Drum Sound and Drum Tuning

Bridging Science and Creativity

Rob Toulson

• Publisher: Focal Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000385977
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• Index: Computer Science

Drum Sound and Drum Tuning assists drummers, sound engineers, and music students in learning critical skills related to drum sound and achieving an optimised and personalised drum kit set-up. The book covers the essential theories of percussion acoustics and develops this knowledge in order to facilitate creative approaches to drum tuning and professional-level recording and mixing of drums.

All aspects of drumhead vibration, drumhead equalisation, and resonant drumhead coupling are de-mystified, alongside discussions relating to drumhead types, drum shell vibration, and tuning to musical intervals for different performance genres. The book develops drum sound theory and creative analysis into a detailed dissection of recording and production techniques specifically for drums, including discussions on studio technologies, room acoustics, microphone techniques, phase coherence, and mixing drums with advanced digital audio workstation (DAW) techniques and creative processing tools.

Drum Sound and Drum Tuning includes many practical hands-on exercises that incorporate example tutorials with Logic Pro and iDrumTune Pro software, encouraging the reader to put theory into immediate creative practice and to develop their own listening skills in an informed and reflective manner. The book also documents primary interviews and opinion from some of the world's most celebrated drummers, music producers, and sound engineers, enabling the reader to connect the relevant theories with real-world context, whilst refining their own personalised approach to mastering drum sound.

1 Introduction

A drum kit is a beautiful thing. Perfect geometric-shaped cylinders, grouped together to make something so much greater than the sum of its parts. Simplicity meets design innovation; crafted, wooden shells fixed with precision-engineered metal fittings; rugged hardware stands with glorious polished brass cymbals, pedals and clutches; and an unmissable sparkle finish. Of course, the drums don’t need to be made of wood, don’t need to have metal hardware, and don’t have to have a sparkle finish – but that makes them even more glorious, with infinite possibilities for a drummer to personalise and represent themselves through. Drums are not just beautiful, they are also big, bold, and powerful. We love drums because they are primitive, wild, untamed, loud, and aggressive, yet with the ability to be subtle, simple, and precise. To a non-drummer, or a drummer before they started learning, drums are a mystery. How is it even possible to do four different things with four different limbs? Of course, we drummers know that our limbs do not perform independently, but are all connected together by a musical system in our brains, which enables each component of our body to contribute collectively to a single instrument sound – the sound of the drum kit.

Alex Reeves, drummer for Elbow and a number of other esteemed artists (including Bat For Lashes, Anna Calvi, and Dizzee Rascal), gives a valuable insight into the beautiful and complex world of drum sound for performance and studio recording:

Sometimes a drum just has a magic or “thing” about it that sounds great in a certain context or room, sometimes it sounds a bit like a biscuit tin to your ears but the mics just love it! However, there are some universally recognised great sounds for drums: rich and full low-end for bass drums, a bit of bite in the high-mids for snares, overall not too much of the low-mid presence that can get in the way of guitars and vocals. The way you hit em and tune em can make all the difference – when recording I’ll sit behind the kit with the song playing in my headphones changing snare drums and mics until we’ve got the right overall character, then micro-tune, dampen if necessary, changing the tension of the snare wires, changing where and how hard I hit the drum. Just amplitude and mic gain can make such a massive difference to the overall sound of the kit. But some drums are just “right”! Often it is the more beautifully-made or classic drums that get onto a record, but occasionally it’s the grotty, nasty sounds that give the character – not everything has to be pristine.¹

Through the course of this book, we’ll unpick all of these creative and technical concepts with respect to popular drums and give a complete hands-on approach for becoming competent and knowledgeable with drum sound and drum tuning, in context for both drummers and sound engineers.

1.1 Values of great drum sound

Drums occupy a very important and loved aspect of the sound spectrum that we hear, which we can refer to as low-frequency (or bass) sound. Most people will understand this term and identify the difference between treble and bass and the similar settings used on a hi-fi or amplifier system. And most will have felt the boom of a kick drum resonating in their chest at a nightclub or concert venue, or the powerful low-frequency drumrolls around the tom drums on classic rock and metal tracks. Low-frequency is obviously a relative term, and while we will go into concepts of frequency and the sound spectrum in much more detail in the book, it’s very easy to identify the difference between a low-frequency sound such as a kick drum, tom drums, or a bass guitar, and a higher frequency sound that we would hear from the top keys on a piano, from a flute, a mandolin, or someone singing the high notes in a scale. Drums, of course, have high frequencies too, from the overtones of a ringing tom, the wires interacting on the underside of a snare drum, the crack of a hard rimshot, and the shimmer of the cymbals. But nothing else really delivers or owns the low-frequency range in a popular music track as much as the drums. In much popular music, bass guitar, double bass, or a bass synthesizer is also a charismatic musical element in the low-frequency range. But, in many cases, these instruments are still performed in companion with the drums and often have a role that also gives a percussive power and presence to the music. So the drums are extremely important in performed and recorded popular music, and this is why professional musicians and music producers put considerable effort into getting the best possible sonic characteristic from a drum kit.

