Drum Tuner

How the Drum Tuner works

Drums are tuned by ear more often than by numbers, but numbers help when you want the same sound every night, need two toms a set interval apart, or are learning what a well-tuned head sounds like.

How the drum tuner measures a hit

A drum hit is very different from a sung note. The first few milliseconds are a noisy crack with no clear pitch, then the tone rings and decays within a second. The tuner watches the level of the signal; when it jumps well above the background noise it treats that as a hit, skips the first 50 ms of attack, and then takes pitch readings for the next two thirds of a second using the same autocorrelation detector as the frequency detector. The median of those readings is the hit's pitch, which ignores the odd stray reading from an overtone. The tuner then waits for the drum to go quiet before it listens for the next hit.

Choosing the drum narrows the search range, which stops the detector locking onto an overtone. A kick is searched between 35 and 120 Hz, a snare between 140 and 450 Hz.

Tuning evenly at each lug

For an even head, tap lightly about two centimetres in from the rim in front of each tension rod. The tuner logs up to eight hits and shows the spread between the highest and lowest in cents. Under about 15 cents the head is even; a larger spread means the lugs with the highest readings need loosening or the lowest need tightening. Change the drum selection to clear the log.

Typical pitches

There is no single correct pitch for a drum, but common starting points are a kick around 50 to 60 Hz, a floor tom around 80 to 100 Hz, rack toms a fourth or so apart above that, and a snare between 180 and 250 Hz. Use the tuner for tonal instruments, and the scale player to hear the note you are aiming for.

You can also drop a recording of a single drum hit; the tuner plays it once and measures it.

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