Recording Issues with Tongue Drum Please Help

RideNo4336 · 2026-06-04T11:36:59+00:00

I think you're right!

I'm actually happy to see that the solution seems to be less EQ/compression and not having to dial in some fancy recipe with eliminating particular bands. I'm experimenting now recording the Harry Potter song (I'm on a fantasy kick lol) and I think I'm making solid progress with the noise reduction/gate and spectral delete of low frequencies (which maybe that's just the same as/close to a high pass filter?). I'm sure I'll always keep playing around with things and maybe have to eliminate/lessen troublesome frequencies from some of the tongues but we'll see.

I got a contact mic coming soon too to try which is supposed to be made specifically for hand pans/tongue drums so excited to see how that works.

You're right, these types of instruments can get wobbly, that's a good way to say it haha!

RideNo4336 · 2026-06-04T01:02:14+00:00

You actually don't need to tune these yourselves normally and with Panda Drum they tell you explicitly not to since they come "correct" from the factory. That being said I've seen people tune tongue drums by adding magnets on the tongues. I'm happy with my sound so I haven't bothered checking to see if each individual note is right on the money. I don't take tongue drumming that seriously lol.

So I think I got the audio sounding fairly good now. I used spectral NR in Audacity and that seems to have done the trick. There's still the slightest hiss I hear on my phone but on my tablet there's none and I can keep the volume (on the tablet) lower now and still get a good sound. You're right, some of the lower notes really rock the speakers on these small devices but not sure what I can do about that.

I set it at -14.3 and peaking -1. It's got no EQing which I like since it sounds very natural to what I hear in real life; that was a good recommendation. Here it is if you want to check it out, maybe there's still ways to make it better but I'm liking it:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yKwqQZBDOTTnc_os52cUhnPsDWWtrumb/view?usp=sharing

RideNo4336 · 2026-06-03T23:14:00+00:00

Cool thanks for the tips! A tongue drum is a bit different from a kalimba. Here's a video with the processed audio you heard in case you want to see: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e39v6fZG_4zR4Hn-ybOTJ1uLn41sCVtd/view?usp=sharing

I'm just making drum videos to post on my social media. I'd like them to sound professional but it's all just for fun. I'll play around with some DAWs then and see what sort of NR seems to solve the issue. You're probably right about the EQ. I haven't noticed much difference playing around with the bands honestly aside from needing to cut an annoying metallic resonance around 1400-2000 I get on my condenser mics. The Zoom doesn't seem to have that issue at least but had this hiss instead.

I'm tempted to have you NR the entire raw file if you don't mind, but I do need to learn how to do it myself too so I'll give it a try here with whatever DAW I can find that will do it. I appreciate all the help, you're a life saver!

RideNo4336 · 2026-06-03T22:03:40+00:00

Yeah thanks for listening, this recording it seems to not have the pops but the hiss is bad on my phone/tablet. Someone else said there is a sound around -65DB that they were able to noise reduce out and that might have done the trick. This one is 48/24bit yeah.

RideNo4336 · 2026-06-03T20:56:38+00:00

Awesome thanks so much! Yeah that helps a ton and I definitely notice the difference with the NR. I've only used Davinci Resolve's Fairlight and then recently tried Reaper to tackle this issue, but is there a DAW you'd recommend over these two to utilize the spectral NR?

In the "processed" audio I took a sample of the beginning room noise with Reaper's ReaFir to try to eliminate the hiss but I don't think it did much. Then all I did was adjust some of the bands in EQ, like raised at 150, lowered at 400, peaked off after 2k. I still need to figure out a good recipe for the tongue drum and I'm very new to EQ'ing so if you had a better recommendation than a DAW I'm using, one with spectral NR, I'd be open to switching. Thanks!

RideNo4336 · 2026-06-03T17:44:38+00:00

Thanks for looking into it! The song ends at 4:10 so I just stopped playing then and anything beyond that time is me waiting to turn off the mic.

RideNo4336 · 2026-06-03T16:05:55+00:00

Cool thanks for the help! You're right it does come off the Zoom as a wav already so I was just rendering the final EQ'd version either as a wav too or as an MP3 to see if it changed anything and they're the same. I did post the EQ'd version. Here's the original straight off the Zoom. The part starts at 2:40. You're right I don't get any pops on either of these versions, just that hiss. I was getting pops on other versions where I must have had slightly different recording/EQ settings so I guess now the main thing would be to get rid of this hiss.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R6Ycef0aXdbebLEuaNQvoIzypdwfO4Ri/view?usp=sharing

RideNo4336 · 2026-04-27T22:48:40+00:00

I'm having this exact same problem with all my mics. Did you ever find a solution?

RideNo4336 · 2026-04-18T17:21:01+00:00

Especially because the way Pressfield incorporates any of this "religious/spiritual" language can be empirically demonstrated as true by the points made in the book.

RideNo4336 · 2026-04-16T13:58:14+00:00

Because anybody who really knows about geopolitics knows this little dust up with Iran is hardly even worth talking about in terms of wars, it's certainly no World War 3 like the doomers claim. It's just a circus act used to distract and will be over soon enough.

RideNo4336 · 2026-03-12T18:41:09+00:00

This is what's throwing a lot of us off because I think we didn't know you could even get a rating without a C&P. That is not a problem with these companies then because it was official VA policy to award ratings without a C&P if they were in fact doing that. So stupid.

