how to tune the bass drums?

[yashiharu]

Holy cow... while I appreciate your INTENT with the question, I think you are gonna kill yourself trying to achieve a specific pitch. I agree with jonnyboy, your

top two bass drummers should tune somewhat high, and they will (should) tell you if they are getting action out of their heads if you have them playing

any rolls or drags. Then you go down from there to a decent separation of tones. I have heard the "in fifths" rule many times but I've also heard bass drummers

say the "ran out" of tones by the time they got to the bottom drum. Was never really sure what they meant by that...

You can spend an hour tuning perfectly and once you hit cool air or warm humid air you'll lose all your hard work tuning to a specific pitch frequency. i only played

bass for one year in marching band, not corps. We went for the "Boom" on heads that were on the drums probably from when I was born. These other guys in this

thread played the big mutha's... so they would be the right guys to get the info from.

actually, i'm the newbie to the bassline since i play concert percussion (1 bass) only ...

no matter what the pitch of the smallest bassdrum is, i just want to determine the remainings.

how to measure the intervals between each other?

any tools? normal tuner or just hear by ear ...

[Tristan]

actually, i'm the newbie to the bassline since i play concert percussion (1 bass) only ...

no matter what the pitch of the smallest bassdrum is, i just want to determine the remainings.

how to measure the intervals between each other?

any tools? normal tuner or just hear by ear ...

By ear is your best bet. I've never been able to get a tuner to accurately register something like that.

Since you only have a 2" separation between drums, you won't be able to get much more than a major or minor third between them without putting either your top or bottom in a bad-sounding range.

If you had 4" separation, I'd say go for perfect 4ths all the way down.

[yashiharu]

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=perc...=442160/rpp=10/

how about this drum tuner?

anyone try it?

seems easy to tune :)

i'm not perfect pitch ... so seeking for some tools

[jdheere]

Wow... have you ever been to a dci/dca show? If you hang around the parking lot you'll learn a lot about tuning - everyone is different and they 'almost' all work.

For basses, let the drums size and the head type give you the pitch. Crank the top bass until it starts to choke it's own sound then back it off a turn or so on each lug. Tighten the bottom bass until the wrinkles are out of the head and then one or two turns tighter. Everything else in the middle is just that, in the middle. Allow the drum to tell you when it's correct. Forget all the hertz and tuner stuff unless you have a specific part in the music where a bass part needs to line up with a horn part. I remember Phantom in '87 I think it was where the third bass had to be at 880 then they tuned up and down from there.

With tenors, we'd always find a pleasing high note for drum one which would allow enough room beneath it's pitch for each successive drum to be a distant enough interval without drum five being to loose. The line should be tuned as close as possible.

With snares, tuning kevlar and mylar are different ball games. With kevlar, crank the top head to get good playing rebound and the tone and response would come from the bottom head (again, kevlar or plastic) and the snares themselves. Each drum would be 'tuned' to be pleasing for itself and no worry would be placed on making each drum sound like each other. If you're playing clean, they will sound great anyway.

Just turn knobs and have fun experimenting - don't approach this from the concert band angle. Field drums are all about loud and tight - not tuning to the orchestra.

[yashiharu]

Wow... have you ever been to a dci/dca show? If you hang around the parking lot you'll learn a lot about tuning - everyone is different and they 'almost' all work.

For basses, let the drums size and the head type give you the pitch. Crank the top bass until it starts to choke it's own sound then back it off a turn or so on each lug. Tighten the bottom bass until the wrinkles are out of the head and then one or two turns tighter. Everything else in the middle is just that, in the middle. Allow the drum to tell you when it's correct. Forget all the hertz and tuner stuff unless you have a specific part in the music where a bass part needs to line up with a horn part. I remember Phantom in '87 I think it was where the third bass had to be at 880 then they tuned up and down from there.

With tenors, we'd always find a pleasing high note for drum one which would allow enough room beneath it's pitch for each successive drum to be a distant enough interval without drum five being to loose. The line should be tuned as close as possible.

With snares, tuning kevlar and mylar are different ball games. With kevlar, crank the top head to get good playing rebound and the tone and response would come from the bottom head (again, kevlar or plastic) and the snares themselves. Each drum would be 'tuned' to be pleasing for itself and no worry would be placed on making each drum sound like each other. If you're playing clean, they will sound great anyway.

Just turn knobs and have fun experimenting - don't approach this from the concert band angle. Field drums are all about loud and tight - not tuning to the orchestra.

thx man!

here's far east, and i have never watch any live parking lot :-)

[jdheere]

try going to the vic firth website www.vicfirth.com and looking for the dci in the lot videos. You'd probably get some good ideas from listening to those lines of atl least what you like.