Drums & tuning

[carl meyer]

Now, I'm no expert!  You know, an ex is a has been and a spurt is a drip
under pressure, but my understanding  is that a drum is purposely
designed so that is has no specific resonance and produces a sound with
equal sound level at all frequencies so that it is in tune with anything
that comes along.  This is no simple feat, of course, but if a spectrum
anylyzer were to analyze the sound of a drum or any percussive 
instrument  the goal would be to purposely tune it so that it would not
produce any one single frequency that would stand out above any other or
it would only play  in one key.  That's neat, since drummers don't have
to read music in do ra me fashion.  They only are concerned with rhythm
and so their sounds  which are multi-frequency will blend with any other
sounds produced by other means.  In electronics this is called white
noise.  Noise that rises or falls by 3 db per octave, I don't remember
which, is called pink noise.  Now black noise is another thing
entirely.  That is when you short out the terminals and the result is
absolute  silence with a frequency response of dc to light.  Absolute
silence!  Awesome!!!!!

Enjoy!!!

Carl meyer
Santa Clara, Ca.



Billbrpt@AOL.COM wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 2/29/00 11:06:27 PM Central Standard Time,
> btnaudio@flash.net writes:
> 
> << This means that to tune one drum you have a total of 20 or 24 lugs to
> adjust. You're trying to match the tension between all of them to the exact
> same spot. Many drummers & drum techs don't know how to achieve this end
> result so what you get is a thud sound with no resonance..........
>   >>
> 
> This is interesting.  I'm sure that we piano techs would like to know how a
> skilled drum tech tightens those lugs to get the proper pitch and resonance.
> In both tasks, drum or piano tuning, getting that very precise balance of
> tension is what we want.  A description (or even better, a demonstration at a
> PTG event) of how this is done would be of interest to piano technicians.
> 
> Bill Bremmer RPT
> Madison, Wisconsin