Please link the band to this thread in a mass text message, then post their reaction. We can have fun guessing whether you still joined them from your description of their reaction...
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dumbest thing i have ever heard
- Thread starter remainthesame
- Start date
I think you're imagining these drums ringing out with clear, well-defined pitches like a bass or a guitar. Not the case. Drums have pitches whether you want them to or not. That's why the little tom sounds higher than the medium tom, and the floor tom sounds lower than both of them. Because they have pitch. Now, unlike a guitar or bass (or trumpet or ukelele) the pitch of a drum tends to hit your ear in such a subtle way that you don't pick up on it.
So right now, your drummer's kick drum is probably not tuned to E, but to some random pitch. Why is that better than being tuned to E?
As for Eb, we were a punk band tuned to E standard. I'm not sure the guitarist could have found Eb with a geiger counter.
A lot of the time when the drums are mic'd, you can prominently hear the note ring. Especially in hand drums and smaller toms.
I recorded at a studio owned by a guy who insisted that we tune the drums to the bass guitar. Then he insisted we use his drums and that we pay his buddy $50 to come in and tune them.
As some of you may have guessed by now it wasn't a particularly pleasant studio experience and we never went back there again.
Interesting side note the engineer in question was the brother of a bigwig at Spector. He even had a Spector 6 string guitar (which I was unaware even existed at the time).
There are situations where you would want to tune to match the band. Especially if they're progressive/some kind of technical metal, there could be situations where you're pedaling open notes with hammers and pull offs. How else would you like to pedal a Bb, C, and D, over an Ab? You could play it on the 2nd fret of the the Gb string. However, you then have to either make a 4 fret stretch to the D or, while remaining in second position, hit the 1st fret of the of the B string. Then there's the 4th interval.
You could, potentially do all of these really, really fast, but the cleanness of your notes will probably suffer. If you want legato from it, really the only way you're going to get that is by hammering on and pulling off the notes of the open string.
You could, potentially do all of these really, really fast, but the cleanness of your notes will probably suffer. If you want legato from it, really the only way you're going to get that is by hammering on and pulling off the notes of the open string.
This isn't my first time dealing with something like this. I have never left the concept of tuning to fourths, even though just about every guitarist I ever played with used drop tunings. I'm more at home in some sort of standard tuning. That's not to say that I cant play with my low string tuned to a fifth but I just don't like to.
Also oddly enough, most modern keyboards come with a transpose function, so they can down-tune...or up-tune.
Unfortunately, that's true so often it hurts to think about it. I didn't say it was a good thing...
My band plays a lot of songs in drop-D.
I play some of those songs in drop-D.
The guitar player sometimes can't work out why I'm in standard when he's in dropped-D.
It's never affected my stage presence (which remains awesome
).
Now dropped-D is fine. It's basically standard for the rest of the instrument.
Db just reeks of "tune everything down a semitone because the singer can't reach those notes in standard"!
Still, he's got to have awesome stage presence.
I play some of those songs in drop-D.
The guitar player sometimes can't work out why I'm in standard when he's in dropped-D.
It's never affected my stage presence (which remains awesome
). Now dropped-D is fine. It's basically standard for the rest of the instrument.
Db just reeks of "tune everything down a semitone because the singer can't reach those notes in standard"!
Still, he's got to have awesome stage presence.
We do this at church all the time to match singer's ranges.
However 'we' almost always forget to reset the transposer for the next hymn, and it's brutal for the guitar players.
Not so bad for me, I almost expect it to happen now, still quite a pain.
I don't like to sound like a jerk and remind the keyboard player every time to reset the key, but I really should I suppose.
I don't know why a lot of folks treat this as a slam on the singer.
I've played with plenty of really good singers who work better with many songs tuned down 1/2 step.
A singer's range is what they're given, not what they develop generally.
Granted, they can stretch their range a bit sometimes with practice and perseverance, but usually if they can't hit a note, that's their limit for life, and that range usually shrinks a bit with age.
You can't fault them for their range, or lack of it, just help try to make the most of what they can do.
We can all tune down or up, and play in different keys, a singer's limitation is a physical limitation, like having small hands, or being dislexic.
It's not something they can work themselves out of but are just too lazy to try, or something they chose to have.
It's what they're born with.
I'm just saying.
I'm not a singer, I can hit maybe three or four notes consistently, that's it.
I know my limitations and don't take it as an insult that I can't sing.
It's just a fact of nature.
A singer's range is the same thing.
It is what it is.
I know, it's the humor section, but we can bag on singers for sooooo many other reasons.
LSD is real, I experienced it just last night (again)!
Anyway, in my last band when we were discussing what key we'd likely do a song in I'd say 'A' because that's where the singer's range is centered, yet he'd get all offended every time.
I tried to explain the same thing and he never got it (naturally, since he's a singer).
LSD is real, I experienced it just last night (again)!
Anyway, in my last band when we were discussing what key we'd likely do a song in I'd say 'A' because that's where the singer's range is centered, yet he'd get all offended every time.
I tried to explain the same thing and he never got it (naturally, since he's a singer).
I'm confused about something.
There are drummers that DON'T tune their kits? Why would you play with them? Wouldn't the kits sound BAD?
I'm not talking about tuning the kick to E. I'm talking about tuning the kick to a real note, and not some weird half tone interval, and tuning all the other drums to be in tune relative to each other.
A kit has to be in tune with the instruments, and with itself, or it will make your band sound "off" all night. Am I crazy?
There are drummers that DON'T tune their kits? Why would you play with them? Wouldn't the kits sound BAD?
I'm not talking about tuning the kick to E. I'm talking about tuning the kick to a real note, and not some weird half tone interval, and tuning all the other drums to be in tune relative to each other.
A kit has to be in tune with the instruments, and with itself, or it will make your band sound "off" all night. Am I crazy?
