and since all the kids are talking about layering drum hits, listen to this as well. Tune you hits, it makes a huge difference to the sound. its best doing by ear, but if you're borderline tone deaf like me you can use a frequency analyser.
couple of notes regarding drum tuning:
Tuning can a vicious circle. If you leave it for the mixing stage of a tune when you have loads of hits, all in clashing frequencies, you're in for a horror. change two things, they sound fine, unmute another, it sucks.. it is important that you decide early which hits will be your main elements. Tune these to the tune's key, and then dont touch the pitch on them. Instead, tune all additional layers to these "main" beats, as to avoid the headache later on.
The lower you go in the frequency spectrum, the more important is to avoid clashes. Just like you want to avoid detuned sub bass, kicks need to be tuned to the last cent, especially if you intend to keep information bellow 100Hz on both of them. If you're add high frequency clicks it is less important, but it helps if everything is in tune.
Snares benefit from tight tuning too, but since we can layer up to 12 kHz of snare-ish material, the higher we go, the waves become so small that any dissonance gets masked pretty quickly. furthermore, dissonance at these frequencies can sometimes sound pleasing and nasty-in-a-good-way-!
Whilst frequency analysers can be a great help for tuning, the rules they abide to cannot replace the actual sound. in other words, two hits may appear to be on the same frequency on your analyser, but that doesnt necessarily mean that they sound the best they can together. I personally bring my hits close by looking at the analyser, and then adjust the pitch on my additional hit by 10 cents. The difference each time is minute, but by moving in increments of 10 cents, you should be able to distinguish if the overall sound is getting better or worse. if its getting worse, i move it to the other direction. if its getting better, i go on until it sounds bad again, and then repeat the process in the opposite direction 1 cent increments.
i avoid using samplers and other real-time processors for tuning drum hits. its very convenient being able to dial it and hear it straight away, but offline processing sounds much much better. the one in Cubase is pretty clean, as long as you uncheck "preserve time", which would time stretch as well. it gets a bit daunting sometimes trying to distinguish one tuning from another when its not done in real time, so bouncing down a few versions and auditioning them next to each other helps a lot.
so yeah, thats what i know so far. id like to hear some contributions on tuning from others (Zeal, Kama, Logikz, im looking your way...)
and if any of this didnt make a lot of sense, just ask.
