Well, if you're used to hearing the thirds the way a piano or guitar plays them, you'll be fine.


Q2

If these "compensators" flatten notes you are playing against people that are playing them in tune, a person could say they are sharp.

The last thing you want to do is reach for your tuning peg. It looks like an admission of guilt.

I started out using Jeff Newman's tunings, sounds great by myself and on most songs we play. But I'd sure pick out the variances with the guitars that are tuned 440. They didn't hear it, but I sure did. I could compensate some with the bar.

Just to see, I went to 440 and I can sure hear the difference when practicing, but it fits better with the band. But I'm not sure if I like the sound? Just me, I'm a tin horn player. So to follow some old advance I once got...

I'm just gonna tune her up pretty close, and play the danged thing.

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Daryl Stogner
My Website: www.davestogner.com/daryl/main.htm

Maybe if somebody created a magical method of tuning keyboards, and guitars thirds. sixths, etc all flat to match you'd have something that was 'pleasing to your ears'.

As far as the Pedal Steel Guitar being able to play "perfectly" in Just Intonation, don't kid yourself. You at best only have bits and pieces of "perfection" strung together with vibrato, and passing dissonance, and the underlying premise that "single notes" played out of the context, "don't matter anyway".

All in all though, it's as close as anybody's come without computerized interference. I'll grant it that.

In the Baroque Period, as I'm sure Mr Doggett can attest it was done on certain songs, and arrangments tuning each instrument specifically for the song, key, or passage.

The problems inherent in it were "solved" by "Equal Tempermant" to the degree it was possible. I'm sure there was carnage and bloody resistance.

The problems we have with other instruments like piano and guitar being "severly sharp" to this detuning method can only be solved with intimidation, obfuscation or violence. None of which seem to work well on a long term basis.

Sometimes only a couple nights or weeks is enough though, or a few hours in a studio session.

Here's yet another plea for getting bashed by any swamper with a computer:

Play your JI AB pedal, Play your JI E lower, Play your JI AF combo Play the JIMaj7 starting on the 9th string. Play your chord substitutions like two frets down, three frets up. Then do some Diminished triads, augmented chords. Move them around. Then play some scales starting on different string, or he linear runs tht are common. Think what you're playing is all JI?

You may indeed be very close on some things. I'm sure there are involved systems to get all of the "Big Three" chords that way but you're going to have "holes" bigger than 20 cents all the time. If nothing else with single note stuff.

Then try to find a gig where the guitar is tuned that way. You won't.

Nor a piano of any kind unless they are tuned to "one key".

If that new "computer beatless" piano system works at all, you can bet it "turns off" on single notes, and has to be fed the chordal information when playing out of the harmonized scale. Nice try though, I'm certainly not a luddite.

As Mr Gregory stated, NO other serious instrumental group or community has these discussions.

It's interesting that it's happened here to this degree.

It's gotten to the point where people are regularly calling it something that it isn't. Some of them pretty famous.

But then that's what happens when nobody speaks up.

God help those that do unless they're Buddy Emmons.

Now you've got beginners finding this place and are not able to tune their instruments with the "information" they find here. The find it "confusing".

Check the "Setup for dummies" thread.

I guess it's not that important though.

We got ours..

And people wonder why it's a "dying instrument...

EJL,

Another admission:

I DO adjust myself "out of tune" when I'm at home sometimes to "please my ear" or more than likely, to accommodate my failing change stops on my wore out PIII and the worsening "cabinet drop". I honestly tune my thirds "by ear" as close as my fifths. My new one will be here in a couple weeks. I'm ready for it.

I don't call it something that it's not however. Then when I go out to "play with others" I do them the courtesy of tuning "in tune" with them, and work my changer before the first set to get it "set in". It makes it easier to play in tune with them.

It's only as hard to defend and define as I want it to be though, so not to worry for those wanting somebody to belittle.

I'll still tune up, and play with other people. God willing.

[This message was edited by Eric West on 16 January 2005 at 02:42 PM.]

And I suppose that before too long somebody's going to remind us that the ONLY note that's tuned to "440hz" is the A. Besides the intonation, the "A" was also lower in the "baroque period". Then higher in "Venetian" understandings.

I am going to write Seiko, Korg, and Conn emails, and find out how far out of strict mathematical exactitude my lower and upper octaves are. I'll post my replies.

I know my Low A is in Octave 1, and the high A at the 24th fret B Pedal down is in octave 6. I have a hard time telling if there are any 'beats' between the two. It seems to me about a fret off between the octave 1 A and the octave 6 A.

According to tempered piano tuning charts as posted easlier, the psg fits well inbetween octave 1 and octave 6. The only "Tuning" you'll do is between the Low A in octave 1 and the high A in octave 4. To that end, the lower A in octave 1 to be in tune with standard piano tempering would be down about 10 cents. That's still less by 5 that notes in the same octave have to be detuned to "sound nice" to those "J.I.ers". Everything else by "this chart"

is within 10 cents for the length of the whole 5 or 6 octaves on my guitar. You'd have to ask Mr Hughey what happens in Hughey Land.

