that havent lived up to the hype and actually take longer to tune a drum than doing it by ear.

I wasn't too thrilled at what I witnessed in their video, but I'm going to keep an open mind about it until I have one in my hands. Hopefully it will be in my possession longer than what the DrumDial was, lol. As I sit here, I'm thinking about all the better mouse traps that have already been invented to match or better the human ear. If everyone could spontaneously be able to concur challenges without having to really learn the task at hand, this would be a much better world, or would it?

Dennis

Another cool thing I just thought of is that we now can exchange tunings.
Lets say I find the holy grail tuning for my toms(there could be others with the same drums and heads), then I could post this tuning and others could try it.

Since the Tune-Bot allows you to tune your drums to specific notes, what should that note be for a given size drum? From what I've read each tom if tuned to a note should be kept 3-5 notes apart from the next to keep a melodic sounding kit (Drum Tuning Bible).

From what I understand it would be better to tune your largest floor tom to it's fundamentally lowest pitch. That note would then give you a starting point to work your way back up to the smallest tom keeping a 3-5 note interval. If you started out with your smallest toms fundamental pitch and work your way down to your largest tom, that floor tom might not be able to be tuned low enough to keep that melodic 3-5 note interval.

What about the bass drum? I assume it too should be 3-5 notes lower than the largest floor tom. So, shouldn't the tuning start out with the bass drum and work up to the smallest rack tom?

My kit consists of a 10" rack tom and a 14" floor tom and 20" bass. As long as that 3-5 note interval is kept and my floor tom allows can I simply pick a note for the 10" tom to tune the others by or should a 10" tom be at a certain note to begin with?

When my kit is in tune the sound of each tom compliments the next one over and as a whole the kit sings. Using the Tune-Bot I should be able to now find what notes those toms are at and their intervals.

audiotech said:

If everyone could spontaneously be able to concur challenges without having to really learn the task at hand, this would be a much better world, or would it?

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I personally am relatively happy that I don't need to know how to make flint spearheads in order to hunt and kill my dinner. Meat in a styrofoam tray makes life easier, you know.

And tuning drums sucks. It can be difficult, time consuming, and doing it manually does not provide useful benefit over other means. It is not a useful skill in the same way that sweeping a floor is not a useful skill. Maybe some people are faster at sweeping than others. But a clean floor is a clean floor, and "clean" is essentially a finite level of accomplishment. Once a floor is clean, a better sweeper can't really make it more clean. And besides, tuning a drum is only a means to an end, namely, playing a drum. And to that end there is no shortcut, no bass pedal nor beater nor other piece of gear that makes one a better drummer, no gear that can replace skill.

Except for a drum machine, but that exactly is what I think you mean by "or would it?"

If I had a differential of 3 to 5 notes between drums, I would be out of notes till I got to the 8" toms on my seven piece kits, lol. I don't tune by exact notes, but tune to pitches of the shells. If by chance I hit an "E" or something that's sharp or flat, it's alright with me. I have to be in relatively perfect tune when I'm playing my trumpet, but with drums anything goes as long as they sound great and each drum has it's place in the scheme of things with all the other voices mixed within the kit. In other words, the kit has to sound great as a whole. I truly believe that tuning to particular notes is just a way that some, not necessarily very fluent with tuning or being able to hear subtle pitch changes, will have a tangible factor to strive for to be able to get their drums sounding respectable. This takes out all the guess work as to what really is the best pitch to try to grasp for in a drum of a particular size. It's like asking someone to tell you the exact note your 12" tom should be resonating at. I always basically tune to the shell's sweet spot which takes just about everything into account as a whole. It's what I've been using on my kits and client's kits for a lot of years without fail.

Actually the management of the studios where I work find out exactly what the producers want from the session in our pre-production meetings and then bill accordingly. They especially love when studio drummers insist on re-tuning their kits between songs to make an attempt to tune exactly to the music. They get charged by the hour instead of by the block. Luckily this doesn't happen very often, because commercial studio time and staff do not come cheaply, especially when tracking to tape.

Dennis

audiotech said:

I always basically tune to the shell's sweet spot which takes just about everything into account as a whole. It's what I've been using on my kits and client's kits for a lot of years without fail.

Dennis

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Hey Dennis,

How do you actually determine or find a drum's sweet spot?

Soupy said:

I personally am relatively happy that I don't need to know how to make flint spearheads in order to hunt and kill my dinner.

no gear that can replace skill.

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I've made spear heads in scouts and it wasn't a very big deal, I earned a badge. This really wouldn't bother me at all since I'm not a hunter, but I would have to go with a bow and arrow if I had the choice, they're faster. I do enjoy putting holes in paper targets though, if that counts.

