Hello Forum,

just a short question; I tried to get the tune of a Bassdrum with my Cubase stock plugin "Tuner" but this VST doesnt recognize the Tune of the Drum.
Does anyone can recommend me a better VST or another way to detect the current tune of a Bassdrum?

Thank you in advance!

 

I've never given this much thought. I just use a spectrum analyser with note display (SPAN) or a chromagram plugin like BL Chroma. Seems to work well enough?!

 

Depends on the type of kick drum you’re talking about, but you could use your ears and a simple piano VST or sine wave from a synth to find the tuning.

 

Voxengo SPAN in High Rez mode, then look for highest peak in lower registers.

But then again

 

yes like they said you could try to use

• your ears
• another tuner
• spectrum analyser

 

agree with

but what i do these days its just open a Pro-Q from fabfilter and loop transient or a little more if the eq cant catch it... this pro-q have a function that if u put your mouse into the "violet section" while the sound its playins, its freeze a quick view of the spectrum, plus the note its "dominating". so there u have your root note.

but i cant recommend u to EVERY project had a tuned kick... or percussion ... really works better to tune by ear and context, cause one thing that u can remember its that every song have a "scale"... theses scales have a root, 3rd maj/min, 5th perf, etc... so if u have a bass hittin the root note like almost every note in the song, u can tune the kick to the 3rd min/maj, etc, and not only got a better position to mix this two, but u have some "clarity" or more the opportunity to place a more " punched " kick ... lets say... i hope made me clear.

 

Thanks for all your input! Will try it with the Pro Q3 and my ears ;-)

 

MeldaProduction free MTuner. You're welcome in advance.

 

Kicks usually have pitch envelope, like physical kick drums. Falling in pitch, from when it is being hit/tightened, to a resting frequency. Hence why you usually can't find the pitch with a tuner. You can loop a single cycle towards the end of the sample in order to find its resting frequency, if you really wanted to. Or transpose it up an octave or two, to tune it by ear, as suggested by Krameri below.

If the kick (or toms) is tonal and serves as a tonal function (like "808 bass" or melodic toms) I tune it. If it's not a tonal kick sample I just leave it as it is.
But as a drummer since early age I just tune my physical kick drum to have a fundamental where it's not masking with other stuff, which is usually just above where you crease out the head's wrinkles.

Edit: sidenote on tuning drums:

 

Last edited: Feb 24, 2024

Transpose your kick by 12 or 24 semitones, then the frequency is in the realistic human range. It's easier to detect this way by ear. Transpose it back down when you've figured it out.

 

Ohh you mean kick. I thought you meant 808

 

personal preference, I'd rather just tune the kick while I'm still making it. but since this will probably turn into a list of plugins, check out Knocktonal for this. https://djswivel.com/products/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Knocktonal-User-Manual.pdf

i like his plugins, much to my surprise. if you are making a hardstyle or gabber kick, try his plugin called BDE.

I also like to use a transient designer to alter the "hold" or sustain parameter to change length. (shorter).

 

Last edited: Feb 24, 2024

If you use your ears, you will get a much more unique and pleasant result.

The trick to doing that right is to loop a very small part where the bass and kick are playing together in context, and fine tune one of them until it sounds awesome and fitting to you - it completely doesn't matter what the actual tuning you end up with is, and it will most likely not fit any of the normal 12 tone octave intervals precisely, which is a good thing since in the default piano we all normally use, all the intervals except the octave (so, 12 semitones) are deliberately out of tune with the natural scale.

That's the secret reason why tuning such things by ear is both interesting and rewarding, and snapping them to an exact regular tuning will sound bland and weak, even though you're technically in tune. Bass tends to show the effect more since the soundwaves in the bass areas are slower than everything else by a lot.

You could also end up finding an *interval* between the bass and kick that is not even in the 12-tone scale division at all, but which sounds amazing and pure. There are such intervals hiding in there, and it might sound amazing for your specific pattern. Tuning bass instruments hard to the song key is in my opinion a big mistake, but it makes sense considering the dumb and tyrannical way music theory is normally still taught everywhere. Everyone should be taught upfront about the fact that all the intervals on the piano are purposefully out of tune, some by huge amounts), except for the interval of the octave.

The reason for that is to be able to change the root (modulate key) as in classical music without having to retune the piano all the time mid-piece. But in modern poppy type music root key modulations barely see any use so our sacrfices have really been for nothing but we refuse to become aware of it and do something about it.

 

Always found this argument weird. Like, kick length and kick tone are two different things. Sure you want to cut your kick's tails most of the time, but you also want them in harmony with whatever you're doing, like any other tonal element. You'd want to tune your kicks, your snares, your toms, your percussion, your freakig cowbells, even your cymbals sometimes have a perceived tone that needs tuning.
I mean, yeah you can intuitvely just pick up a sample that "fits". Chances are, it's just gonna be in tune.
tl;dr two separate things, you want both, clamping them together is weird.

 

Absolutely (not a drummer, only a drum VSTi tweaker), but the things is, they need to be tuned to each other, not to a specific key - unless we talk about orchestral music, there the percs are tuned to a key.

 

well i think it really depends on what you're going for...
most of the time i dont have problem with using 'out of key' kicks and snares...
sometimes they have a pitch envelope so fast that doesnt even matter, you'd be in tune for much less than a second
snares sometimes are very 'white noisy' which fits basically everything
i'd worry more with the ones with longer decay, more sustaining sound

 

Use a Transient Designer. Most people think of these plugins to deal with the front of the waveform, which is ok. But their real usefulness is in cutting the tails of sounds shorter so there is more space between them. The parameter to screw with is the Hold, but sometimes other parameter names depending on the plugin developer. NI calls it "Sustain", as an example. But it's the same thing.

I think they are easier to use for this than a gate, and not a "reverb remover" either.

 

Other video explains that in greater detail, dunno, whatever works for one.

 

Is this an "electronic" kick drum you're taking about or a real one. Real, as in actual resonating drum heads, tuning rods/lugs, wood ( or plastic) shell etc?