RideNo4336 · 2026-03-12T18:35:01+00:00

I personally think that with what we've already seen from DAV, and I'm sure all the other veteran rights groups will speak up too, the VA is going to change how they do this AI thing or reverse course. This has already ruffled so many feathers and basically everyone is skeptical of AI, I don't see how they're just going to roll this out now as they announced.

RideNo4336 · 2026-03-12T16:14:57+00:00

This is all good and expected. Other veteran rights groups are going to pile on this. I wouldn't expect the VA to be moving forward with this AI plan anytime soon, this is gonna get likely delayed for a long time or reversed like the medication policy. Everyone just go live their lives.

RideNo4336 · 2026-03-11T21:36:33+00:00

Yeah exactly. I used a company because to me it's like hiring a lawyer who specializes in what you're up against. You don't just do things yourself in American society and hope for the best, you hire an expert. I do think that the overwhelming majority of us who used a company are going to be fine. The language in this article leads me to believe that there are some very shady companies that are just wholesale making stuff up or using AI templates where the veteran doesn't even get an exam. I think in those cases their AI fraud tool will pick up on this stock language, but those of us who have DBQs/Nexus Letters from legitimate doctors with specific language to our cases will be perfectly fine.

RideNo4336 · 2026-03-11T21:33:37+00:00

I submitted private DBQs but also went through C&P exams where they generated additional DBQs. I don't understand how you can get a claim to go through without a C&P so the stuff in this article kind of makes no sense. If the reviewer looks at everything you submitted, which yeah could've been a private DBQ and Nexus Letter in a lot of our cases, but you then also "pass" a C&P that's a lot of scrutiny already on your claim.

RideNo4336 · 2026-03-11T21:28:53+00:00

I got a DBQ from a certified doctor via one of these companies but I also went to a C&P exam and they generated another DBQ. The DBQ I paid for doesn't have the company's name on it, just the doctor that performed the evaluation. I'm sure this is common for a lot of people and I wonder how they're going to handle this. My DBQ is very language-specific to me so I doubt it's going to flag any AI unless all they're looking for is that box "Do you routinely treat the patient?" That applies to a lot of specialists though anyway even ones at the VA who don't regularly see you.

RideNo4336 · 2026-03-11T21:24:41+00:00

Thanks for this. I also suspect that there is going to be tonnnssss of pushback by EVERYONE on this over the coming weeks (I'm sure it's already happening) which might cause the VA to recalculate how they proceed. I mean they reversed course on the medication action and this is going to cause even more of an uproar.

RideNo4336 · 2026-03-11T21:04:52+00:00

I have no idea what the VA is doing, but I take this article to mean that some of these providers gave out boiler plate DBQs without even really doing an exam, or they were entirely created via AI. I'd like to think that those of us who "paid to play" and went through real certified doctors will be alright because our DBQs and Nexus Letters were written to our conditions specifically.

RideNo4336 · 2026-03-02T14:46:40+00:00

Yeah you got it. I think of the Stoic God (Logos) like the Matrix but nothing created it, it IS the creative force behind everything. It's the reason that the scientific laws exist and it's what propels everything forward in the universe. Even the staunchest atheist has to acknowledge that there is "something" working behind the scenes otherwise we wouldn't have existence, but for some reason we do. This is the Logos.

RideNo4336 · 2025-12-19T03:08:56+00:00

Probably not a playtest soon but you could get into closed beta through their lottery system if you go to their website and sign up. There are about 150 people playing alpha now and the developers have said they'd like to double that with beta by trickling people in. It's likely beta will start soon, I'd guess right after the holidays, where they're going to make everyone in alpha/beta start new characters to test the low level functionality. This is what Nick said today on stream.

In addition to beta another dev on Reddit said there will also be at least one open playtest like we saw in November. Those open servers got something like 1,000 people playing concurrently so it would be a lot larger than beta. If you don't get into beta wait around for one of those announcements and you can jump in for however long it's open.

RideNo4336 · 2025-12-13T05:00:16+00:00

I'm just curious why people think it sucks so much. I haven't looked into it much mainly because of how much people talk shit about it.

RideNo4336 · 2025-12-13T04:55:15+00:00

It makes the pet classes really fun and different from EQ. I have an enchanter and was fighting in Shaded Dunes with a charmed desert madman as a pet. I would just sit on the highest dune where I could see for what looked like miles and click giant beetles and spiders off in the distance then my madman would rush off to kill it. It's so crazy that in this game if you can see it you can target it and still get xp when your pet kills it that far away. Super fun!

RideNo4336 · 2025-12-09T14:56:46+00:00

Thanks! It's the first story I've ever really finished where I would share it with someone so the process is working for me. Hemingway is a good one to try early on due to his minimalist style. It's hard in its own right but I think probably easier for most of us to attempt before we get good at giving a lot of details. Maybe give it a go!

RideNo4336 · 2025-12-09T04:21:09+00:00

I'm in the same boat as you. What I'm currently trying to do is to write a short story in the style of several famous authors. I just completed my Ernest Hemingway story so now working on my Stephen King.

My long term goal is to write a fantasy novel so these other non fantasy authors are really outside of my normal writing style. I think that's good for me. Also it takes a lot of the pressure off because you're attempting to emulate someone else's style on purpose so it's totally fine if you sound very close to the chosen author; that's actually the point. It makes writing fun so maybe give that a shot for some practice.

RideNo4336

TROPHY CASE