Drum Tuning
Firstly, we have a specific way that we are tuning drums. Typically things will be ready to go when you arrive on Sunday mornings but I think it's a good idea to have the numbers and know the why of things being the way they are.
In this section we talk about using the tune bot to tune the drums. We always keep one of these available at the church.
Notes and Pitch matter with drums
Sometimes we may think that we don't have to worry about pitch because we aren't singers or guitar players. But each drum being tuned specific pitches will help us make sure that they have enough separation from each other but not too far apart from each other to where it will sound strange. We do this by tuning the floor tom to a pitch of D2 and going up by 5ths for each drum with the rack tom at A2 and snare at E3. This creates a nice separation between the drums but also helps to still sit nice in the mix with the rest of the band.
Kick Drum
The kick drum very rarely has to be tuned but when it does we just put all our weight on the rim and finger tighten. That gets us the kick tone that we are looking for. We keep dampening on the batter and resonant side.
Toms
So we start by tuning these with the tune bot. We always keep the tune bot at church. Its a device that helps us find the exact pitch of the drum. Starting with the floor tom we will tune it to a D2 you do this by clipping the tune bot to the edge and measuring by hitting around the drum by each lug and tuning them to 122 Hz. We will do this on the tom then the bottom after that to 130 Hz. We will repeat this process for the rack tom but changing it to an A2 by tuning the top lugs to 165 Hz and the bottom to 217 Hz.
Snare Drum
Snare drum is a little harder with the snare wires on the bottom. When tuning the snare drum I always just start with fully loosening all the lugs. (I think starting from scratch makes it easier). Starting on the bottom head I put all my weight on the rim and finger tighten all the tension rods. Then 2 full 360 degree turns and then pitch match the lugs. Then I flip it over doing another finger tighten then tune each lug to 229. Having the bottom head super tight helps the snare wires to react the way that we want them to.
SAMPLES
A hot topic of conversation in the mixing world is if you should use samples on your drums or not. This is something that we love to utilize here at church. We use Kick and Snare samples on the live stream and a snare sample in house! We use this to enhance the tone that is already there not to just replace the signal completely.
Dynamics, Transitions and Technique
In this section we will talk about dynamic levels and how to implement those
Thoughts
Dynamics:
This video is amazing! It actually gives language to those dynamic levels that we are thinking about in our head. Those percentage levels really give us a great way to communicate the level we need to be at.
Transitions:
These are great to think about when going from section to section especially when we are in more of a flow or spontaneous time.
Less is more
I know you have probably heard this a thousand times (if not more lol) but less really is more in our context. Since we live in such a dense mix considering all the instruments and tracks we have. We have to be extra intentional about the things we play. It's the hardest hurdle to jump over as an instrumentalists but we always have to serve the song and not ourselves. Additionally, our playing should be consistent with grooves and kick patterns to help our bass players and other bandmates be able to lock in. That does mean that we should keep the grooves that we are playing the same as the reference track so that everybody is going off the same material and can be locked in from the start.
Technique
I know that we have all been there. Feeling really good about how the drum kit sounds and then we hear those awful words.... "is there anyway you can play quieter?" We are so lucky to be in a space where we have an enclosed drum kit and volume is not an issue. One thing still remains true though. We still have to use control when hitting the drums. This is the case for multiple reasons (cymbals can break, heads don't last forever, making the mix engineers job easier and the mix better). This means that as drummers we may have to take some muscle memory and relearn it. A lot of times you are told that your sticking needs to be consistent on everything you hit. That isn't the case here. We should listen to a drum mix and try to make our playing sound as much like that as we can when sitting at the drum kit. That means kick and snare should be hit the hardest then toms followed by the cymbals. This helps the overheads be an overall picture of the drums and not just "cymbal mics". There are some great examples shown below of great technique with playing to contribute to the mix.
Some Playing Examples
These examples are here to show what some of the control that we have talked about looks like in practice.
Thoughts
Something that's really important to note here is that even when the drums and cymbals sound huge the cymbals aren't going all over the place and the drums can actually breathe because they aren't being hit so hard. One way to think about this and put it into practice is by playing every once in a while without your inears in and listen to the balance of the drum kit with no mixing. This helps so much with playing to the mix. Playing this way for most if not all of the time will make sure that we aren't constantly sitting at our dynamic ceiling and we can always give that extra 10% push when it's needed. This means that every hit has to be intentional, not just thinking about what we are playing but how we are playing!
Spontaneous Playing
Now that we have dynamics and techniques. Here are some videos that talk about how to approach spontaneous playing.
Thoughts
I love these videos because I love spontaneous worship and I love being able to follow the Holy Spirit and see what He wants to do in a moment. This means that we all need to be in the same place not just musically but spiritually. I encourage you to be in your word daily and learn to love the presence of God. This will help you so much in these moments but is how we grow in relationship with the Lord. I love what he says about patience it let's us take time to listen and see where the Lord wants to take the moment instead of just going in guns blazing.
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