- Significantly reduces the time needed to tune any drum on your kit
- Provides precise tuning readings
- Excellent ear training for beginner drummers
- Perfect for drummers who don’t know how to tune
- Bit of a learning curve
- Some drummers still prefer turning by ear
- Sometimes misreads frequencies due to user error
- May discourage learning how to tune by ear
- Digital drum tuner
- Higher frequency range
- Four-color display
- Streamlined keypad
- Single-button layout
- Clamps onto drum hoop
- Accurate pitch measurement
- Displays frequency (Hz)
- Displays note name
- Saves pitch for 5 kits
- Up to 10 drums per kit
- Virtual tuning needle
- Filter frequency display
- Standard/high pitch ranges
- Filters out overtones
- Compatible with snare drums
- Compatible with bass drums
- Requires minimal setup adjustments
- Research-backed technology
Tune-Bot Studio: Overview
The Tune Bot studio is by far the best drum tuner available. It operates more like a guitar tuner, rather than one with a mechanical dial.
It will measure the pitch of your drum as a frequency, giving you an actual note representation. Rather than placing the drum tuner on your head, this product clips on to your drum’s rim. This tuner is far more advanced than the Drum Dial in my opinion.
For starters, you can tune your kit to actual musical intervals. This works great if you’re tuning your toms to the key of a certain song, which is becoming more and more popular with modern recording engineers.
It also has the ability to save and recall pitches for up to five kits with ten drums each. You actually can buy new drum heads and tune them exactly how you had them before!
Some drum tuners have a problem when it comes to false readings. The Tune-Bot Studio has a filter mode that avoids this issue altogether. Since it clips to you drum hoop, you’ll also be able to tune hands-free.
To use the tuner effectively, you will need patience. It’s a little tricky, as you may get a false reading. Tuning is all about patience and consistency. Be sure to hit your drum head in the exact same spot at the same velocity to get the greatest consistency when tuning.
Most poor reviews of this product focus on the inability to use the product. It seems that most users are not experienced enough to understand how to use the tuner effectively. When choosing any tuner, be sure to be patient, watch instructional videos, and be consistent.
Tune-Bot’s website has an exhaustive guide on how to use the Tune-Bot, with tuning settings for both the batter and resonant heads. You can pick between high, medium, and low resonant tunings. Tune-Bot has a separate documentation for snare drums, toms, and bass drums.
Tune-Bot Studio
Four-color display, streamlined keypad. Accurate pitch measurement in Hz and note. Clamps to any drum hoop. Saves settings for 5 kits, 10 drums each. Suitable for entire drum kit. Filters overtones for reliable readings. Compatible with various setups.
9 comments
Eric
I try to tune my reso head of my Sonor SQ2 snare nearby the recommended 400hz, but unfortunately the readings of my Tune-Bot is is nog gone be higher than 220hz. When I tension up de head cracks and I’m afraid I broke the head when I push the lug more tightly.
So my question: is there something with my tune-bot or do I be nog that scared and tight up further?
Is het possible to broke the edge of a head if the tension is to much?
Liz
Hello Nick, I found this article very interesting. But I have a question. I have timpani that do not have pedals, and it is a struggle to tune them. Do you know if tune-bot would work on timpani?
Nick Cesarz
I did a little looking around, and DrumDial has timpani tuning charts, so that might be an option: https://www.drumdial.com/how-to-use/timpani-tuning-charts/
Liz
Thanks for your reply Nick. I did look at DrumDial, but I could not find out how to convert the pressure reading to frequency. I assume that this conversion depends on the size of the drum. For pedal timps all we need to do is to tune to the fundamental frequency. But I need to be able to tune to a specific pitch.
Nick Cesarz
Hi Liz,
I don’t have any experience tuning timpani, even the kind with pedals. I’ve only played timpani while using pedals to adjust pitch, never actually tuned them myself (at university, our professor was skilled in this regard). I think Tune Bot would work if it would attach to the rim properly.
Vinnie Kay
Nice article. Like you, I bought the drum dial years ago and recently bought the
tune-bot studio. It takes awhile and some practice to get the tune-bot working. I really like the fact that the instruction manual gives tuning frequency numbers for the different size drums. This way I have a clue as to what my drum should sound like.
Also, I have a vintage Gretsch kit with two 12” rack toms. With the frequency guide, I can tune one of the toms down to the “correct” frequency rather than just a lower tone than the other Tom.
I have another tool to quickly get all tension rods equally tightened. It is the RhythmTech Pro TORQ Drum Key. This thing is AWESOME! It immediately gets all rods evenly tensioned. It’s a bit tricky finding the right adjustment, but once you dial it in, (and it doesn’t take long. Only a minute or two) It’s fantastic! Using this tool and then checking it with the tune-bot is the way to go for me. Even without the tune bot you can quickly change a head and be reasonably assured that the tension is even. You just won’t know the precise frequency. The Protorq is a combination torque wrench and drum key that allows players to pre-select a tension level for tuning any drum, giving them a super fast way to tune. Boom!
Aaron Shea
Might be late reading this but what, I love sharing my opinion with the drumming community as it always helps to have numerous OPINIONS (not hard as stone “Facts” like some people share, usually avid Drum and Musical theorists).
I’m a +1 with Vinnie Kay, exactly…. weird haha. I owned a DDIAL for a while before recently getting the TBOT, and I can honestly swear by both. I was aware of the tune bot, but it was pricey and hard to justify buying on a budget when I already had a dial. But after a while, I really wanted to start turning to notes and frequencies, so I did some looking and found the DRUMTune Pro app on Google play. It’s funny that it wasn’t mentioned in the article considering it’s what is pictured up top, so allow me to share.
It is essentially a TBOT Studio, using your devices mic to tune to frequencies and notes, though anyone who has used both of these tuners knows that it really doesn’t compare to the TBOT studio as far as filtering and accuracy. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great app for the price, and it does function, but its really not even close in comparison. DRUMTune Pro also comes with a bunch of handy features (save kits, interval tuning) and guides (frequency ranges, intervals, etc) which are a little bit more helpful than what comes in the tunebot manual. You can try it free for a week and subscribe for $1.99/month after that (it won’t automatically do that, which is always a plus) or buy it outright for like $20-30.
*tip* Put a moongel or tone ring on the drum while tuning, It really helps reading through the overtones
My personal opinion is save to get a TBOT studio. Make sure it’s the STUDIO, not the cheaper GIG model. I had a chance to try the gig and the filters suck, and you cant save kits for recall. Use the app I mentioned until you can afford it.
Bram
Hi Aaron, thanks for the mentioning. We appreciate it. BTW, please update Drumtune PRO to the latest version. (The lug pitch detection evolved a lot. If any questions about the app, you are always welcome to reach out to support. We’re happy to help! Thanks.)
Nick Cesarz
Aaron, thanks for the reply! So much insightful information there! Regarding the inclusion of the app shown in the featured image, I completely forgot to add in some words about it! I took the photo, updated the image, and never came back to the article. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Have you tried any other tuning apps? I’ve only tried DRUMTune Pro, but I see there is also iDrumTuner. I’m going to pit them against each other to see which is better. I only have an iOS device, so I don’t have access to the Google Play store.