Tuning Drums

[Plastik909]

I was reading a biography of the Rolling Stones on the weekend. They were in a studio in Alabama (I think, just before the disastrous Speedway gig). Anyway, an engineer or producer asked Charlie Watts to tune his kit for the take. He replied that he never tunes his kit as it only goes out of tune after a few bashes (or words to that effect). I only mention this as he’s obviously a highly successful player.

So is it reasonable/essential to expect a drummer to have a tuned kit (irrespective of who actually tunes it) ? And if so I guess the kit should be in tune with itself and the song ? Cannot good results be got with the kit that has no rattles, new heads and has a sound that intuitively sounds good ?

Cheers,


Brent.

[where02190]

The key is, as you say, the kit is intune with itself. A drumkit is not jsut the sum of it's parts, but should be treated as one big instrument. this how engineers get huge drumsounds with only a fe mics.

However, a drumkit that is in tune with itself has effectively been tuned.

Hope this is helpful.

[metaltim]

you definately want your individual drums to be tuned, otherwise your toms get some pretty nasty over tones. When well tuned, you get a nice quick punch to the toms.
same with snare.

if you have slower, quieter music, say jazz or something, if you go in for a little tom roll, and they aren't in tune with each other, you'll get a funny sound out of one em. just like if you where doing a guitar solo, and hit a note that isnt in your scale, even those who know nothing about scales can usually tell there is a bad note in there.

so yeh, tune em up, cause i don't care what the dude from rolling stones says, they don't go out of tune that quick.

I've recorded in a death metal band, and you don't hit drums any harder or faster than in that type of music, and I could easily make it through a session of recording (couple of hours) before you can noticebly hear they are out of tune.

I was using one of those psi tuners too, so i could get the tension pretty much exact across the head.

tim

[BigRedButton]

A comparison:

Charlie Watts (as much as I respect him)-

NEVER changes his drum heads, has very little knowledge of drum tuning, hits his drums with the force of a sneeze.

John Bonham -

Very skilled at tuning, drum and head selection, and bashed his kit as if they had killed his dog.

Listen to recordings from both of these legendary drummers of the 70's and tell me which you prefer.

Tuning, properly muffling, attacking drums correctly, and room selection, are FAR more important than what type of mic or preamp you use in the chain. Not to say that those things aren't VERY important as well.

There are many great articles on the web, and videos (Bob Gatzen's comes to mind) on the subject of drum tuning. Most drummers are worthless when it comes to tuning, so I think it's in EVERY engineer's best interest to learn how to tune, as well as the "gentle art of drummer persuasion" aka" Jedi mind tricks.

[j20056]

The studio in Alabama is the famous "Muscle Shoals" where Wilson Pickett, and later the Allman Brothers, produced some of their best recordings. That place is a legend. You can see it on the Gimme Shelter movie, they recorded Love in Vain there. Having said all this, yeah, it's hard to be impressed by Charlie Watts, that guy knows like one drum pattern and a few rolls. Sure I'm gonna get blasted for this...

[Lowfreq]

Bonham vs. Watts ? Hardly a fair comparison as the require two very different drum styles. Bonham's drummer on Stones tunes would sound very wrong & vice versa. How about something more realistic? Keith Moon and John Bonham. Moon never tuned and hit very hard (especially with his hands) & the drums sounded just fine. Not that tuning is not important, which it is. But a skilled engineer & producer WILL get that performance and great sound with or with out drum tuning.

[BigRedButton]

I hear ya.

Although, I wasn't comparing styles as much as the overall sound of their kit's.

To me, a Bonham/Watts comparison still makes more sense because they were both meat & potatoes groove drummers, who focused most of their attention to the kick and snare, whereas Moon was very manic and (overused IMHO) cymbals a lot.

Just my thoughts.

[metaltim]

Originally posted by funkyd:
I think it is very reasonable to expect a drummer to have a well-maintained and properly tuned kit.
I would be wary about using a drummer who didn't concern themselves with getting a good drum sound. This attitude might also be reflected in the way they approach music in general.
(I'm a drummer, by the way)

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">i agree, as I am a drummer also, HOWever
in the studio, in the band I was in (death metal), I had the most work cut out for me than anyone else in the band. Playing 4 hours of death metal songs is quite tiring, SOO, I would make the guitar player tune my drums [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
at least i had an excuse, a guitar player has no excuse making someone else in the band tune/restring his guitar.

[Paul_m]

I don't know anything about tuning drums, but the drum groove on Jigsaw Puzzle by the stones is pretty frigin funky and tight. I don't remember ever thinking the drums sounded anything less than perfect on that. I'll have to go back and listen again though, I don't have it handy. At least as good (although totally different) from anything John Bonham did.

P

[nqmike]

http://www.drumweb.com/profsound.shtml


Click on that link and save it to your favorites page. When you've got a few minutes to kill- read it.

Your studio drum sound is equal parts drummer and performance/ gear/ and TUNING.

Run a drum track through all the tools you want to (with the exception of Sound Replacer) and you're not going to turn it into something its not. You can't polish a turd.

I frequently get work as a session drum tech and recently did a seminar at a local recording school on tuning drums. The students were amazed at how I did all of the work in the live room- not the control room. The mic is just showing you what is there! Get it right at the drumset, not in the control room, and certainly not in the mix.


Happy tracking!