I know pianos and guitars are not tuned "perfectly", but if you use the same tuning system of Equal Tempermant, you're not going to be 5 cents off in the range you play with them in.

If a person detunes themselves 15 cents within one octave, and doesn't know what will happen within two, let alone 5, or have some way to explain it besides "Mr Thus and Such, tunes this way" or wrote a chart on how to do it, well....

Guitar players:

Do you tune the beats out between your G and your B string? Why not? Do you tune your B string lower, and then get half the beats out between it and your 7th fret E string harmonic? If you tune your G string higher, your G# is going to be too sharp, and because of the most common guitar intonation problem, you're going to be sharp already. That reason alone is why I have a REAL hard time detuning my G#. I've worked with guitar players for 25 years, and besides using spiderweb strings, very few had non sharpened G#s.

I've been searching for a way for JIers to explain this whole thing in the abscence of the most famous,intelligently glib, or devastatingly insulting of them being able to do it.

As close as I can come is using at least a 48 note scale, and If I had time, I'd map out the 4 times more flats and sharps they'd have to use for each key.

At least then they'd have something to hand piano and/or guitar players to explain their "system".

All piano players have to do is hand them a copy of This.

EJL

[This message was edited by Eric West on 16 January 2005 at 05:07 PM.]

quote:

---

If I want to do it fast, I don't count the beats as much and just go for what is in my memory until I can get tuned by a correct tuner. The G#s get a "sparkle" and the F#s match the Bs with the Eb inbetween.

I just tried it while I posted, and I got within 7 cents on the worst of it.

---

Sorry for the delayed response - I was in Arizona listening to some very nicely tuned pedal steels all weekend.

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Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Sierra SD-12 (Ext E9), Williams D-12 Crossover, Sierra S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop 8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster (E13, C6, A6)

[This message was edited by Bobby Lee on 16 January 2005 at 08:08 PM.]

Yes.

BY EAR. THAT'S WHAT YOU ASKED ME.

I TESTED MYSELF, AND TUNED "STRAIGHT UP" USING ONLY AN E NOTE. I DID IT BY EAR.

The Bs were within 2, the low G# believe it or not as dead on, with the high one a little sharp.

On a slam bang night with a full no break set list, from dead cold, I don't ask much more using a tuner.

The F#s tuned to the Bs as a fifth were right on too, and somehow I got the Eb adjusted right too with "third beats" from the high B string.

I use the same process with the pedals. No beats in the fifths, (.75ps) a bunch in the thirds, and none in the octaves. I'll do it too if you ask me and don't shout.

THE ONE I GOT 7 CENTS OUT WAS THE LOW D. I tune it as the root of the low F# as a third", and I just spaced it out.

NOT HERTZ, CENTS.

That's pretty damn close by ear.

If I'd have turned on the old "fuzz tone" and tuned the beats out like y'all claim is the way to be in tune, at least the G#s would be a full FIFTEEN CENTS OFF.

I'm beginning to thing you and Mr Gambrell are just looking for ways to let this tuning thing drive you crazy. I"m going to stay out of the latest Robert Randolph War hoping somebody else can "help him".

My friend Mr Doggett's just along for the ride, and will jump out before youse get there.

Tune the way you want.

Actually if it'll help. I don't care if you call it "in tune" or not.

If it'd make you feel better, I'll say that the way you say you tune is in tu.... intun... i..... in t.....

Well anyway, It's fine with me.

I've done my best.

Sorry about the shouting. It's contagious.

Oh b0b. What AM I going to do with you?

My steel, and the rest of my guitars, are in tune. They may or may not match tuners--I've sold, or given my tuners away.

I slept really well last night.

Thank God for Martin Luther King.

Thanks to my parents for the gift of music, for not being too critical, and for teaching me the RIGHT way to do things.

A special shout out to the choir at the West Main Street Church of God, where I learned to sing harmony, in tune, at a very young age.

And FINALLY, a special thanks to the ZB fans, without whom THIS would be the longest, most boring thread on the Forum. But don't be discouraged, Mr. Lundgren. It looks like you'll at least be tied within a couple of weeks.

"People who think they know everything sure make the world difficult for those of us who actually do."
Einstein

[This message was edited by Stephen Gambrell on 17 January 2005 at 05:54 AM.]

Good luck with your RR thread though..

At least at your latest edition, you do appear clever, if not amicable.

Don't worry about the tuners.

After all they're just another earthly thing.

Not worth getting all hung up on.

Have a nice MLK Day.

Is that why this thread is up to 134 posts in less than a week?

"At least at your latest edition, you do appear clever, if not amicable."

Appearances can be deceiving. Those who get the last word in, often appear to be the most clever----at least to the faint of heart, or the self-absorbed.

Satisfied?

[This message was edited by Stephen Gambrell on 17 January 2005 at 09:08 AM.]

What I try to do is keep the beats out of these intervals:

E > B
B > F#
C# > F#
C# > G#
D# > G#

About the only audible beats are on the thirds. At home, if I let them, the thirds will bother me. On the bandstand, they seem to blend just fine with the way our two guitarists tune their guitars. I also haven't noticed any clash with any other pickers I've played with.

