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| Jazz drum tuning [message #108917] |
Wed, 22 February 2006 21:18  |
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Evan Kirkendall
Messages: 6551
Registered: November 2004
Location: Abingdon, MD |
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Ok, this is waaaaay off topic, but I know there are some good drummers on this forum and they should be able to help me.
Anyway,
Ive been having some pretty long disscussions with my jazz band teacher in school about how the drumset should be tuned. He likes everything tuned really low and ringy, while Im just the opposite. I dont mind the toms and kick being low(just not ringing), but I want the snare to have a nice crack. Right now it sounds like a tom with loose snares attached to it. Its aweful, IMO. Hes old, and I guess he likes the way older kits sound. But I just dont think the snare fits with the band.
To give you some background, we play some older jazz, some newer jazz, lots of latin/sombas and some rock. We are a smaller jazz band, only having 2 alto saxes, 1 tenor, 1 trombone, 2 trumpets, 1 bass, me on guitar and drums. The snare kinda gets covered up in the rest of the band.
Before the teacher re-tuned the kit the snare was slightly higher and we all liked it a lot more. But, now everythings low and rings forever, except the kick. Thats still ok.
I also noticed the low tom has some wrinkles in the head now... Thats bad right? I guess we need to tune it up some... Or you guys need to convince him to tune it up...
But anyway, what is the 'best' way to tune the kit for this style music? Mainly the snare.
Thanks,
Evan
Evan on the web
HarfordSound
"This rig needs some finesse to get rid of the excessive spectral buildup." -Tom M.
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| Re: Jazz drum tuning [message #108937 is a reply to message #108917 ] |
Wed, 22 February 2006 22:11  |
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Hey, Evan, I've found the Drum Tuning Bible to be a helpful resource. I'm no drummer, however, so I'm still looking for an excuse to lay my hands on JR's gadget to whip out when Walla Walla Floor Tom gets set up on my stage.
-- Bennett Prescott
Director of North American Sales
ADRaudio d.o.o.
Cell: (518) 488-7190
"Fuck it! We'll do it live." - Bill O'Reilly
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| Re: Jazz drum tuning [message #108963 is a reply to message #108917 ] |
Thu, 23 February 2006 00:21 |
 Clarke LaPlante
Messages: 378
Registered: April 2004
Location: Check the itinerary... |
Has No Life |
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| Evan Kirkendall wrote on Wed, 22 February 2006 22:18 |
I also noticed the low tom has some wrinkles in the head now... Thats bad right? I guess we need to tune it up some... Or you guys need to convince him to tune it up...
But anyway, what is the 'best' way to tune the kit for this style music? Mainly the snare.
Thanks,
Evan
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Um, yeah... wrinkles in the heads are a no-no.
I'll second the recommendation of the Drum Tuning Bible. I learned more about tuning drums from reading the first couple pages than in several years of playing the damned instrument.
In my experience, most traditional jazz kits are tuned quite differently than rock kits. Most straight-ahead jazz kick drums are tuned higher than I would tune a 12" tom for a rock gig, and the toms are generally tuned higher and quite open (read: ringy).
Since your band is playing a mix of styles, including a few where a traditional jazz tuning would probably sound like ass, I'd recommend, as they say, splitting the difference. I'd tune the drums so they resonate in their natural range, focusing on the bottom head for tone and the top head for feel. If you tune the top head slightly higher than the bottom head you can get that nice, fat initial tone of the drum and a controlled resonance that falls a bit in pitch as the drum decays. A nice sound for most every occasion.
The DTB has a pretty extensive section on snare tuning. For rock/latin/contemporary jazz, I'd agree with a higher tuning with some "crack" in it. Keep the bottom head tuned a bit higher than the top head and you should be in business.
-Clarke
"Friends don't let friends mix monitors."
My slice of the www.
