Saul Drum Tuner to be launched at Piping Live

The Saul Bass & Tenor Drum Tuner, a follow-on to the Saul Bagpipe Tuner launched last year, will make its debut at the 2009 Piping Live! Glasgow Festival of Piping on August 12th at the Drumming for Drinks event.

 

According to developer Mark Saul, the new $250 (USD) tuner also is designed to allow more accurate drum tuning in environments with ambient noise, such as tuning parks. The device was developed with input and testing by tenor drummers Tyler Fry and Scott Currie. A tuner will be given away at Drumming for Drinks.

 

The Saul Bass & Tenor Tuner has been in pilot use by both House of Edgar-Shotts & Dykehead and the Peel Regional Police Grade 1 bands, with the entire Shotts mid-section outfitted with the devices.

 

The Peel Police have been using both the Bagpipe and Bass & Tenor tuners “extensively” for both tuning and tone steadiness.

 

“The Saul tuners have definitely had their impact with us,” Peel Regional Police Pipe-Major John Cairns said. “They have taught the pipers to hear the correct intervals and have proven to be a great aid in setting up the band.”

 

Saul said that the new tuner will be available for shipping in quantity by September. He added that sales of the Bagpipe Tuner have been solid and that he has increased the production quantities to help the supply chain.

 

He said that some bands are outfitting the pipe section with sensors and five or six tuners, with some tuners dedicated to tuning drones and others to the pipes of key tuning pipers within the corps.

 

When asked why he think the new Bass & Tenor Tuner is better than existing products, Saul claimed, “It’s designed specifically for pipe band drums and therefore uses the Highland bagpipe scale as its reference. Other tuners are designed for other instruments and therefore use an equal tempered scale, resulting in drums that are out of tune with the pipes. The sensor technology bypasses the need to uses a microphone, giving the drummer the ability to tune the drum in noisy situations, including the middle of a circle of pipers.”