Why do drum sets have descending toms? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do drum sets have descending toms?

#71

Post by mrob » Mon, Apr 26, 2021, 8:25 AM UTC

bradrn wrote: post #70

posterboy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how I understand the musical scale, if I even understood you correctly. By relative interval I understand the interval within an octave, so C-D is a second regardless of the octave. The frequencies (notwithstanding fine tuning), double each octave. Of course the absolute difference is proportional to the power of two, depending on the octave. The picture is different when counting the proportion relative a…

> By relative interval I understand the interval within an octave, so C-D is a second regardless of the octave. I don’t think GP is denying this. They are simply saying that an interval at a lower frequency is generally more dissonant than the same interval at a higher frequency.

I think it's likely to be less dissonant at lower frequencies. Try a 51.913Hz sine wave (G#1) played with a 55.000Hz sine wave (A1), at low enough volume that they don't clip when added together. This does not sound dissonant to me. Then speed them up by 16x (increasing the pitch four octaves). This does sound dissonant to me, although not extremely so, because timbre makes a huge difference, and sine waves produce the least dissonance of all timbres.

I don't have a bass guitar, but if somebody does they might want to try playing those G# and A notes together, and check how consonant they sound with the tone knob turned all the way up and all the way down. I predict that the brighter tone will sound more dissonant.

Re: Why do drum sets have descending toms?

#72

Post by bartread » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #9

uniqueid wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my impression, too. I once did some research on toms for some audio code. Toms are pretty tonal, as far as drums go, yet, as far as I could tell from my research there's no standard tuning for them. That would make sense if pop musicians all tuned their toms according to the music they were playing, but to the extent that they do, the tunings I read about were mostly flakey (ie: ungrounded in music theory)

That explains a particular drummer I know... I know a drummer that is very particular about tuning his drums, and he gets mad when people change it, thing is, he also plays other instruments, so I guess he DOES choose what notes he wants from his drum.

> I know a drummer that is very particular about tuning his drums, and he gets mad when people change it

I don't blame him.

I often keep my acoustic guitar tuned down a whole tone, and use heavier strings as a result, because it fits my voice better when I sing. You better believe I get grumpy with people when they pick it up and ignorantly retune it to standard.

Re: Why do drum sets have descending toms?

#73

Post by bartread » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

bsder wrote: post #7

> Just as guitarists have cut back on amp power and now focus on tone As much as I would like to think that this is true, all the concerts I went to prior to Covid had WAAAAAY too much freakin' bass. These were bands with vocal and guitar gods and the bass was cranked up to like 9000 such that you could barely make out the vocals and guitars if the bass was playing. The best audio at a concert I had was the one where…

Many years ago I went to a Fun Lovin' Criminals gig that was completely ruined by the idiot sound guys: way too much bass and way too much drums (bass drum in particular). Given that Huey's main vocal style is low-pitched chilled out rapping it meant that you could barely hear anything he was singing. I was really pissed off. Easily one of the worst gigs I've ever attended, and this is including pub and small club bands, but it wasn't the band's fault at all: they were absolutely tight.

Re: Why do drum sets have descending toms?

#74

Post by posterboy » Wed, May 05, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

bradrn wrote: post #70

posterboy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how I understand the musical scale, if I even understood you correctly. By relative interval I understand the interval within an octave, so C-D is a second regardless of the octave. The frequencies (notwithstanding fine tuning), double each octave. Of course the absolute difference is proportional to the power of two, depending on the octave. The picture is different when counting the proportion relative a…

> By relative interval I understand the interval within an octave, so C-D is a second regardless of the octave. I don’t think GP is denying this. They are simply saying that an interval at a lower frequency is generally more dissonant than the same interval at a higher frequency.

I was conceeding to make sure I understood them correctly.

The problem is, if you have only two tones, the lower one is essentially the base frequency in my address. But I'm assuming you have somewhat of a natural buzz, or resonant frequencies from the environment that command the base frequency for you, so you can't take any two intervals and compare them as if they were relatively same. This should be relevant especially if you play them one after another to compare, no?