Ive never understood this concept. Maybe someone can explain it to me but I always thought kicks and percs dont have a constant pitch. I mean kicks are made from sweeping sine waves and various noises so you cant say the kick plays a constant A# or a G etc as its frequencey changes very rapidly.

Therefore how can you tune something which has a constantly changeing frequencey such as typical electronic kicks and percs, to something with a constant frequencey such as the bass line?

To answer the question, I sometimes do adjust pitch on my drum elements just out of pure random experimentation to see if it sounds better <-- it is actually as simple as that, not because im trying to tune it to the bass line or anything overcomplicated like this.

I do think tuning bongo sounds is a good idea, but to be honest i don't really do that either.

The only way it's gonna sound bad is if:
1) the perc has a clear specific tone in it (bongo/conga sound, or a sound sampled somewhere with remains of the original in the background)
2) the tone is not on the right scale, and to be more specific the chord defining note (like C for Am and C# for Amaj)

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My rule for me tends to be that I pitch the percs iff my ear wants them to be pitched. When I do pitch, it's usually to change the percs' color.

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Originally posted by maclean Ive never understood this concept. Maybe someone can explain it to me but I always thought kicks and percs dont have a constant pitch. I mean kicks are made from sweeping sine waves and various noises so you cant say the kick plays a constant A# or a G etc as its frequencey changes very rapidly. Therefore how can you tune something which has a constantly changeing frequencey such as typical electronic kicks and percs, to something with a constant frequencey such as the bass line? To answer the question, I sometimes do adjust pitch on my drum elements just out of pure random experimentation to see if it sounds better <-- it is actually as simple as that, not because im trying to tune it to the bass line or anything overcomplicated like this.

Yeah, they don't have a constant pitch but that doesn't mean they don't have a dominant pitch of all the changing pitches.

You're basically doing it right. If it sounds like it needs pitching up or down, it should get repitched.

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Okay I suppose I get you, particularly for toms and stuff I guess.

for me its like: put me infront of a keyboard and get someone to play a note on a violin, trumpet, double bass, anything... And I would be able to match that note on the keyboard.

Play a vengeance kick drum and can I match that on a keyboard? Nope. It just don't work imo lol. Doesn't mean it doesn't sound better pitched up or down, I just can't belive that typical drums can be tuned to a note on the keyboard.

But I may be talking from ignorance, as you say there might be dominant tones in the drums or something... Will have a look on youtube later see if there are any vids of someone doing it.

So if I'd have a track that I'm working on say C minor, i.e. the kick should have a fundamental of C (or any note from that scale)?

I understand it can all be done by ear, but if I just couldn't exactly tell the fundamental frequency of my kick drum, a spectrum analyzer could come in handy, right? I could pinpoint the fundamental of the percussion with it and pitch it to a note relevant to the scale? The thing about tuning the kick to every root note of i.e. the bassline just seems.. Stupid. Although I think I got wrong from the start.

I've always seen this whole thing highly irrelevant with my songs, but maybe that's why my drums always suck and seem se out of place lol. (and kit don't start about picking the right samples.)

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Originally posted by JEO I understand it can all be done by ear, but if I just couldn't exactly tell the fundamental frequency of my kick drum, a spectrum analyzer could come in handy, right? I could pinpoint the fundamental of the percussion with it and pitch it to a note relevant to the scale? The thing about tuning the kick to every root note of i.e. the bassline just seems.. Stupid. Although I think I got wrong from the start.

Yeah, you're basically aiming to bring the percussion into line with the key of the song. But working out which note the kick is hitting is a bit subjective because it'll be hitting multiple notes. Whether or not you tune to the fundamental note of the scale is up to you really, I just tune it by ear to what sounds good.

No, a spectrum analyser won't help since the pitch is changing over time, which one of the pitches that the analyser shows do you pick as the key of that drum? If you can't find the dominant note then chances are it doesn't exist, in which case the drum probably doesn't need tuning.

Don't understand what you mean about tuning the kick to every root note of the bassline. You don't generally change the pitch of the kick throughout the song. You do generally change the pitch till it sounds good. If you don't know what sounds good then your in the wrong business. Theres no real formula to tuning your percs.

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Originally posted by JEO I've always seen this whole thing highly irrelevant with my songs, but maybe that's why my drums always suck and seem se out of place lol. (and kit don't start about picking the right samples.)

Its not that huge a deal. If theres something slightly "off" about your drums, tuning might be it, but you only generally have problems with kicks with long tails, toms and bongos. Most other sounds (hihats, snares, crashes etc) won't need tuning. So generally, it does come down to having the right samples. Also, you can only tune up or down 1 or 2 semitones before you completely lose the character of the hit that you liked to start with. So its not really something worth doing that much.

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Originally posted by maclean Okay I suppose I get you, particularly for toms and stuff I guess. for me its like: put me infront of a keyboard and get someone to play a note on a violin, trumpet, double bass, anything... And I would be able to match that note on the keyboard. Play a vengeance kick drum and can I match that on a keyboard? Nope. It just don't work imo lol. Doesn't mean it doesn't sound better pitched up or down, I just can't belive that typical drums can be tuned to a note on the keyboard. But I may be talking from ignorance, as you say there might be dominant tones in the drums or something... Will have a look on youtube later see if there are any vids of someone doing it.