You made the statement that tuning sucks. Most people believe things suck because they don't have the mental fortitude or skill sets to really learn how to do them. I always thought algebra and calculus sucked until I learned the basics. You can learn just about anything if you put forward just a little initiative. Drum maintenance and particularly their tuning, deserves the same mind set as actually playing the drums. Just too many want things handed to them on a silver platter without actually putting the time in to hone the craft.

"no gear that can replace skill".

I believe that this is what I've been talking about all along. It's good to see that you are agreeing with this, there's still hope. It does take skill and experience to properly tune a drum and the gear only being a drum key, a drum stick and your ears. I would very much like to alleviate the drum key part of the gear, but I have a loose front tooth. The skill part is what's eluding you.

BTW, I enjoy tuning drums much more than sweeping floors. Did you ever try it?

Dennis

BigDinSD said:

Hey Dennis,

How do you actually determine or find a drum's sweet spot?

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Every drum has a sweet spot, some are a bit more difficult to hear than others depending on their size and the frequencies they emit.. I tune for the sweet spot by loosening the batter head and flipping the drum over to work on the resonant head. I also take all the tension of the resonant head and bring it up slowly until you start to get some tone out of the drum. At this point flip it back over and do the same to the batter head. At this point I'm probably working with 1/16" turns of the drum key bring up both heads until I get the most resonance and sustain from the drum. Keeping both heads at approximately the same pitch will always enhance the sound (if you like your drums to sing). If you're going for a pitch bend, this will shorten the sustain time of the drum. After you do this several times it will become much faster and you'll know automatically when you start to enter the drum's sweet spot. There is only one actual sweet spot per drum, but think of it as an arrow head with the sweet spot being the tip and the fan of the arrow head being how far above and below the center spot you can actually go for a higher or lower pitch for that particular drum. It's much like adjusting a tuned circuit in a receiver or transmitter. There is a definite peak to the coil and on either side of the peak, a gradual slope. One side of the slope may be more gradual than the other. With drums, the more gradual slope is usually on the lower frequency side of the tuning compared to the higher or more tensioned side of the slope. It's much easier to demonstrate rather than explain, but that's basically it.

Dennis

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This really wouldn't bother me at all since I'm not a hunter

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You aren't a hunter because you don't have to be one to survive. Once upon a time, you did have to kill things to eat, or else starve. Fortunately technology such as agriculture and domestication of animals has meant that you don't have to hunt for your food anymore. Smilarly, tuning drums is merely a means to an end, and if technology can achieve the same end... namely playing the drums... in a more efficient manner, then so be it, another chore has been made less onerous.

If a drum tuned as easily and quickly as a guitar, no one would regret that.

Soupy said:

You aren't a hunter because you don't have to be one to survive. Once upon a time, you did have to kill things to eat, or else starve. Fortunately technology such as agriculture and domestication of animals has meant that you don't have to hunt for your food anymore. Similarly, tuning drums is merely a means to an end, and if technology can achieve the same end... namely playing the drums... in a more efficient manner, then so be it, another chore has been made less onerous.

If a drum tuned as easily and quickly as a guitar, no one would regret that.

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It all comes down to it that someone still has to kill those animals to put food on our plates, unless you're a vegetarian, but it just doesn't have to be me. Technology is a good thing in most cases, but I have yet to see technology that is better at achieving the goal of tuning a drum that's better or more accurate than the human ear, unless the individual is too lax to try to learn the craft, then I guess anything would sound better than a flat sounding kit. Who ever said that by using some kind of tuning device that it is more efficient? I'll tell you, it's the person that can't tune their kit without some sort of a crutch. It's only more efficient of the individual has no other alternative. It's not a chore if you know what you're doing. In your case it seems as if chore is synonymous with "sucks". I can just picture the individual frantically running around their house looking for their tuning machine which was inadvertently misplaced, broken or has an expired battery, this won't happen with my ears, lol.

A guitar is similar to drums in the respect that after the new strings are installed and tuned, it's just basically keeping them in tune with a slight touch-up. This is what I do, but I'm using drum heads instead of strings.

We both have our opinions, I just base mine on better learning skills.

Dennis

audiotech said:

There is a definite peak to the coil and on either side of the peak, a gradual slope. One side of the slope may be more gradual than the other. With drums, the more gradual slope is usually on the lower frequency side of the tuning compared to the higher or more tensioned side of the slope. It's much easier to demonstrate rather than explain, but that's basically it.

Dennis

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Hey thanks for the textbook explanation Dennis!

I actually kinda understood that.This material would make a great clinic. My main challenge I think would be how far to tighten down the lugs after it starts to resonate.
I guess keep it at lowest possible tone where it resonates?