Back when I was flatting my thirds a bit, I would notice some dissonance when I would play a chord that was voiced the same as the chord a guitar player was playing. For instance, I would hit a D chord at the 5th fret, pedals down, strings 4, 5, and 6 and the guitar player strummed a big open D chord on his guitar. We would both look at each other, convinced the other guy really needed to re-tune his guitar. It happened enough that one evening I had him tune his guitar with my tuner. We also checked the intonation on his guitar, with my tuner, to make sure the bridge was adjusted correctly. Everything checked out just fine. After tuning my guitar he and I started checking chords. It was always the thirds that clashed.

One day Michael Douchette (What ever happened to Mikey?) told me that Buddy Emmons was tuning "straight up" and was happy with it. Michael said he was doing that in the studio and was happy with it. I started tuning that way and the dissonance between my guitar and the guitar players' guitars went away. That was many years ago and I'm still tuning the way I mentioned above.

It works for my 51 year old ears!

Check your 4th & 8th string, they should be tuned to "442.5". Chime the 5th and 8th string (one at a time) with the 4th string @ 12 fret and feel the vibs. Tune the 3d & 6th strings with your "E's" until the "vibs" sync. follow this procedure with remaining strings. It's simple to stay in tune once you feel with the vibes!

Happy playing!!!!

Those other instruments are always out of tune anyhow.

Thanks Jeff.

Wherever you are..

By the chart if you play the B string non pedaled (442hz by the chart) you're only 26 cents out between the two. It's only a seventh chord. Then if you play the augmented chord with the F lever/ A/B pedal, your augmented fifth is only augmented 22 cents out. Hell, it's augmented anyway.

I'm thinking I'm going to find a lot more out of tune guitars and electronic keyboards than I thought.

Hmm...

I should have found this chart a long time ago.

EJL

A Leslie, to a lesser degree would produce the same thing if the speed was varied.

Check these out, one is ET, one is JI, let your ears be the judge.

example 1

example 2

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www.tyack.com

[This message was edited by Dan Tyack on 26 January 2005 at 12:49 PM.]

Hook

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HookMoore.com
Allen Moore

Just curious, did your left hand instinctively try to correct the dissonance on track 2 by slightly slanting the bar.

I think maybe the divide in the debate may be that the straight up crowd doesn't fine tune the JI method to taste, and the JI crowd doesn't fine tune ET to taste - and therefore the appreciation for "both" systems doesn't strike us the way it should. Lets face it, it was hard enough figuring out one of the two systems to work with.

The one thing I know for sure is that I could never ever ever (may I repeat?) ever tune using the 4th vs. 5th fret harmonic on the two adjacent strings where that applies in some tuning systems - (I think that method can be considered "JI"-ish).

If you note, the actual 4th fret harmonic is centered about 3/16" back from the fret marker compared to the 5th fret harmonic. This tells me there is something seriously skewed. And then to propagate that skewedness to other strings makes my hair stand on end...Not from the sound (well, maybe..), but moreso from the concept of not having the harmonic match the fret marker...Sort of makes you think that the fret marker is off - but we know that it is not. To be certain, I tried that approach to tuning on my 6 string (to tune the G&B string together)many years ago, and I could never listen to my guitar that way...Plain disgusting it was...So why would I do it that way on my steel?

I think I recall reading a webpage, (possibly by a forumite, perhaps Jeffran College), about 5 years ago that had posted a very interesting mathematical analysis of the fractional node basis of tuning (eg..1/5, 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 string length) vs. the perfect logarithmic scale. This graph showed how they matched at some intervals and gapped at others.

Nonetheless, it provided a lot of insight into the tradeoffs between the two systems. Perhaps someone knows of the site to which I refer and could post it.

[This message was edited by Tom Gorr on 26 January 2005 at 06:03 PM.]

Using the Peterson VSAM E9 tuning preset:

Try as I might, there is NO way I can get an in tune diminished chord with the F lever tuned so flat. The major and minor triads sound great (as long as I don't play over the frets as I would in ET). If I use the F lever for a major triad inversion, it sounds great. If I use it by itself for the diminshed, it sounds like dog meat.

If i tune straight up, the sweetness of the basic triads disappears, but the diminished sounds in tune, and the compromise of being able to play any combination of strings with less beautiful intonation makes it seem a lot more practical for me.

On the C6th, the JI tuning just sounds so off to my ears...it doesn't see possible to me to play jazz or music that modulates (I'm working on a bunch of pop stuff- Bachrach, Pet Sounds, etc.) and/or that has extended chord voicings.

JI-based tuning, to me, sounds great for two notes at a time, sometimes even three. Trouble is, i want to play all the strings in all the keys (maybe not at once, but...)

It seems to be that you either play nicely in tune in a world where you stay in one key, or play "less in tune" by being more in tune (ET) WAIT sorry the nurse coming and they don't let me ty

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http://www.johnmcgann.com
Info for musicians, transcribers, technique tips and fun stuff. Joaquin Murphey transcription book, Rhythm Tuneup DVD and more...

[This message was edited on Thorazine by John McGann on 26 January 2005 at 06:42 PM.]