posted 09 February 2000 07:51 AM         

Right after there was a heated discussion one time on this forum concerning (the 3rd's), Buddy Emmons at the 1998 ISGC wrote on a little card he had siting on his PSG:

439.5!

(I believe these were the numbers. Buddy, forgive me if I am a digit or two off)

Seriously, it is my understanding that those select players who do in fact tune to straight 440 do just that on all srings, pedal and knee lever changes.

Some have said that due to cabinet drop, they may flatten the thirds just a tad. But for all practical purposes, it is dead on 440 reference.

Go with Jesus,

carl

[This message was edited by C Dixon on 09 February 2000 at 07:52 AM.]

posted 09 February 2000 08:00 AM         

------------------
...and here's my picture

I told him the first tuner You ever used is in my guitar case and still working. You have always tuned straight up since the beginning, from what I remember and always sounded great to me. The lead guitar player was always the one out of tune in our band.

posted 09 February 2000 07:58 PM         

Over the years we've cussed and discussed this topic and I don't think Jay wanted to start that same old fight all over again.

For years I used the "tempered" (tampered?) tuning, whereby the thirds had to be flattened a tad, which meant the F#'s had to be compensated, which meant the E>F lever had to be adjusted, and on and on. When I would get through tuning, my guitar sounded great - by itself. When I would play with the band I felt like my chords clashed with the guitar players' chords. Michael Douchette "converted" me to a "straght up" tuner 5 or 6 years ago and I love it.

I tune the open notes to "dead center". Then I press both the A and B pedals and see how far the needle drops on the E string. That becomes the reference point for tuning the pedals. When I do this, the F#'s sound great in both the pedals up and pedals down positions. This worked well on my Emmons P/P and also on my Mullen.

Everybody's ears are different and there will never be a "correct" way to tune.

posted 09 February 2000 08:01 PM         

I remember that little card the Buddy had on the floor by his steel.

posted 09 February 2000 08:46 PM         

I am constantly amazed at people who consider notes on pitch to be "out of tune," and notes as far as - 6 or 7 cents "in tune." If ignorance truly is bliss, you must be one unabashedly pleasant fellow to be around.

Regards,
Mikey

posted 10 February 2000 05:21 AM         

With all due respect to you (I sincerely mean it), then Buddy Emmons and Weldon Myrick must be out of tune, because they have been tuning straight 440 for several years now after tuning "just intonation" most of their playing lives.

This also applies to Bill Stafford. And I have never heard him play anything that sounded out of tune to my ears!

God bless all of you,

posted 12 February 2000 11:46 PM         

Bob

[This message was edited by Bob Hoffnar on 12 February 2000 at 11:48 PM.]

posted 13 February 2000 07:54 AM         

I believe I may know why our beloved instrument sounds so dang bad when played by itself, tuned to straight up 440 (reference).

As many of you know, what allows our ears to distinguish that it is a piano playing a middle C vs a clarinet vs a chello, etc, etc. is that particular instrument's overtones (harmonics) and how much of each is transmitted to our ears/brain.

Apparently for some reason, the steel guitar (particularly the PSG) has a most unusually high amount of overtones. Just how many and which odd/even harmonics it generates would have to be determined by sophisticated test equipment.

But I really believe it is here, that has caused much of the problem concerning this subject thread. It just does not seem to me that a piano sounds that bad when played alone and tuned to ET (equal temperament or close to it). And yet our instrument does.

Also, for some reason, when other instruments are playing along, that same PSG does not sound nearly that bad when tuned ET.

Probably only Ed Packard would be able to explain this.

Remember to thank HIM on this, HIS day,

posted 13 February 2000 10:03 AM         

The tuner is a crutch, ..the tuning fork is a crutch, but because our ears are usually crippled one way or another, most of us need the crutches to stand up(set the first string to a particular pitch), and the rest of us need the crutches walk (tune the rest of the strings).

Some are blessed/cursed with "perfect pitch", some with "relative pitch", and then there are the rest of us.

Relative pitch seems to be "tautalogical?", ..trained in. If you have been brought up hearing things in a particular fashion (words, music, belief systems, et al)then that is what sounds "right" to you. Tuning a non pedal guitar by ear and by itself caused the player to compensate the 3rds a bit etc. so that that chord sounded satisfying by itself. Early lap tops were usually played "mellow", fewer upPer order harmonics, so the compensation was not so great.

