Yeah, I expected him to say something like, so, now let's tune the resonant head, but then he just plugs a page on the site, and it ends.

Has anyone seen, or used, this thing? Any thoughts?I just saw it in a Sweetwater flyer. As as guitarist who owns drums, it appeals to me. When I tune by ear, It's so hit or miss. Sometimes I get them to sound good, but sometimes i get totally lost.http://www.tune-bot.com

I think that the TuneBot also lets you tune to a note in addition to the frequencies of the pitch.Hey, have I ever told you guys the catchers' mitt vs. trampoline theory of resonant head tuning?When you tune your resonant head, you can either tune it loose and a little dead or springy and resonant. Think of the looser tuning as a catchers' mitt: it catches the vibrations of the batter head and stops them. This is good if you want a warmer, thuddier tone.If you tune it tighter, it acts like a trampoline, throwing the frequencies back towards the batter head. This is good for a more resonant tone. You can then think of the batter head the same way- tighter, it's going to throw the pitch back down again and you get that Max Roach/Elvin Jones super-resonant jazz tone, or warmer with a deeper fundamental pitch, like John Bonham.If you tune the heads to the same lower tension, you have two catchers' mitts, which will give you a deep, super-dead '70's tone.Does that help simplify thinking about how to tune resonant heads?

Their website has a load of recommendations for batter/res combinations for different diameters with different amounts of resonance, I can see why they wouldn't include it in the video because once you've read the literature and decided what you're aiming for, it's just the same process with the drum the other way up.Looks kind of neat. I'd try one out but I'd have to be really impressed to buy one.

Interesting. This quickie video doesn't address how to deal with finding the tuning range of your drum, ie the sweet spot where it has a nice resonance without sounding too choked or flabby. I suppose you can sort of guesstimate that when setting your fundamental pitch, but that'll still take some listening, and trial and error. The other thing it doesn't get into is tuning your resonant head and whether its fundamental is in unison with the top head, or if you're tuning to some sort of sympathetic interval above or below that of the batter head. Since the tuner seems to give a readout in Hertz, it may be difficult to determine non-unison relationships just from the readout. For me, getting a head in tune with itself is pretty easy, but the complexity is figuring out what fundamentals are best, given the drum's character and head selection, as well as the relationship to the rest of the kit. All that said, it does seem to be smarter that a lot of other drum tuning gadgets and it would probably be great for repeatable tuning, once you've figured the other variables out.

treasuretech wrote:dontfeartheringo wrote:I think that the TuneBot also lets you tune to a note in addition to the frequencies of the pitch.Hey, have I ever told you guys the catchers' mitt vs. trampoline theory of resonant head tuning?When you tune your resonant head, you can either tune it loose and a little dead or springy and resonant. Think of the looser tuning as a catchers' mitt: it catches the vibrations of the batter head and stops them. This is good if you want a warmer, thuddier tone.If you tune it tighter, it acts like a trampoline, throwing the frequencies back towards the batter head. This is good for a more resonant tone. You can then think of the batter head the same way- tighter, it's going to throw the pitch back down again and you get that Max Roach/Elvin Jones super-resonant jazz tone, or warmer with a deeper fundamental pitch, like John Bonham.If you tune the heads to the same lower tension, you have two catchers' mitts, which will give you a deep, super-dead '70's tone.Does that help simplify thinking about how to tune resonant heads?Might need to appropriate this analogy. Very nice.But of course! Take what you need and leave the rest!

That's actually really helpful, for me. Thanks.

dontfeartheringo wrote:I think that the TuneBot also lets you tune to a note in addition to the frequencies of the pitch.Hey, have I ever told you guys the catchers' mitt vs. trampoline theory of resonant head tuning?When you tune your resonant head, you can either tune it loose and a little dead or springy and resonant. Think of the looser tuning as a catchers' mitt: it catches the vibrations of the batter head and stops them. This is good if you want a warmer, thuddier tone.If you tune it tighter, it acts like a trampoline, throwing the frequencies back towards the batter head. This is good for a more resonant tone. You can then think of the batter head the same way- tighter, it's going to throw the pitch back down again and you get that Max Roach/Elvin Jones super-resonant jazz tone, or warmer with a deeper fundamental pitch, like John Bonham.If you tune the heads to the same lower tension, you have two catchers' mitts, which will give you a deep, super-dead '70's tone.Does that help simplify thinking about how to tune resonant heads?Might need to appropriate this analogy. Very nice.

A vs B wrote:Has anyone seen, or used, this thing? Any thoughts?I've been meaning to start a thread about these.I own one, and I really like it. Frankly, I'm not the best or fastest drum tuner anyway, but this has greatly reduced the amount of time it takes to get my drums 95% of the way there.Plus, like a drum dial (which I don't have much experience with), you can really hone in your settings for a particular drum/head combination, and repeat it quickly when you need to. I have to say, the biggest difference is feel. When a head is more or less perfectly in tune, it feels so much better to play. The response, the evenness of the tension - it makes it a lot easier to play.The videos do a pretty good job explaining how it works and what it's good for, but if you have any other questions about them, shoot.