Tuning Drums to Key of song

Requests and Feedback
Viewing 7 replies - 16 through 22 (of 22 total)
  • wigglymilk
    Participant

    Drive Mad

    There is a reason that drum skins are tunable, and why drummers of all genres and skill levels aspire to pitch correct them in the analogue world. If they were merely “percussive”, that wouldn’t be an option. Tuning plugins would not recognize them as melodic otherwise. I’ve also heard enough songs where the way certain drums were tuned affect the overall chord played in that song (Porcupine Tree – Blind House, for one). It makes perfect sense for Toontrack to incorporate a tool to determine the current tuning of surfaces that can be pitched. Unless I am mistaken, the whole point of plugins like SD2/3 is to create as real an experience as possible. It only makes sense, in this digital age, that we can come to that result in a more convenient way…

    Yes, I concur. Why not provide them pre-tuned given that SD3 has the capacity to tune them? Most likely because doing so would cost money and time.

    guitarmanweiss
    Participant

    Would still love this feature to be implemented.

    KFrische
    Participant

    Agreed.   This is a must have feature and I’m surprised this feature request has been ignored and/or downplayed in value.

    The sample library platforms continue to grow in drum sample/groove/etc. offerings and all of them offer this as standard.  In fact, without this feature I will probably start migrating sound dev to sample only drum kit systems like Kontakt 8 and use these with readily available grooves.

    Contrary to some opinions, these samples aren’t just EDM type sounds, they are real drum sounds as well.

    The target:  Allow full drum kits (all instruments as part of current kit focus) to be tuned to key of song.

    Update or become irrelevant is my thinking.

    • This post was modified 7 months, 2 weeks ago by KFrische.

    1

    Thanked by: Harry Kopy
    ihoypoyh
    Participant

    ok you tune the drums. To what?

    even if you tune the drums, will they be in tune with everything that happens in the song? What if the song is in C and then I modulate to C# ? now the drums will be a minor second out of tune, the harshest dissonance in music is the minor second.

    Or should I never modulate from C to C# ? then, I would solve a problem, and create a worse one, that will impose what I can’t do in music.

    Which is why Bach ‘well tempered’ his keyboards, i.e. isn’t it tune the drums to a key that sits ‘in the middle’ of all 24 ? In other words, a best average. Unless you have a robot in the daw that instantly tune the drums to everything that happens.

    In the end, it’s a musical instrument, created by musicians….it’s not something with NASA specs.

    • This post was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by ihoypoyh.
    ihoypoyh
    Participant

    let’s say my guitar string is tuned to E. That’s great if the key is E major or minor. But if it’s C minor, it’s going to be out of whack. Or if the keys are Eb major, F minor, F major, Db major, etc etc.

    The more sophisticated is the music, such as classical or film sountracks for example, the more variables there are. To have perfectly tuned drums to the ‘song’, would mean the song is incredibly elementary, dull, and boring.

    Also, the note E could still harmonize with other, different notes, even though it’s not in tune, for example imperfect consonances such as thirds or sixths, or perfect ones such as octaves, fourths, and fifths.

    Also, the same note in a high register will have next to no clashes the higher is the pitch, but the same note in a very low register is packed with tons of harmonics, as the harmonic series shows.

    In the end, a single note can be a reference to a zillion things, in music, and the same note can have many roles in different contexts. There have been crazy composers who have put dissonance on same level as consonance, as if there’s no difference between the two. The variables are enormous, and a human mind has no control over all these. Sure, a snare can seem dissonant in a particular song, and it would be nice to have a way to tune it up, I am not saying this would be useless. But it would be more to avoid occasional problems than to thrive in a perfect world.

    • This post was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by ihoypoyh.
    Harry Kopy
    Participant

    So, if your song modulates from C to C#, have the drums modulate the half step as well…

    And if you’re playing more complicated music, then by all means, this wouldn’t be for you.

    Other professional artists (Prince, and Porcupine Tree as mentioned earlier) tune their drums to the key of their songs and I find it sounds wonderful, certainly not elementary, dull and boring.

    And simply put, this feature is not for you. And why even add your 2 cents if you don’t want it? Plenty of us who do, and SD does this already, so why not EZ?

    • This post was modified 2 days, 3 hours ago by Harry Kopy.
    KFrische
    Participant

    This isn’t Rocket Science.  The main instruments that need to be tunable are the snare and the bass drum.  It would be useful to have others, but those are the keys to the kingdom.  I took the full production class from the producer for Beyonce and other notables; this is a standard thing they do in their songs.

    So….to the naysayers at ToonTrack, get with the program.   This is being done by major producers using other tools because yours won’t do it.

    So rather than rant about why would you ever do such a thing, ask yourselves why not support it?

     

Viewing 7 replies - 16 through 22 (of 22 total)

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