There are a huge number of great sounding drummers and drum recordings, for example, John Bonham of Led Zeppelin is one of the most discussed specifically in terms of drum sound. Bonham set up his kit to give distinct resonant pitches for each drum and worked with the band’s studio engineers and music producers to create a big reverberant sound to the drum kit. Conversely, Ringo Starr and George Martin were particularly well known for keeping the drum sounds on The Beatles’ recordings very dry and with minimal reverberation added.² So it’s clear there’s no single approach to drum sound that is most correct. It’s great that every drum kit looks different, but, more importantly, every drum kit also sounds different. If there are a million different styles, constructions, and visual designs of drum kits, then there are a billion different sounds of drum kits. Alongside learning to play drums, every drummer embarks on a journey to develop the sound and set-up of their kit, which can take many years and some will claim never ends (and never should!). This can be quite a personal journey of exploration, since what is right for one drummer may be totally wrong for another, as emphasised by drummer Cherisse Osei (drummer for Simple Minds, Paloma Faith, and Bryan Ferry):

What sounds good to me might not sound good for somebody else, as it’s a very personal thing. If it doesn’t resonate with me or I don’t get excited by the sound, then I know it’s not for me.³

So the modern drummer can choose from an almost infinite number of permutations in their set-up, which means no two drum set-ups could ever look or sound the same. Do you want a 3-, 4-, 5-, or 15-piece drum kit? What shell material gives the sound you are looking for? What drumheads do you like the sound of on your kit? How many cymbals do you need? Do you want a double kick drum pedal? Sticks, brushes, or mallets? Do you like them tuned low and powerful or high and resonant?

That last question brings us to an important point: tuning. All the prior questions relate to the design and set-up of the kit – deciding how many drums, what kind and by which manufacture, and which accessories and replaceable parts you prefer to use with the kit. But the question about tuning implies that, even once you have your perfect drum kit set-up and positioned in the studio, performance stage, or your spare room, there are still multiple options available with respect to how the kit is tuned and how the kit can sound. When added together, this gives both a wonderful sweetshop of possibilities and at the same time a treacherous minefield of unknowns, hazards, and challenges.

1.2 Why bother with drum tuning?

It’s a good question and one most experienced drummers will be very aware of the numerous answers to. Drums and drummers often receive a hard time from other musicians, because they are so “straightforward” in comparison with many instruments – you just hit them and they make a noise! But, in reality, drums are much more difficult to tune than a guitar or violin, for example. Guitars and violins have one single tuning head for each string, which is turned until you reach the exact musical note you are looking for. You might not have perfect pitch hearing, but it’s possible to listen to a piano until the string and the piano note you are looking for sound the same, or use an electronic tuning device that indicates exactly when the correct note is reached. Now that’s simple!

But drums have a whole series of different things to consider. Not least, there are potentially six, eight, or ten tuning rods on each drumhead, which can all individually affect the sound. But this arrangement is doubled, because there’s a second drumhead on the bottom, which also has six, eight, or ten tuning rods. In addition, there are a number of drums in the kit, each of different sizes and depths and a multitude of drumhead styles to choose from, and, furthermore, each song and music genre potentially requires a slightly different drum sound. Before you know it, there are just too many permutations to make sense of! And so tuning drums can be a difficult task, though many experienced drummers get really good at it over the years. But we haven’t really answered why bother to tune drums yet; there are lots of reasons:

First and foremost, tuning can help to get the absolute best sound out of your drums and drum kit. If your drumheads are too slack or too tight, then the drum won’t resonate and project sound as well as it can. If a drumhead is tuned unevenly (e.g. tight on one side and loose on the other), the drumhead won’t vibrate smoothly and will choke the sound or introduce warbled artefacts to the sound. It’s amazing what a well-tuned drumkit can do for a drummer – it can often be more enjoyable to hear an average drummer play simple on a wonderfully tuned kit, than to hear an amazing drummer hitting sublime grooves on an awful sounding set of drums!

Secondly, it’s valuable to find the perfect sound for your drums that is best for the songs you are playing, the music genre, and most importantly your own personal style and character. It’s not uncommon for jazz drummers to tune their drums really tight and high so that musical notes ring out from their toms and they can play musical phrases around the kit. Conversely, rock drummers tend to tune quite low and powerful to bring a deep tone and style to the performance. With this in mind, it’s quite possible to suggest ranges of tuning frequencies for different styles and kit set-ups, but there are no fixed rules, and you can develop your own style too. If you can play high-tuned toms in a melodic rock band, then go for it, and the chances are you’ll be noticed for doing something different too!

Additionally, like all instruments, it’s important to be consistent – to sound the same tomorrow as you do today, and to be in harmony with the other instruments and the song you are playing. We use tuning of instruments to take a record of our settings and then remember for the next time. It’s easy with guitar and other instruments, because if a string is tuned to a specific note (E, A, G, etc.), it’s quite easy to remember. But drums don’t have to be tuned to exact musical notes, so there are a multitude of possibilities for how you might tune your drums, and that’s why it’s much harder to identify exactly what your previous sound was, especially if you’ve just changed drumheads or are on tour moving kit around day and night. Having said that, it is actually possible to tune drums to musical pitches, and this can sometimes be valuable for songs that have big tom fills that need to be harmonious with the bass guitar or synth line. Some drummers even use a piano to help them tune their drums to specific notes. Equally, tuning to musical pitches can help with deciding on the different tunings for each drum in your kit; so if each is tuned to a different musical frequency, then you can be sure a fill around the kit or a repeating pattern through the toms will sound pretty cool!

While we’re talking about recording settings, drum tuning is perhaps most important when in the recording studio, because it is there that a sound will be committed to a record that will hopefully be heard by audiences all over the world and for many years to come. Getting a great drum sound is essential in many recording sessions, and maintaining consistency through different takes and days, and when changing drumheads, can be really important. Great drums can really define a record, and legendary music producer John Leckie (Muse, Radiohead, and The Stone Roses) is quoted as saying:

The two things that identify a record are the vocal and the snare drum⁴

So producers tend to spend a long time achieving the right drum sound before starting a recording session, where possible taking the first day or two just focusing on the drums, tuning, and microphone placement, which can all potentially account for 15–25% of the recording session.⁵ These days, record ...