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| Re: Jazz drum tuning [message #109028 is a reply to message #108935 ] |
Thu, 23 February 2006 09:54 |
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John Roberts {JR}
Messages: 10379
Registered: April 2004
Location: MS |
Has No Life
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| Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Wed, 22 February 2006 22:06 |
Dude! You need Resotune to be the expert... that way your floppy-snare aficionado will see a third party solution and not have to admit his error.
JR might know something about this... 
-Bink
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Thanks for the soft pitch over the middle of the plate... 
While visible wrinkles or heads so loose that they buzz or rattle are to be avoided, you need to be careful not to rely too much on tuning with your eyes or feel of simple lug tension. We have found that measured response is not always consistent with the feel of just twisting lugs. Of course this varies with the quality of the hardware and drums.
Our official position regarding what notes to target while tuning is a little like Switzerland. We don't have a position on that. We provide the tool that allows you to very precisely tune to whatever note "you" choose. What note that should be is up to you.
The concept of tuning to musically significant notes is still foreign to many drummers. Since the customer is always right we provide 20 cent (5) steps in between full notes so you can tune pretty much wherever you want to end up.
IMO the easiest and most accessible benefit from precise tuning is simply clearing the drum head (getting all the lugs perfectly matched) at whatever rough tuning they may happen to be at. Drum head vibration modes (resonances) are complex. I have written a short piece for my website describing some of the relationships and interactions that may be of interest to drummers. http://circularscience.com/about_drums.htm
We are in the very early days of exploring the potential for this technology. I expect that once well cleared drums becomes routine and tuning to specific notes becomes a possibility, drummers will take advantage of that capability to enjoy a new level of compatibility with song arrangements and/or the rest of the band. With the repeatability to maintain or return to those improved tunings quickly and easily.
I am working on, but haven't finished yet, an area for my website where I will publish pictures of user's kits and how "they" are tuned, including what heads were used, and what notes they tuned to. As this area gets populated, it will provide a road map or recipes for how to get drum sounds favored by some other drummers. I suspect this will remain a personal subjective decision for quite a while. At some point you should be able to precisely recreate the tuning of your favorite drum artist on a given song (assuming they're willing to share), but I don't need to get out too far ahead of things.
There are already a few RESOTUNEs in use by fellow LABees. I encourage them to share their experience exploring this infant technology.
JR
PS: Mods-I hope I am within board guidelines with this response, they did ask.
https://www.resotune.com/
Watch your elected representatives. Then next November give them their job review, with your vote.
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Tune it, or don't play it...
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and it's spelled bus.... Thank You and good night
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| Re: Jazz drum tuning [message #109091 is a reply to message #108917 ] |
Thu, 23 February 2006 13:03 |
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Lee Patzius
Messages: 1828
Registered: April 2004
Location: St. Louis MO |
Has No Life |
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Evan,
I've noticed drummers who tune their drums lower, with extra long ringing, do so because they actually *play* the drum with extreme dynamic range. Especially with softer styles, professional jazz, stick and brush drummers demand a 1000's of sounds out of a single drum, and they can get it.
But I agree, for many louder music styles, a well tuned, but less ringy tone IS preferred. But if you think about it, deadening a drum is throwing away half of the music.
Ringing drums CAN be played hard, but you have to have years of impact focus, and precision tuning experience.
Dead drums are more forgiving, as far as tuning.
Wrinkles on the drum head? No.
The snare has to sound like a snare. If it sounds like a tom with loose snares, then the bottom snare head may not be a real thin bottom snare head, or it's tuned too loose, and you may even have a few extra worn snares stretched out. Normal batter (thicker) heads on the bottom will make a snare sound horrible (like a tom) also. Yuk!
One more thing... Nothing... And I mean NOTHING, comes even remotely close, to precision tuning, until you tried out JR's Resotuner.
(Yes I have one! one word.. UNBELIEVABLE.)