Then the steel got "twangy", and there were more upper harmonics beating against each other (As C.D. has said), so compensating (tweaking) became more necessary to sound in with yourself. Up till now, ..no pedals, and the background was Stand up bass and rythm guitar, ..the steel was the lead instrument, ..did not really have the "everybody else is 440" problem in extreme. If the tune was in C, then tune to sound good in C etc. The rythm player usually did the same thing. If I tuned my lap steel to A6 and tried to play along with someone recorded in C6 tuning it hurt a bit.

Then came the PSG. Pushing pedals changed chords. What was a root in E became a 5th in
A, that was not so bad, ..but either the E strings on the E neck or the E strings on the C neck would not match the E tuning fork
if each neck was tuned to the root note for the neck ala "straight up" for that root.

If one "tweak tunes" to make the 3rds of the chord sound "good" what if that string becomes the root of a different chord, or the 5th of a different chord, or the b7 of a different chord when the pedals/levers are activated?

The more upper harmonics in the tone, the more tweaking seems necessary. Roots and 5ths are pretty much ok straight up anyway.

The 1st, 2nd, 4th, 8th,and other binary harmonics of the vibrating string are all root notes, and vibrate at exact(almost exactly)binary multiples of the 1st harmonic, that being the root for that scale.
This agrees with the calculated frequencies and fret placement using the 12th root of 2 method.

The 3rd, 6th, 12th harmonics etc. are the 5th interval notes for the scale of which the 1st, 2nd, 4th, etc. harmonics are root notes. The 5th interval is not as loud as the root in the vibrating string, but its frequencies are very much the same as those calculated using the 12th root of 2 method.

The 5th, 10th, 20th etc. harmonics in the vibrating string are the 3rd(not quite) of the scale for which the 1st, 2nd, 4th etc harmonics are the root note. The frequencies of the 3rd interval are different for the vibrating string and the 12th root of 2 calculation used to "equally" (wrong word)divide the scale into 12 halftones; Which do we tune to satisfy, the actual frequencies in the string, or the "equalized" 12 halftones? A possible answer is that as long as the Steel's strings are the only source of mid to high range, and or "lingering" sound, tune for the strings and forget "straight up for all strings"; but when there are other sources of lingering/mid to high range sound, then tune to blend with them. Most fretted (the steel is not really a fretted instrument as the frets do not physically determine the pitches) instruments, and keyboards are pretty much 12th root of 2 tuned with the ref usually being A=440 or thereabouts.

As instruments get more sophisticated, it is conceivable that one might pick the root note of the scale as reference, and tune the rest to the notes ratios of the vibrating string as opposed to the ratios of the 12th root of 2. Fretted instruments would be compensated via electronic pitch shift in real time.

If you really want to hear the beats in the upper harmonics, attach an overdrive to the instrument. One string at a time gives the "odd" harmonics (square wave) for the root frequency (sine wave). You can get away with playing the 1 and 5 intervals(strings) together, but do not try 1 & 3 intervals unless you like real ACID stuff.

Aren't you glad you asked? Pedantic again.

[This message was edited by ed packard on 13 February 2000 at 11:51 AM.]

posted 13 February 2000 11:01 AM         

"Absolutely nothing".

posted 13 February 2000 11:48 AM         

quote:

---

Early lap tops were usually played "mellow", fewer uper order harmonics, so the compensation was not so great.

---

posted 13 February 2000 02:40 PM         

I don't recall writing; "notes as far (off) as 6 or 7 cents".

BTW...according to your post reply, there are some very well paid "concert piano tuners" who are ignorant!

posted 21 January 2001 09:59 PM         

Also I think people should stop using the numbers like 439.5, 438, 440, etc. because this really only refers to what "A" we are choosing as a tuning standard when we tune our tonic "E". Really the E isnt at 440 and our G# isn't at 438. We should refer to how many CENTS sharp or flat of "equal tempered" we are. On our tuners we can use the "440" or Zero mark as a reference point from which we tune sharp or flat. The units we are really dealing with are cents. There are 100 cents in an equal tempered half-step. That's our grid. This goes on and on and we need to all accept that in western music where we change chords and modulate and play with fixed and fretted instruments, we need to comprimise. Unless we are playing modal music like Indian music and the tonic is fixed and we only play intervals or maybe two chords at the most, we cant be in tune all the time. Thanks to vibrato we can smear it a little bit make it work.

posted 22 January 2001 12:19 AM         

I've been tuning to 440 for a number of years. I started using that method when I found I was always flat with the fixed notes on the keyboards. When I got a '66 PP, (the one that you have, John Steele,) I temper tuned it. I played it that way for quite a while, but was always avoiding certain positions and pedal combinations. I got to where I'd had enough. I re-tuned it to 440. Viola! Instantly in tune with the band. Since 1983, I have only gone about 6 months without tuning to 440.