As you said earlier, that's why some of us resort to tuning to notes because at least there's a target to aim for. Determining the bullseye of that target however, is the challenge.

I'm gonna have to learn more about finding the sweet spot.

When you torque the lugs too tight you always know it because the drum chokes and it loses the nice mellow tone. It gets that tupperware sound.
High toms as a rule can take a bit more crank on the resos than floor toms.
I tune my floor tom resos at almost the same pitch as the batter.
My high tom reso is usually higher in pitch than the batter because the drum can handle it better.

I'm truly stuck between two camps here. I pride myself in being able to tune well, but I also see real world advantages with this product. Tuning in a noisy environment is a big one for me. How many times have I turned up at a gig, only to find that I want to tune differently to allow for the stage/room, & it's as noisy as hell.

I also like the exchange of tuning ideas thing as well. Even from a drum manufacturers pov, you can suggest tunings for your product that offer certain sound characteristics.

To me, it all hinges on accuracy. If this product is truly accurate, then I think it's a winner. I tried a tuning dial thingy once, & gave up after it became clear that it just wasn't accurate, & I could tune better & faster without it.

bobdadruma said:

When you torque the lugs too tight you always know it because the drum chokes and it loses the nice mellow tone. It gets that tupperware sound.
High toms as a rule can take a bit more crank on the resos than floor toms.
I tune my floor tom resos at almost the same pitch as the batter.
My high tom reso is usually higher in pitch than the batter because the drum can handle it better.

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Are you typically keeping the tone at the lowest possible tone (something like "JAW")?
I suppose that is a personal preference for everyone.

I think I started out trying to find the sweet spot of my drums a few years back. I lacked the patience (and skill) to really find that spot. I then had to resort to tuning to notes for at least a reference point to shoot for.

keep it simple said:

I'm truly stuck between two camps here. I pride myself in being able to tune well, but I also see real world advantages with this product. Tuning in a noisy environment is a big one for me. How many times have I turned up at a gig, only to find that I want to tune differently to allow for the stage/room, & it's as noisy as hell.

I also like the exchange of tuning ideas thing as well. Even from a drum manufacturers pov, you can suggest tunings for your product that offer certain sound characteristics.

To me, it all hinges on accuracy. If this product is truly accurate, then I think it's a winner. I tried a tuning dial thingy once, & gave up after it became clear that it just wasn't accurate, & I could tune better & faster without it.

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Don't know if this video is posted here yet, but it's pretty interesting from a Drum Tech's POV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt1EKjrMZzM

I don't think he's endorsed, but he mentioned he received a prototype...

keep it simple said:

I'm truly stuck between two camps here. I pride myself in being able to tune well, but I also see real world advantages with this product. Tuning in a noisy environment is a big one for me. How many times have I turned up at a gig, only to find that I want to tune differently to allow for the stage/room, & it's as noisy as hell.

I also like the exchange of tuning ideas thing as well. Even from a drum manufacturers pov, you can suggest tunings for your product that offer certain sound characteristics.

To me, it all hinges on accuracy. If this product is truly accurate, then I think it's a winner. I tried a tuning dial thingy once, & gave up after it became clear that it just wasn't accurate, & I could tune better & faster without it.

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KIS,

I too, believe my ears first - technology second. Ive been doing this now 35+ years, so I have a pretty good handle on tuning. THe TB is a gamechanger. I tuned 6 snares in about 15 minutes yesterday - all bang on and all where their sweet spot was. Im really pleased with the TB, but I can still tune by ear. To be fair, the snares were tuned by ear and were only off a smidge, so it was a couple of quick taps to get them within +/- 1 of where I wanted them.


F

BigDinSD said:

Are you typically keeping the tone at the lowest possible tone (something like "JAW")?

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No; JAW is the starting point. I go about 1/2 turn above JAW and I work from there.
I find the middle. 1/2 to 3/4 turns of a rod above JAW is usually the middle of the effective tuning range of a tom.
A typical 8 x 12 rack tom will be tuned at about 1/2 turn above JAW on the batter and 3/4 turn above JAW on the reso.
That drum will then be bending a note in the Sweet Spot.
JAW = 1/4 turn after the tension rod washer contacts the hoop.

I went to GC yesterday and messed around with one, I was really impressed with it and would have got it but it was the only one they had and everyone has been messing around with it since they got it. It was much easier than the drum dial to use and I can see where in a noisy situation where you cant really hear it would come in handy. We pulled down some snares and had them singing in no time. But I will wait until they get a new one unopened before I buy it. I can tune by ear but sometimes I just need a second opinion, lol.