Real quickly, (I'm at work and lunch is over) traditional old style tuning requires you to take the drum off the stand, and place one head down on a stool, to kill one head, so you can hear and tune the other free floating head. When you do that, the whole drum's resonant frequency, and head you are tuning, rises to a much higher frequency. Then you flip it over, try to match the high pitch on the other head, etc.. YUK!
But NOT with JR's tuner. The beauty of his tuner allows you to keep the drum mounted on the stand, shell floating in free air (except mounting hardware) and resonating as is... The way it's SUPPOSED to be.
Then it does a slow frequency sweep catching the REAL resonant fundamental, and overtone freqs. It locks on precisely, does some "thinking" and then it tells YOU where to turn the lugs!
I swear, watching this thing work, LED's locking on... It's so precise, it's like JR's in the room with me! 
I have NEVER heard my drums sound so good before. No BULL. I've played live with my band twice now, with the most beautifully sounding, precision tuned drums I've ever heard. It totally works, and is totally unbelievable.
Much more info to come soon... gotta go.
Lee Patzius
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| Re: Jazz drum tuning [message #109134 is a reply to message #109091 ] |
Thu, 23 February 2006 15:50 |
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Please! A review! With photos! I'm on the edge of my seat.
-- Bennett Prescott
Director of North American Sales
ADRaudio d.o.o.
Cell: (518) 488-7190
"Fuck it! We'll do it live." - Bill O'Reilly
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| Re: Jazz drum tuning [message #109167 is a reply to message #109134 ] |
Thu, 23 February 2006 17:28 |
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Lee Patzius
Messages: 1828
Registered: April 2004
Location: St. Louis MO |
Has No Life |
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Sure thing! As soon as I can get back to our practice studio.
But as luck would have it (actually very lucky) I've been on stage the last few nights, playing on other people's kits, and tonight will be no exception.
Last night, I was honored to sit in on Mike Safron's kit, of Pavlov's Dog...
Anyway, I'm really anxious to get back to my drums, to play with the tuner, try new things, take pics, write up a report, share pics and tunings, etc... You name it!
But for now, what makes this tuner totally different is, it tunes to actual resonance, and frequency response of the heads and shell.. Not by torque wrenches or head tension dials... You can actually feel the drum head vibrate as two speakers transmit a range of variable low frequencies. In addition, two strategically placed mic's receive, and pick out the reflected wave shapes off of the head. Obviously it's very directional too, you point it to the lug you're tuning, and is nearly unaffected by the other lugs except the ONE lug it's looking at (to a reasonable extent).
Much like tuning with your finger in the center of a drum with respect to a lug, but this tuner does it electronically. Tuning is either perfect, or not. If not, it'll get you there with +/- led's showing you which way to turn! You have to see it in action to fully appreciate and understand it.
Also, when tuning the old way by hand, you can tune one lug, but then you need to perform a near perfect star pattern, hoping by by "feel" or ear, and half step tuning methods, that you have compensated for unequal head tensions, tilting, or whatever... Then if it did tilt, it got really tricky to get "in between" to un-torque and fix it. Mostly I'd give up and just take it all loose and start over again. Even with with torque wrenches and tension dials, it's been an imperfect science, until NOW.
The tuner IS locked in with a quartz crystal time base reference, and I forget how many decimal places of precision to each note.
You know, I can keep going on... and on... But the more I write, the bigger the chance I'll make a technical mistake in interpretation of how this thing works... so I'll just stop right here, until I get more experience with the tuner, and as soon as I get back to playing MY drums!
Also, JR, I just want to say, THANK YOU very much. You nailed it.
Lee Patzius
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| Re: Jazz drum tuning [message #109190 is a reply to message #108917 ] |
Thu, 23 February 2006 18:56 |
Marc Schwartz
Messages: 481
Registered: April 2004
Location: FL |
Has No Life |
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Evan,
During my tenure at the Blue Note in NYC, I worked with a number of legendary jazz drummers. I learned a great deal about drum sounds from them. In particular, Elvin Jones, who played in John Coltrane's band, tuned his kit very high. In fact, his bass drum was tuned to "A", which he was kind enough to tell me when I asked him about it. As JR pointed out, the idea of tuning to notes is foreign to many drummers. That is unfortunate, because it is certainly possible, if not desireable to use a musical tuning of the drum kit to play melodies while keeping time.