Steve; Hate to say it, but See... told ya.

posted 22 January 2001 03:38 AM         

Tommy D

posted 22 January 2001 03:42 AM         

NOTE WE ARE TUNING FROM PARTIALS OF THE NOTE
NEVER THE FUNDAMENTAL FREQUENCY.
THESE PARTIALS (OVERTONES) ARE ALWAYS
FROM THE 4 FRET TO THE 7th FRET
Tune 4th string (E) to a tuner (A440)
Tune 8th string (E) 1 beat per second flat.
Tune 5th string (B) 1 beat per second flat of 4th string (E)
Tune 10th string (B) 1 beat per 2 seconds flat of 8th string (B)
Check to make sure the 10th string is beating 1 beat per second flat of 5th string also
Tune 1st string (F#) 1 beat per second sharp of the 5th string (B)
Tune 7th string (F#) 1 beat per 2 seconds sharp of the 5th string (B)
Tune your 4th string and 3rd pedal (F#) exactly the same way
Check 1st and seventh string to make sure the 7th string is 1 beat per second flat of the 1st string .
Tune the C# on the first pedal (6th string) to beat slightly faster when picking the 1st string as the 7th string. Repeat for C# on the 3rd pedal.
Tune the C# on the 10th string to beat 1 beat per second flat of the other C#.
Please Note when this 10th string (C#) note is perfectly in tune,
the 1st string should be beating exactly twice as fast as the 7th string.
Tune your 3rd string (G#) to be 1 beat per second flat of the 5th string (C#) of the 5th string
Tune your 6th string (G#) from your 10th string (C#) to be about 1/2 the speed of the beats the other G# (3rd string) to C# (5th string)
Set these all exactly the same…. Remember your lower octave of any note will always beat no more than 1 beat per second flat of the upper octave of the same note.
Tune the second pedal (A) on the 3rd string to be 1 beat per second sharp of the 4th string
Tune the second pedal (A) on the 6th string to be 1 beat per 2 seconds sharp of the 8th string.Check to make sure the 6th string (A) is no more than 1 beat per second flat of the 3rd string octave (A)
Tune your 2nd string (D) knee lever change to be sharp of your third string (A) 2nd pedal by 1 beat per second.
Tune your 9th string (D) to be 1 beat per second sharp of the 6th string (A) and no more than 1 beat per second flat of the 2nd string (D)
Now things are going to get tricky…..
Tune your 4th string knee lever (F) to beat exactly 7 beats per second flat of the 3rd string (A)…. Check you second hand on your watch and say "From Chicago to New York" or "The Beverly Hillbillies"…. That's the one I use…. Remember we are using a harmonic that is barely audible to tune this…. turn your amp up loud and use as much treble as you can. Listen carefully by tuning this harmonic up to pitch then flattening to hear these beats. The fundamental of the note will change very little. The partials you are tuning should be around the 4th fret of the lower pitched note and on the 5th fret of the higher
Pitched fret. Try to get "bell tones" there if you can.
Tune your 8th string knee lever change (F) from your 6th string exactly the same way but exactly half the speed of the octave you just tuned. This is about 3 and 1/2 beats per second.
Check your 4th and 8th string (F) and make sure the 8th string (F) beats no more than 1 beat per second flat of the 4th string.
Tune your 4th string knee lever change (Eb) exactly 8 beats per second sharp of the 5th string (B)
Tune your 8th string knee lever change (Eb) exactly 4 beats per second sharp of the 10th string…. Check to make sure your octaves beat no more than 1 beat per second.
If this doesn't work for you (too much beating) then try the whole thing over with changing 1 second to 2 seconds and 2 seconds to 4 seconds…. That's even tighter tuning… the beating of the thirds should never be changed though.
The theory……..
All fourth intervals….. (E to A)…. The A should be sharp
All fifth intervals……(E to B) the B should be flat.
If you really want to get into this, make your intervals beat slower on the lower strings
And faster on the higher strings.
This is how we "stretch" a piano to make the piano in tune for any chord.
Only much easier…. Good Luck!