Well, yeah, SOME kicks in the vengeance library will have a dominant tone which you could pick out on the piano. But probably not all of them have it to an appreciable degree. Its something that's highly subjective and not every percussion element needs tuning. Some of them are just completely unpitched and thats fine, you don't have to tune those ones.

Its a personal choice as to which ones get tuned and which don't, but I can tell you that when I'm DJing, one of the first things I use as a clue to the key of a track is the kick drum in the first 8 bars. So if the kickdrum is in a different key to the track, it throws me right off. I guess that just indicates that most tracks (with tonal kicks) have the kick matched to the key of the song.

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quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips Don't understand what you mean about tuning the kick to every root note of the bassline. You don't generally change the pitch of the kick throughout the song. You do generally change the pitch till it sounds good. If you don't know what sounds good then your in the wrong business. Theres no real formula to tuning your percs.

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Originally posted by Raphie kick/perc tuning, only the first root note or all chords? Just a silly question

Was referring to the thread starter asking a question about it. And stated my opinion on doing that pretty obviously by saying it seems stupid. Though there was a typo in there.

So basically I was saying the exact same as you; tuning a kick to all the root notes of the chord progression / the notes of the bassline seems stupid to me.

quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips If you don't know what sounds good then your in the wrong business.

I like you.

Ah ok... I interpreted the OP to be asking whether you could tune the kick to any note in the scale or just the base note of the scale.

It was pretty unclear, which is why I didn't reply in the first place.

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Hi there,

Good to see there's a strong, but healthy debate on this subject!

I feel that tunning drums and perc all depends on the feel and direction of the track your producing.
Where tunning drums can make your track sound even more whole and together, sometimes it can have an adverse effect. I think to an extent it depends on the quality of the oringal source sound (as in texture etc).

There's a good tutorial i've found where they touch on this subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orQllWhVw58

It gave me a good insight on the subject.

If you check the youtube channel it came from they have alot of tutorials and interviews from people such as Annie Mac on there:
http://www.youtube.com/user/pointblankonline

quote:

Originally posted by maclean Ive never understood this concept. Maybe someone can explain it to me but I always thought kicks and percs dont have a constant pitch. I mean kicks are made from sweeping sine waves and various noises so you cant say the kick plays a constant A# or a G etc as its frequencey changes very rapidly. Therefore how can you tune something which has a constantly changeing frequencey such as typical electronic kicks and percs, to something with a constant frequencey such as the bass line? To answer the question, I sometimes do adjust pitch on my drum elements just out of pure random experimentation to see if it sounds better <-- it is actually as simple as that, not because im trying to tune it to the bass line or anything overcomplicated like this.

well your thoughts have some flaws maybe that's why you're missing the point of the tuning (not meant to be harsh). i'm not sure what "sweeping sines" means but if you mean pitch modulation then yes but there will be a fundamental frequency ESPECIALLY if it's made up of sine waves. If it was just noise than that's a different story but the basis of almost all EDM kickdrums are the 808 & 909 which i pointed out earlier are sine waves. A lot of the processed kick's in many sample packs are noise + real kickdrum punch + sinewave. if you look at them up close almost always the last 1/2 of the kick drum will look like a sine wave (not always perfectly symmetrical but it will resemble a sine wave).

Ok so with that said your Kickdrum, assuming it fits the above (which most will) will have a fundamental frequency. That sinewave that's attached to that kick drum was played a certain note, NO DOUBT ABOUT IT. Most kick drums have a sine wave from 45-60hz. Those are the magic frequencies. 49.5hz is G1, 52hz is G#1. While your ears might not hear that note, if you have a bassline that's similar in tone then the two will work better if they are in key. No one should argue that. I said before though that with buzzy basslines it matters less but w/ sine wave kick + sinewave bass, if those two are playing similar notes the elements will "talk to each other".

i wouldn't over look this concept, it's really helped me with my tech house projects. I'll post an example tonight when i get off work

Last edited by Zombie0729 on Jun-30-2010 at 18:20

Hi..

Av seen a tutorial called Macprovideo 404 live with Olav Basoski and he explains about finding the key of you kicks using a spectrum analizer by measuring its peak, then he makes his bass root key a 5th up from that.. He goes on to say that it makes it all sound so much better.. Also seen a video with JOOF (future music or CM I think) and he stresses the importance or pitching drums and perc etc in key with your tune. Having seen these it is something I now do myself and Imo I think its improved my sound they fit togeather so much better.. Maybe thats why people have so much bother layering kicks because there not in key with each other?? Also cant understand above about "kicks with constantly changing frequency" as its just 1 sample being repeated over and over so its frequency will always be the same.. As Iv understood it (I may be wrong) its highest peak will give you its fundamental frequency which inturn can be converted to what note it is, so boosting or cutting frequencies will never change the pitch of the sound just alter how it sounds.