-Marc
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| Re: Jazz drum tuning [message #109211 is a reply to message #109190 ] |
Thu, 23 February 2006 20:23 |
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John Roberts {JR}
Messages: 10379
Registered: April 2004
Location: MS |
Has No Life
10,000+ |
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| Marc Schwartz wrote on Thu, 23 February 2006 18:56 |
Evan,
During my tenure at the Blue Note in NYC, I worked with a number of legendary jazz drummers. I learned a great deal about drum sounds from them. In particular, Elvin Jones, who played in John Coltrane's band, tuned his kit very high. In fact, his bass drum was tuned to "A", which he was kind enough to tell me when I asked him about it. As JR pointed out, the idea of tuning to notes is foreign to many drummers. That is unfortunate, because it is certainly possible, if not desireable to use a musical tuning of the drum kit to play melodies while keeping time.
-Marc
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Yes, while I'm officially neutral wrt suggested tunings, and the type of drums we're discussing are not as tonal as say orchestra tympani, they are tunable so it seems only logical to tune them to something.
JR
https://www.resotune.com/
Watch your elected representatives. Then next November give them their job review, with your vote.
----
Tune it, or don't play it...
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and it's spelled bus.... Thank You and good night
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| Re: Jazz drum tuning [message #109218 is a reply to message #109167 ] |
Thu, 23 February 2006 20:37 |
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John Roberts {JR}
Messages: 10379
Registered: April 2004
Location: MS |
Has No Life
10,000+ |
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| Lee Patzius wrote on Thu, 23 February 2006 17:28 |
Sure thing! As soon as I can get back to our practice studio.
But as luck would have it (actually very lucky) I've been on stage the last few nights, playing on other people's kits, and tonight will be no exception.
Last night, I was honored to sit in on Mike Safron's kit, of Pavlov's Dog...
Anyway, I'm really anxious to get back to my drums, to play with the tuner, try new things, take pics, write up a report, share pics and tunings, etc... You name it!
But for now, what makes this tuner totally different is, it tunes to actual resonance, and frequency response of the heads and shell.. Not by torque wrenches or head tension dials... You can actually feel the drum head vibrate as two speakers transmit a range of variable low frequencies. In addition, two strategically placed mic's receive, and pick out the reflected wave shapes off of the head. Obviously it's very directional too, you point it to the lug you're tuning, and is nearly unaffected by the other lugs except the ONE lug it's looking at (to a reasonable extent).
Much like tuning with your finger in the center of a drum with respect to a lug, but this tuner does it electronically. Tuning is either perfect, or not. If not, it'll get you there with +/- led's showing you which way to turn! You have to see it in action to fully appreciate and understand it.
Also, when tuning the old way by hand, you can tune one lug, but then you need to perform a near perfect star pattern, hoping by by "feel" or ear, and half step tuning methods, that you have compensated for unequal head tensions, tilting, or whatever... Then if it did tilt, it got really tricky to get "in between" to un-torque and fix it. Mostly I'd give up and just take it all loose and start over again. Even with with torque wrenches and tension dials, it's been an imperfect science, until NOW.
The tuner IS locked in with a quartz crystal time base reference, and I forget how many decimal places of precision to each note.
You know, I can keep going on... and on... But the more I write, the bigger the chance I'll make a technical mistake in interpretation of how this thing works... so I'll just stop right here, until I get more experience with the tuner, and as soon as I get back to playing MY drums!
Also, JR, I just want to say, THANK YOU very much. You nailed it.
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Lee was one of my first customers, ordering a unit even before I was shipping. I'm glad the tuner lives up to his expectations.
