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Sweeter Than Equal Temperament (E9) (Page 2)
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The Steel Guitar Forum
Pedal Steel Archive
Sweeter Than Equal Temperament (E9) (Page 2)
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| This topic is 2 pages long: 1 2 This topic was originally posted in this forum: Pedal Steel |
| Author | Topic: Sweeter Than Equal Temperament (E9) |
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Bobby Lee Sysop Posts: 14849 |
posted 22 April 2001 10:19 AM
I tune my D6th neck to equal temperament. All of the strings and changes are tuned to the '0' mark on the tuner. It doesn't sound to great when I play by myself, but it sounds fine with the band. ------------------ |
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Travis Bolding Member Posts: 45 |
posted 23 April 2001 11:51 AM
Bobbie Lee- I've always found it wierd that the E9 tuning has to be "tempered" but the C6 can be tuned at "0" on every string and pedal and sound OK. Your E9 chart is almost exactly what I have tuned to for years and I have never been accused of being out of tune. My parameters were a little narrower than yours and not quite as forgiving when a string "drifted". Thanks for sharing it. ~~ Travis |
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Jeff A. Smith Member Posts: 807 |
posted 23 April 2001 07:28 PM
It's helpful to know that for some situations tuning everything to zero on the tuner (I guess this is E.T.) is still considered okay. Because I have so much experience with E.T. from guitars and pianos, it usually sounds pretty good to me. And up until a few days ago I was too lazy to try something else. Finally I got sick of the way the AB major chord sounded hiher on the neck, so I tried Reece's chart and then Jeff Newman's. All of the basic chords sounded beautiful, but the F lever diminished is pretty bad. If I slide the bar considerably sharp, that seems to help. Some of the other chords with higher ratios seemed questionable too. It sounds so bright and pure on most of the stuff, I'm going to stick with it for awhile. If this tuning of b0b's is a compromise between E.T. and what I'm using, it may work for me in some situations. I do love those jazz chords. |
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Jeff A. Smith Member Posts: 807 |
posted 24 April 2001 07:13 AM
Slight correction- In my experience with the Newman chart F lever diminished, it's actually a partial forward slant that seems to correct the best, not just moving the whole bar a little sharp. I haven't figured out the math to know whether this makes sense or not, it's just what sounds good to me. |
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Bobby Lee Sysop Posts: 14849 |
posted 24 April 2001 09:16 AM
Tune the F lever sharper. It's a fact that you have to "aim high" with the A+F pedal position. All of the notes in that position are tuned flat. If you have the bar directly over the fret, the chord will be flat. The open C# major chord with the A+F pedals is flat of the piano's C# chord. There is no true diminished 7th chord in JI. Diminished and augmented chords rely on 12-tone equal temperament to do their magic. We can play diminished triads, though, and sound a bit sweeter than ET. Things don't really break down until you add the bb7 tone. |
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Jeff A. Smith Member Posts: 807 |
posted 24 April 2001 01:44 PM
bOb, I'll try that. Thanks. Say- along these same lines, another question occurred to me: I've been involved with tuning pianos for a little over twenty years, and there's an interesting phenomena that a tuner deals with that most people aren't aware of. Often someone has the idea that all they need to do is go buy an electronic tuner and tune every note straight to zero and the piano will sound great. Why not, since the tuner is equal temperament, right? The problem is a phenomena known as "inharmonicity". Since overtones are created by the string breaking up into segments and producing pitches other than the fundamental (entire string length) frequency, these overtones also play a part in the sound of the string. "Inharmonicity" refers to the tendency of the stiffness of the string to sharpen the pitch of the overtones, the higher overtones (shorter string length) being more sharp than the lower ones. Because with a piano one plays chords all over the keyboard, and many of the overtones are very audible, the tuner has to tune in such a way as to find a happy medium between various note relationships. The notes are tuned progressively more sharp up the keyboard, and flat as you go down from the center. The octaves are "stretched". Although I realize guitars of all kinds don't deal with the harmonic complexities of a piano, and using an electronic tuner alone seems fine for me on regular guitar and pedal steel, I'm curious as to whether anyone has heard of anyone taking inharmonicity into account when devising a tuning method for steel. Off the top of my head, it seems like this would have to involve some hands on method using harmonics. |
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Marco Schouten Member Posts: 920 |
posted 25 April 2001 12:42 PM
Hi B0b, I tried your tuning today and it really sounds good. Except when pedals A and B are pressed together, so I tuned the A pedal at -10. I will try this the next couple of weeks. I tried the Newman chart, which does not sound so good to me (on my guitar). Next thing I tried was straight 440, which was better, but not perfect. I ended up with the Emmons chart which sounds good on my Bud. Although I played only this morning I think that the B0b chart sounds at least as good. Thanx. ------------------ |
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Jeff A. Smith Member Posts: 807 |
posted 25 April 2001 03:37 PM
This is probably inconsequential, but I just discovered on the current "TU-12" thread that Jeff Newman's current chart has modified the E's to be tuned to 442. Above, I was referring to the old chart in the Dewitt Scott book. I've put in a request on the other thread to see if I can find the new chart. |
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Jeff A. Smith Member Posts: 807 |
posted 25 April 2001 04:59 PM
I guess the "new" Newman chart is the same as the old, except that everything is raised by 2.5 hz. Thanks Jack S. |
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Bobby Lee Sysop Posts: 14849 |
posted 26 April 2001 09:55 AM
There was a question earlier about the G notes on my chart. When I developed this tuning method, my second string was tuned to D. I rarely used the D# and G together. The other day I suddenly realized that when I raise my high F# to G, it's grossly out of tune with the second string D#. oops. The G note needs to be tuned lower than the D#, because it's a major third. I'm going to fix this by adding a compensator that raises the D# to +15 cents on the G lever. An alternative would be to retune the G to -10 cents, but I think that would sound sort of funky in the A7th position (pedals A+B+G). ------------------ |
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