The first thing you'll need when learning how to tune your drums is a drum key. A drum key is a small tool that's used to tighten or loosen the tension rods that control the pitch of the drum. Tightening the tension rods causes the pitch of the drum to go up; loosening the tension rods will lower the pitch.
A drum key is a small tool that musicians and tuners use to adjust the tension rods that control the tone and pitch of your drums. More tension results in a higher pitch, less tension lowers the pitch. You will need the drumsticks to tap on your drumheads as you adjust their tone.
To start, multiply the frequency of the desired fundamental note by 1.75 and tune both top and bottom lug-pitches to that frequency. Then, measure the fundamental pitch of the drum and adjust the pitch of top and bottom heads accordingly.
3E Drum Level Control
The best method is to feed forward (FF) the steam flow to the level PID loop and cascade the output of that loop to the setpoint of a boiler feedwater (BFW) flow loop. This arrangement is called “Three Element Drum Level Control” (3E) because the algorithm uses level, BFW flow, and steam flow.
Use EQ to cut problem frequencies and enhance what you like about each drum. Use noise gates or transient enhancement to help reduce drum bleed. Use compression to add attack, tighten up the performance, and make the drums breathe in time with the tempo of the track.
How loud should the drums be in the mix? The overall drum kit should peak around -10 dBFS, with an RMS level ranging from -20 dBFS to -14 dBFS. This setup ensures the drums are clearly heard while preserving sufficient headroom for other elements in the mix.
Standard drums have inside dimensions of 572 millimetres (22.5 in) diameter and 851 millimetres (33.5 in) height. These dimensions yield a volume of about 218.7 litres (57.8 US gal; 48.1 imp gal), but they are commonly filled to about 200 litres.
In addition, if the bottom head is tighter than the top head, it becomes louder, and the tone rings longer. However, if the bottom head is looser, the tone does not ring so long, and the tone is flatter. The greater the difference in tension between the two heads, the greater the change in tone.
Most drums in the popular drum kit have a fundamental frequency between 50-250 Hz, depending on their size, what drumheads are used, and how they are tuned.
When you use mild saturation on your kick, snare and even hi-hats, you fatten the sound up by adding more frequencies and boosting volume. The result is a louder, warmer, fatter, and more pleasant sound.
Although most drums are unpitched instruments, they still have a fundamental pitch and overtones. Drums require tuning for a variety of reasons: to sound good together as a kit, to sound pleasing as an individual drum, to achieve the desired amount of ringing and resonance, and to produce the sound that fits the music.
Snare drum: A medium/high tuning works best. Toms: Go for a medium/high tuning so you can play melodies on the toms. Bass drum: Medium tension should work great.
On average, the volume of a drum kit can swing anywhere between 90 to 130 dB. If those numbers don't speak to you, here's a comparison – a typical motorcycle's noise at 25 ft is about 90 dB, while the pain threshold for the human ear is generally around 120 dB. That's right, drums can rock as hard as a thunderstorm!
The perceived loudness of musical instruments depends on various factors such as playing technique, amplification, and environment. In general, drums are often perceived as the loudest due to their percussive nature and impact on sound pressure levels.
Lots of engineers prefer to begin their mix with the drums—some starting with the granularity of the kick and building out from there. Others have different methods, including mixing with all the instruments all the time; getting the vocal first and placing it against bass, kick drum, and snare; and many more.
In general, you'll want to get a nice even tone from your drums with no big dips or spikes in each individual hit. Compression helps you achieve that by reducing the peaks, which in turn allows you to bring up the overall level of the drums.
The level can be calculated using a correlation of steam and water densities with pressure. The level percentage is determined by subtracting the raw transmitter output from 100%, divided by the difference between water and steam densities.