I'm not so sure that "just like JR being in the room" is a selling feature  , but I appreciate the thought... With some 4,500 lines of code in the microprocessor software maybe there is just a "little" of me there.
Lee will be one of the user drum kit/tunings pictures up on my website if and when he gets me the pix and data.
But no hurry... enjoy the gigs... Playing is really what it's all about.
JR
https://www.resotune.com/
Watch your elected representatives. Then next November give them their job review, with your vote.
----
Tune it, or don't play it...
-----
and it's spelled bus.... Thank You and good night
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| Re: Jazz drum tuning [message #109559 is a reply to message #108917 ] |
Sat, 25 February 2006 07:56 |
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Lee Patzius
Messages: 1828
Registered: April 2004
Location: St. Louis MO |
Has No Life |
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A couple of things I want to share...
EDIT: Another point I failed to mention in my earlier post...
What I call "loose" doesn't mean flappy drum heads either. Loose by my definition means tuning key TORQUE. The heads have good feel, good bounce, no wrinkles, ring and resonate longest.
Loose is "loose" torque, especially when in comparison to snare tuning, which is the other extreme... "Tight."
Loose, again, by my perspective, is when the heads first start to resonate with the longest tones on initial seating. I can tell you one thing... At that point, the tom's tuning key torque ain't no where near as tight as a snare's torque at all, but is looser than tight, in the tom range. But the tom's torques are not so loose, where the heads are flappy, wrinkly, or cause the lug to back off either.
Tightly tuned toms, again by my perspective, is when I'm forcing a higher note past the point of *initial* resonance and initial seating.
Big toms can be tuned tighter, like my rock set, and smaller drums can be tuned looser, like my jazz set, (by TORQUE KEY standards in each drum range) to achieve the same note.
Back to original post...
I have an acoustic jazz set, and an old rock set. (in addition to an electronic set for home practice) The jazz set has smaller diameter toms, and even when tuned loose, they are still *higher*. And that's the way I tune them, looser (than tighter)with good resonance, and with ringy and longer sustain. Why?
1st of all, I absolutely love my jazz set, it sounds beautiful! Plus it has smaller toms and kick, AND it allows me to position the toms much lower to the floor, AND still clear the kick. Plus, they have *less* of a mounting angle, or should I say, they are more horizontal to the floor.
Since I play more rock than jazz, and I have smaller jazz shells, it's getting tuned looser by comparison, on the initial lower range resonance, period. I don't want my set sounding like small concert toms on the higher range. If I want *higher* tunings, then I play my smaller shells. My 3rd and 4th toms (small in comparison to my rock set) are tuned to our latest song list, they require me to ride them for longer periods of time. For example, our latest list includes: Bad Company - Gone Gone Gone, Cream - Sunshine of your Love, Rolling Stones - Brown Sugar (although a steady kick has been sounding cool instead, sometimes) AC/DC - Dirty Deeds, etc. etc. There are way more.
Anyway, as far as tuned high or low, tight or loose, as Tim McC says, "it depends."
For example: The other night, I played out LIVE on stage, a large rock set, with bigger shells, owned by a touring jazz/rock drummer, with HUGE drums, tuned very loose tension wise, with extreme ring, but excellent tone. They were in tune. And if you could see him play, you'd understand why. He always has a freehand anytime he wants.. To play drums with one hand, and keyboards with the other, sitting right over his floor tom. When he wants sound effects, you'll see him play the kit like no other. Many times he'll play a whole song, concentrating on just the "effects" he creates, stretching the skins up and down with the butt of a stick, playing rims, playing shells, in addition to a rack of blocks and bells... Seriously, an extreme pro...
When I got on his set, it forced me to *play* it. Impact force required much less energy, and the drums were explosive. The bass drum is open, no blanket, extremely ringy, and forced my playing style to focus much less energy to hit the sweet spot. Especially my foot, and the result blend beautifully with the music. Watching the pro jazz drummer play his set proved to me, HE was right, and if I wanted to change anything... HE was still right. Basically, if I had left my normal style unchanged for the responsiveness of the drum, It would've have sucked bad.
