Hi.
I'm Steve Albini and I'm going to show you how I tune toms.
[clunk, clunk.]
There are basically 3 ways that you can tune a drum.
You can tune the drum so that it has a consonant sound, meaning that the top head and the bottom head
- the batter head and the resonant head - are tuned to the same pitch, and reinforce
each other with a single tone.
And that will be the longest-sustaining sound of the drum, and the cleanest pitch that you
can discern from the drum.
And, if I imitate that with my mouth, which is kind of stupid, but that's the easiest
way for me to explain it to you, it makes a kind of a "BOMMmmmmmm" sound, where there's
a smooth, long decay, but the pitch doesn't change over the time that the drum is sustaining.
Another way that you can tune the drums is so that the bottom head is slightly higher
in pitch than the top head.
That tends to shorten the decay of the drum as the top head and the bottom head sort of
compete with each other, and the initial attack that you hear is the pitch of the top head,
the sustaining sound is the sound of the bottom head, and because they're different pitches,
they tend to cancel each other out and shorten the decay of the drum.
That's a - that's quite common in jazzier drum sets where you want a quick speak from
the drum but you don't it to hang around and sustain too much.
And I'll imitate that with my mouth as well, because it's the easiest way for me to explain
it. So, the initial attack is from the top head and then the sustain sound is from the
bottom head.
And that has a sound that sort of goes "BaaaUMM".
Where there's an initial attack pitch, and then the sustaining sound sort of chokes the
sound off as it rises.
So: "BaaaUMM" is what I would, how I would describe that.
The third way of tuning the drums is what I would call a "falling tone" and that is
where the top head and the bottom head are different pitches, but the bottom head is
slightly lower in pitch than the top head, so the sustaining sound of the drum falls
relative to the initial attack.
So, you hit the drum and you hear the initial attack and then the sustaining sound decays
at a lower pitch.
And I'll imitate that with my mouth as well, and that goes "BAHHHHHUmmm".
So, the sustain sound is lower in pitch than the initial attack. Again, it won't be as
long a sustain as a consonant tuning, but it has a different effect from the rising
tone on the resonant head.
This is the consonant tuning on a rack tom.
The top head, the bottom head and the shell should all be very similar in pitch.
This is the shell: [tapping]
This is the bottom head: [tapping]
And this is the top head: [tapping]
[sound of tom ringing ]
I'll show you what that sounds like with a stick:
[sounds of tom ringing]
Now I'll show you the same thing on a floor tom.
It's sometimes easier to hear on one or the other drum, the effect of the change in tuning.
This is the shell of a floor tom: [tapping]
This is the top head: [tapping]
This is the bottom head: [tapping]
And I'll just play the drum with a mallet, because, playing it with a mallet, you hear
fewer overtones and it's a little easier to hear the pitch.
[sounds of tom ringing]
And I'll play it with a stick.
[sounds of tom ringing]
So, this is the same drums, the Ludwig drums, but with the bottom head raised in pitch relative
to the top head.
So the shell frequency is the same. [tapping]
The bottom head is lo--- the bottom head is higher.
[tapping]
The top head is lower: [tapping]
[sounds of tom ringing]
I'll play that for you with a stick:
[sounds of tom ringing]
I'll show you the same thing on the floor tom.
This is the shell: [tapping]
This is the bottom head: [tapping, both heads ring out]
Oh, sorry. This is the bottom head: [tapping, only the bottom head rings out]
And this is the top head: [tapping]
[sounds of tom ringing]
I'll play the same thing for you with a stick here:
[sounds of tom ringing]
So this is the rack tom tuned with the top head higher in pitch than the bottom head,
so the decaying tone of the drum will fall in pitch.
And it tends to make the drum sound slightly deeper.
[tapping] That's the shell.
[tapping] That's the bottom head.
[tapping] That's the top head.
[sounds of tom ringing]
I'll play it for you with a stick.
[sounds of tom ringing]
This is the same tuning regime on the floor tom. That is the shell and one of the heads
are the same pitch, but the top and bottom heads are lower
- uh - the top head is higher than than the bottom
head. So, this is the shell: [tapping]
This is the bottom head: [tapping]
This is the top head: [tapping]
[sounds of tom rining]
I'll play it for you with a stick:
[sounds of tom ringing]
In this tuning regime, it's a little easier to hear the falling decay on the floor tom
than it was on the rack tom, but you get a hint of it on the rack tom.
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