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Posted: **Mon Feb 06, 2006 9:45 am**

Hello guys!

I just read the thread about Batas tuning and i remembered, that few days ago i wanted to try to tune the congas in shop with a tuner. The salesman is more into the electronic things and he said he would help. The result was, that I tuned the congas by my ear, cause we didn't know how the tuner works for congas (the meter was everywhere all the time, even if there was a silence)
It was pretty expensive tuner with a metronome (about 200 Euros).
I don't like to be depended on electronics, but I would just like to try one time to tune the congas, bongos with a tuner.

How many of you has experience with that, which tuner, regular use?...

I saw in one documentary that Anga has his own friend who tunes the congas for him in studio with a tuner of course...

Thanks Guys, may the Groove be with You!

Primoz

Posted: **Mon Feb 06, 2006 3:35 pm**

In my music room (studio would be a stretch), I have a boss br1180cd I use for recording. It has a tuner I use with my condenser mike to get a relative tuning idea. You have to hit very clean open tones, and do it several times to see what pitch comes up the most often. A sensitive mike is important and a light touch on the drum is too. After you tune it, you can hit it harder and see what happens with harmonics as you hit it harder. That's why I mike my drums at church, so I don't have to fight the sound system and hit so hard I hurt my hands and get extra overtones to boot. The tuner has a digital needle, that is slow enough to really see what's going on. Because of the rapid decay rate, you can see many pitches shortly after the initial attack so i use the initial attack and tune them 1/4 turn at a time to fine tune. I never tried any other tuner with congas..at church i just tune to the keyboard, by ear. I see if we're playing a few songs in one key, and tune my drums to the most often used key for that day. On the others, I stay away from open tones in the quiet passages, as they can really clash in a quiet worshipful setting, During the rowdy praise songs it's not so critical. I play short melodic fill phrases as often as I can in the quiet numbers, so I get the tuning as close as I possibly can to those if there's one of those in the set. Muted slaps, heel-tip, drops, and bass tones seem to work everywhere, everytime

Edited By bongoron on 1139240586

Posted: **Tue Feb 07, 2006 9:07 am**

Is there difference between guitar tuner and bass guitar tuner? before gigs I ask our bass player for a help, he's using his electronic tuner, and we all are more happy afterwards. It surely helps that he was playing some conga years ago

Posted: **Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:11 pm**

I haven't tried this, but I will when I get a 9v battery. I have a pickup for an acoustic guitar that sticks on. I wonder if this could be plugged into the tuner, and stuck to the rim of the drum?

Edited By bongoron on 1139335954

Posted: **Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:42 pm**

I have a korg elect guitar tuner, I tried to use it to tune a conga and djembe but didnt work for me, the needle was all over the place I hit it the same way evertime and I got a different reading. Now I just go by ear when we crank up the music. At home I go by ear and a little on the boomwacker web site helps get me close.

congaplace.com

Which electronic tuner you use (if you use it)? - how do you do it?