The drum is tuned using an Allen wrench (hex key). There are 8 tuning points. I’ve watched videos on YouTube for how to tune the drum, and the general ideas is to tune by ear, adjusting each tuning point so that it’s in tune with the others.
Apparently I’m completely tone deaf. I can’t tell when one section of the drum is higher or lower in pitch unless it’s super obvious.
I love me some frame drums - I’ve got a good friend, Dan LaPorta, that does amazing things with them, and they go wonderful with my Native American flutes. I’ve watched him tune a number of times. I get the impression he gauges whether the tuners have even tension by feel. He definitely does the overall tuning by ear. It is definitely tricky, as there are multiple overtones present. It’s sometimes hard to decide which one you want to tune.
Sometimes he wets his finger and draws it across the skin to bring out a beautiful tone, and he tunes to get that tone to match the fundamental of one of my flutes. It then usually works well for the traditional finger drumming as well.
I’d be surprised if that mic would help you tune. Attaching to the skin would surly impact the sound.
Not of any help, but he has this really cool massive frame drum from Germany - about 30" diameter. It has an inner tube around the frame between the frame and the skin, and a valve that accepts a bicycle pump. Tension is always even with no effort - very cool.
it is not a creative way, is more like the right way using the traditional approach , in my country , to tune a traditional drum, Africans drums , we used to give tension to the membrane until get an audible tone, then we fine tune by ear temper it with fire
play approaching the membrane to a heat source and play until get tune, This should get very hot, not just warm, both sides
