Ive been reading some forums now and sometimes people say it’s wise to tune your drumkick (for instance) in the same note or at least in the same key as your bass.
First of all: now does this make such a big deal? I mean I’ve used alot of drums that maybe weren’t tuned in the key and I never felt like “wow! this kick is hell out of tuneeee! I should nail myself to the cross!”
And if it makes such a big bitch difference, well then tell me how to discover the world of tuned drums
sometimes a basedrum does not really “sit” in the mix because it’s not well-tuned. just play with your finetuning abit and you should hear the difference. I guess you could involve analyzers or stuff, but I do this with my ears (and I actually do it all the time … never really thought about it).
hmm, I never thought about that but it makes perfect sense… I normal go for another bd or whatever…
Synth Secrets, Part 2: The Physics Of Percussion
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun99/arti…ynthsecrets.htm
Synth Secret links
http://www.adp-gmbh.ch/csound/synth_secret.html
It depends on the category of percussions you want to use with other instruments, if any.
Some electronic tracks with some slick programming sound elusive. For example, a kick and snare drum, categorized as indefinite pitch, is programmed to behave with definite pitch. Add additional definite pitched instruments and you can play with harmonic/chord progressions. This allows for a wider palette that some don’t want. Some just want a simple indefinite pitched kick and snare drum mixed with definite pitched instruments.
So… how a liveband drummer finetunes his bassdrumhits? 
http://www.musicyo.com/planet/tune_drums.asp
“…there are really no rules to tuning. It’s strictly a matter of personal taste, and the sound that YOU want to hear…”
There’s a lot of other information on live drum tuning on the web. From my personal live experience, I’ve only seen after the fact mixing, never before a show which includes, and not limited to, tuning a drum kit or other instruments.
My guess is the following keywords: equal or unequal tension, in terms of a traditional kick drum. Different than actually tuning an instrument to a specific pitch such as A4 440.00.
I think it comes down to the ensemble that’s put together that defines the percussive environment and technique used to tune the instrument.
Something like an 808 kick with a long steady tail at a fixed freq will often need to be tuned to avoid cacophanousness (is that even a word?).
Shorter kicks or ones that have a sweeping freq on the tail aren’t so important.
Similar story with toms and snares, innit.
My guess: If electronic Kicks are tuned to a key and you can hear what key it is, then you’ll hear it being compared to other instruments that are melodically/harmonically moving and if the kick remains in the same key throughout the song, there’s a possibility that its going to sound off scale, off key or possible added amplitudes, depending on the melodic/harmonic movements in time.
It’s simpler: cacophony
The following link is an example (1:12) of tuned melodic kicks. Adobe Flash Player is required for live audio streaming.
First half is 2 voice piano loop. Second half is Kick, Snare, HH, Noise, Guitar. Both same melody. Excuse the headphone composition/mix.