Tuning Drums to Key of song

[Shaka Rayford]

*Please*

Add a way to easily tune Drums to the key of the song you are working on. The drums are almost always out of key. We know that that clash continues to be the major fight to get the drums to sit well in the song mix.

And option to set the key and scale the drums automatically adjusting would be amazing and a FIRST in all drum programs. This should be extremely easy to do. Audio does it. Midi libraries do it, sample libraries do it and this in essence is a sample library so I would think this is possible. This could be added in a immediate update. Life saving!

Just saying

• This topic was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Shaka Rayford.

3

Thanked by: MarcoRoth, ohnow and Henrik

Topic

[Henrik]

Thanks for feedback! It’s noted on our feature request list.

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

[alligatorlizard]

Yes, this would be very useful! Of course we could then fine tune to our hearts content, but to have the ability to instantly tune a kit so it’s “compatible” with a particular key (e.g. avoiding objectively mix-damaging clashes such as bass drum fundamental a semitone away from root note of key) would speed up workflow no end – and as the OP points out, is something that should be easy to implement in a modern sample library.

(btw, I’m presuming we’re talking about SD3 here?)

1

Thanked by: ohnow

[Henrik]

alligatorlizard wrote:

btw, I’m presuming we’re talking about SD3 here

Yes, this seems like a SD3 feature 🙂

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

[Shaka Rayford]

Still waiting

[Derek McElwee]

bump, this would be awesome.

1

Thanked by: ohnow

[Jonathan Chorba]

I too would love this feature. Let’s make it happen people!

1

Thanked by: ohnow

[Jahn Bergesen-Egge]

100 % agree! It`s just a waste of time trying differant ways to tune the drums to the decired pitch. Still waiting 🙂

1

Thanked by: ohnow

[Harry Kopy]

I don’t know why this would only be in SD3….It could just as easily be done in EZ2, which is what I have…I would absolutely LOVE this!

[sumskilz]

Real drums don’t have a definite pitch. That’s why they are referred to as unpitched or non-pitched percussion. You can get a sense of intervals between toms based on the lowest pitch (or rather frequency range because it’s not a clear single pitch), but the head and the shell still produce inharmonic frequencies. In other words, it is impossible for acoustic drums to be completely in tune with themselves, which is why drummers almost never try to tune drums to the song, even in the studio. At most, the tuning might be changed if there are frequencies that are particularly clashing.

It’s not uncommon for old drum samples to be tuned to a song in certain genres of music, but these are basically synths that are much less complex than acoustic drums. If an acoustic drum sample is forced to be entirely in tune, it will no longer sound like an acoustic drum. If a synthetic sound is what you’re going for, I can’t really see why you’d be interested in using Toontrack, since their forte is largely producing realistic drum samples (perhaps with some synthetic augmentation).

[ohnow]

Thank u for the reply. I’m not looking for electronic sounding drums. I did the VariAudio as a tool to determine the pitch and pitch changes. Respectfully, I disagree that drums aren’t tonal & can’t be tuned although I know there’s debate about that online. The smaller the drum, tighter the head, and softer u hit, the more the tone is clear and constant. Even the kik example, tuned to C0, in the pics I attached you can see the C0 is the dominant pitch, and the other overtones are also shown

In tuning physical drums, a drummer can tune the top and bottom heads to the same pitch, or make one higher or lower to have the sound decay up or down. If you don’t tune them correctly, especially on smaller, higher pitched toms, there’s major dissonance.

Terry Bozio is a great example of tuning drums if you consider the small toms he uses. Even steel drums are tuned to notes. Snare drum heads are typically very tight and it’s very common to tune them to notes since they are probably the most dominant drum people hear and their pitch is relatively high.

I think we’re almost saying the same thing, that drums are multi-tonal, there is a dominant tone and they can’t be tuned perfectly unless done with a computer. And, the more you computer tune, the more they will sound electronic and fake.

Win 10 Pro, Superior Drummer 3, Metal Foundry, Roland TD-50kv with xtra stuff 🙂 , Cubase Pro 11, Steinberg UR44 Interface, Akai MPK Mini III, Focal Shape 65 monitors

[mizarsix]

There is a reason that drum skins are tunable, and why drummers of all genres and skill levels aspire to pitch correct them in the analogue world. If they were merely “percussive”, that wouldn’t be an option. Tuning plugins would not recognize them as melodic otherwise. I’ve also heard enough songs where the way certain drums were tuned affect the overall chord played in that song (Porcupine Tree – Blind House, for one). It makes perfect sense for Toontrack to incorporate a tool to determine the current tuning of surfaces that can be pitched. Unless I am mistaken, the whole point of plugins like SD2/3 is to create as real an experience as possible. It only makes sense, in this digital age, that we can come to that result in a more convenient way…

[ohnow]

I totally agree.  Since we have the capability to tune them in SD3, why not offer them as pre-tuned?  It’s probably because it would take time and time cost money.

Win 10 Pro, Superior Drummer 3, Metal Foundry, Roland TD-50kv with xtra stuff 🙂 , Cubase Pro 11, Steinberg UR44 Interface, Akai MPK Mini III, Focal Shape 65 monitors

[Harry Kopy]

I haven’t had time to mess with it just yet, but I understand that the tuning they have uses semi-tones to tune higher and lower. So, does anyone know what note the default snare drum is tuned to? Once we figure that out, I’m guessing that each +1 or -1 is a half note step. If the default tune is an A, then going up would be A#, B, C, C# etc…at least in theory. Has anyone tried this?

[ohnow]

I believe each snare can be a different note.  For example, I don’t think they made all snares tuned to C.  What I’ve done is use Variaudio (auto-tune) in Cubase to analyze the snare for the whole song.  I look for what the dominant note is.  If I can’t find one, I add verb to lengthen the notes and try again.  At the end of the day though, as the saying goes, if it sounds right, it is right, no matter the note Cubase shows.

Win 10 Pro, Superior Drummer 3, Metal Foundry, Roland TD-50kv with xtra stuff 🙂 , Cubase Pro 11, Steinberg UR44 Interface, Akai MPK Mini III, Focal Shape 65 monitors

[Harry Kopy]

Hey Ohnow, and everyone else.

Yes, each drum can be a different note. My question is “what note is each drum tuned to by default?”

I’m surprised that this doesn’t appear to be mentioned anywhere.

Can someone from Toontrack possibly chime in?

[Author]

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