Basically, tune the way you like... If it sounds like crap, it is.
[Updated on: Sat, 25 February 2006 10:10]
Lee Patzius
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| Re: Jazz drum tuning [message #109637 is a reply to message #109595 ] |
Sat, 25 February 2006 14:40 |
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Lee Patzius
Messages: 1828
Registered: April 2004
Location: St. Louis MO |
Has No Life |
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Make sure that snare is tight and crispy.
Tune the head lugs in a star pattern tightly, with the snares turned OFF! Then don't forget to flip it back on, when the song starts (if needed).
Make the snare pleasing (in key) with the tom directly in front. Test this with the snares OFF. Pleasing OFF is better to check tuning with, once good, it sounds even better when snares are on.
Sometimes, a *little* snare buzz is pleasing to the ear, when going around the toms, but mostly, and usually, it's very distracting. Especially when the bass guitar kicks in.
If you have excessive rattle and buzz, be on that snare knob during band instrument tuning... and turn it off.
To get rid of buzzz, you may experiment with thin tape shims on the snare's welded *ends* (a short stack of tape, maybe 1, 2, or 3 layers, on one side, both sides, whatever it takes) or adjust the lower level linkage, or slide bracket (if available) that holds the snare in perfect height (for minimum buzz) when engaged.
I've heard of people using toilet paper shims on snares, I tried it, but it falls out. Especially when flipping the snare on and off. THAT's why TAPE layers are better... It sticks. Not all my snares get this treatment. I like my #1 snare as is, a little buzzy for extra crispness, but it is controllable. My #2 snare gets the shim treatment, because it does not have snare height adjustments, nor a head dampener control installed (a thick white felt disk, mounted to control linkage inside the shell).
For a quickie emergency, you can unscrew the tension knob on the snare's control knob, just a little bit... Especially during instrumental only solos. But that makes for a less crispy, and looser sounding snare rattle usually.
Also, I trim loose snares off. (To an extent) With permission, engage and tighten the control knob tightly, to check the snares. Then tap and observe, and trim ONLY a few of the loosest snares, off, in the middle, with wire cutters, and metal fatigue the remaining parts out of their welded holders by continous twisting, so that no spring stubs are left over, and ensure that it is removed completely. Ya don't want to poke the snare's resonant head. You can only cut maybe 1/4 of the total max, until *it* starts sounding less effective. But it's also another emedy to make it less rattly too. You make that call.
Some guys, like me, may actually like less snares, and the effect it makes, for some snares. But not for all.
Avoid snare head twang, and ring. Twang overtones are usually from uneven lug tension, bad tuning, bad shells, bad heads, wrong heads, or horrible harmonics from the top and bottom heads "clashing" out of tune. See, two heads are like a 2 part harmony, even though the top and bottom heads effect each other, they better be fundamentally in tune, with the other dampened out on a drum stool, from the start, or in a pleasing "key" with each other. Otherwise it will suck.
Horrible twangs, are destructive to the song... You may try turning the snares springs looser a little more, in emergencies, to make it more like a tom, to lessen the amplified shattering effect, until you get a dead ringer, or some kind of other emergency bandaid, like an old snare drum head cut into a large donut ring, placed on the snare head, to kill it.
Then spend the time off stage, retuning at first chance.
Also, here's a TIP: With no snares engaged, it makes for a great solo part addition, like adding a tom, when you run out of ideas on stage.
Lee Patzius
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| Re: Jazz drum tuning [message #109742 is a reply to message #108917 ] |
Sun, 26 February 2006 02:58 |
Dave Barnett
Messages: 1565
Registered: May 2004
Location: Juanita's |
Has No Life |
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Ringing, twangy snare drums are not necessarily a bad thing.
[Updated on: Sun, 26 February 2006 02:58]
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