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I'm thinkin about undergoing the huge task of individually tuning every drum hit i have to every key(A-G, major and minor) in order to have a more efficient way of building drum tracks that are in key with the rest of my tune. This way when i start a new project, i can determine the key and throw various hits in without having to worry about tuning them within the project. Have any of you done this, or do you tune your drums individually for each tune? If anyone has done this before, what's the quickest way to go about doing so?

the only thing i tune and not very often is the kick, i like shit to be out.

i never tune, I just use my ears and if it sounds good I'll go with it:)

Why would you tune all of your drums to each key? Why not save yourself some time and HD space by tuning to just one key. That way you can always start from the same key and work from there. You'll still be tuning to the key of your track but at least you'll be working from a known base instead of fiddling around trying to figure out what key the drum hit is in...

Just seems like the benefits are outweighed by the time and energy you're going to be using to do this...

genderM wrote:I'm thinkin about undergoing the huge task of individually tuning every drum hit i have to every key(A-G, major and minor) in order to have a more efficient way of building drum tracks that are in key with the rest of my tune. This way when i start a new project, i can determine the key and throw various hits in without having to worry about tuning them within the project.

life is far too short for this pointless activity
do it on the fly as and when required

Yeah I'd def say do it as required. Maybe if you really suck at tuning and it'll take too long and break up your workflow, then tune some samples that you use a lot to the nearest note and label them. No way would I tune all my samples to every key. Half of them would sound like shit and in that time you could have made several songs.

Word, I get where ya'll are coming from. My brain likes EVERYTHING organized to the fullest extent and that can be a dangerous thing with multiple HDD's of samples, but maybe ive pushed it to the limit with this one

how do you guys go about tuning perc?
is there a vst tuner or do you just use a hardware tuner.. maybe play it with a synth as a reference note?
What exactly do you tune? the initial hit? ..the loudest freq? or just what note it sounds good over?

I've always just messed with the pitch until it sounded like it fit.. but these are questions i have been wondering! any help?

victoryaloy wrote:
I've always just messed with the pitch until it sounded like it fit.. but these are questions i have been wondering! any help?

Sounds like it fits? No need to tune it then

i do it as required. Apart from being a nightmare, In Key does not nessessarily mean good.

genderM wrote:Word, I get where ya'll are coming from. My brain likes EVERYTHING organized to the fullest extent and that can be a dangerous thing with multiple HDD's of samples, but maybe ive pushed it to the limit with this one

Mate I just went through and organized nearly 20 gb of music (renaming actual files followed by id3 tag in the exact specific way for every song in my itunes)

I have just deleted my sample library and started again (because it was too messy)

And even I think this would be a waste of time, that's not to say I don't tune my drums, that is important. It's just why have multiple copies of a sample in different keys if you are never going to use it?

grooki wrote:i do it as required. Apart from being a nightmare, In Key does not nessessarily mean good.

Agree 100%

Do it as required mate.

I'm not going to start a new thread for this question so here it goed

How do i know in what key my tune is????
I just make music with lots passion and i do whatever sounds good to me?
Is this wrong does everything needs to be in tune? If something sounds great but it is not in the right....is that wrong????

I never really thought of tuning till now

dav.id wrote:I'm not going to start a new thread for this question so here it goed

How do i know in what key my tune is????
I just make music with lots passion and i do whatever sounds good to me?
Is this wrong does everything needs to be in tune? If something sounds great but it is not in the right....is that wrong????

I never really thought of tuning till now

if it sounds good, dont stress about any key.

if anything, it will make your tune that much more original if it is out of key and sounds good.... just do what you do and if it sounds good no one will mind

knell wrote:

dav.id wrote:I'm not going to start a new thread for this question so here it goed

How do i know in what key my tune is????
I just make music with lots passion and i do whatever sounds good to me?
Is this wrong does everything needs to be in tune? If something sounds great but it is not in the right....is that wrong????

I never really thought of tuning till now

if it sounds good, dont stress about any key.

if anything, it will make your tune that much more original if it is out of key and sounds good.... just do what you do and if it sounds good no one will mind

I thought so to:)....cuz I get the feeling that alot of people are stressing to much about specific things about mixing

dav.id wrote:
I thought so to:)....cuz I get the feeling that alot of people are stressing to much about specific things about mixing

make tunes that are awesome, even if they're hard to mix... let the DJ figure out how to incorporate it effectively

I never even thought you had to tune your drums :s I mean I've occasionally tuned things like conga hits and bell type percussion for doing percussive melody type affairs but I would never have thought you should tune your kick/snare/hats etc :s in fact I have no idea *how* to tune things within Abletons drum sampler :s

The quickest way is to just throw the drums in and tune them by ear if they sound fucked up.

There are exact frequency tuning charts available online... this will tell you what frequencies to boost in each key for things like snares, hats etc...

But i'm with the majority here, do it as and when you need... tuning your drums is another form of frequency EQing really, which your gonna do anyways in the production process.

i'm sure if it was a deadly vital process, there'd be a ton of packs of tuned drum samples for sale already right?

as a drummer, i think tuning your drums to the key of the song is the ultimate in tilting at windmills. there are times when things are blatantly clashing, in which case you do something about it, but otherwise-- no.

if, however, your tune's based around something like a huge 808 kick sample with a ton of tone, then of course-- get that in key. but snares? no thanks.