Quote from: Scribit on January 06, 2016, 06:21:39 pm

Am I the only one that thinks tuning a kick (apart from big room or trap kicks) is pointless? Like, I understand the reason, but for me keeping the kick tuneless makes it just a punch, rather than another melody in a way

No I very rarely, but do, run into this. There are times I am wondering... does this kick need to be in tune? The answer is usually no. Because the character of a kick drum is more important than exactly what frequency it lives at, from a sound perspective, not a mix perspective. Like you said when you tune a kick to the track it seems to gel with things and that is not always what you want. Usually you want it to be the foundation on which everything else exists... you chose the kick for how it sounds, and changing that for the benefit of the track's key will generally ruin the kick.

And snares, other drums are different though.

That being said, it's not ideal to have a kick that's so far out of key that it sounds flat or sharp. I think if you are playing withing 3 transpositions you are ok for some kicks. Some kicks will not tolerate even 1 transposition. Because, even though changing the kick to the tracks key may not be ideal, that doesn't mean the kick won't benefit from *some* transposition.

Granted, every case is completely different, this is just a rough response based on my experience. When I feel like i need to tune the kick, its usually because I am not getting the punch I want and I feel like maybe that had something to do with the key. It never has.