THE POWER OF TUNING
Here I will be providing some guiding information about the Idiopans' most desirable feature: The ability to tune. As some of you may know, with every Idiopan there is a magnet placed under each tongue, and where that magnet is placed on the tongue directly affects the tuning. Though it may seem like some form of magic, the science behind it involves the mass distribution along the tongue. That being said, the more you move the magnet towards the center of the drum the lower the pitch is going to be, and the more you move it away from the center, the higher the pitch will be for that tongue.
Before I get much further, I would like to stress the importance of proper care for your magnets. They are extremely strong and will abruptly snap together or on to other magnetic surfaces if you don’t use the proper caution when dealing with them. Though it may not sound like a big deal, the magnets are also very brittle so them abruptly contacting other surfaces will cause them to chip and break, making them unusable for your Idiopan. The best route is to apply your magnets to the tongue or other magnets slowly and with caution.
Though it may be intimidating to jump in and start retuning your instrument, as long as you use a tuner (any chromatic tuner will work when tuning an Idiopan), you can easily tune it back to the original tuning. When tuning, you will have to establish a feel for how much movement of the magnet affects the tuning of that individual tongue. Keep in mind that the smaller the tongue is, the less you have to move the magnet for a greater effect on the tuning. In my experience, I've noticed firmly holding the magnet between your thumb and index finger will give you the most control when sliding it along the tongue, especially when you have to tune within a few cents of a pitch. Also, you want to make sure that you have the magnet placed in center of the tongue, for if it touches the sides of the tongue, it will create a buzz sound that is most undesirable.
Now that the concept of how to tune has been explained, you can go forth and maximize your Idiopan's true potential and tune it to a multitude of different scales, including tuning relative to A=432Hz. You can find different scales that your specific model can tune to in your owner's guide, but remember that your Idiopan is not limited to what is in the owner's guide, as it is solely up to the player's discretion on how they'd like their drum to sound. That being said, also keep in mind that Advanced Magnet Packs are available for the Lunabell, Domina, and Dominus drums, giving your drum even more range by simply adding more magnets to the tongues. With more magnets, your options are truly endless in ways that you can mix and match the magnets to get different pitches, though there is an owner's guide with more suggested tunings included with the advanced magnet pack if you're not quite ready to experiment on your own.
In short, the Idiopan's capability to tune provides endless player options, along with being capable to play harmoniously with other instruments by choosing a specific scale.
For a live demonstration, please watch the How To Tune video linked here.
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