Studio recording - tuning help

Jeff Spencer · From: Queensland, Australia

Thank you Ricky, thanks Mark V and thanks Greg. What a immense knowledge base we have here and thanks for the willingness to share! I'm off now to sit with Bob's tone tracks! Thanks Bob Hoffnar!! Part of the 'steel guitar' journey...love it!!

Leo Melanson · From: Massachusetts, USA

Great topic and responses. Recording steel guitar in a super sensitive studio environment will expose minor flaws in tuning, intonation, and (other) out-of-tune instruments that you may not notice on a loud stage. A few small recordings I have done have opened my ears to how much harder I have to work to get professional results. Thanks for posting.
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Ricky Davis · From: Bertram, Texas USA

You're welcome Jeff; and good luck continuing on..I can say working with fixed tone is the ONLY way to play in tune with EVERYTHING. OK speaking of that...many don't know that I actually do a lot of Movie soundtrack work; I'm on many many Richard Linklater movies and etc.....but main thing is Graham Reynolds uses me so much and it is mainly with: piano; upright bass; drums; guitar; two or 3 horn section; 4 to 5 string section...well heck here is that main lineup doing a show; and you can easily count 14 or so members up there with me up front...and there is NO WAY I could play in tune with all this if I tuned my instrument "certain way"..ha...only way I can play in tune is PRACTICE INTONATION...just like me and bob are talking about. Ok here I am with a 14 piece band>
https://youtu.be/SRsGOpuZfCk
Ricky
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Stephen Williams · From: from Wales now in Berkeley,Ca, USA

There are lots of jamtracks on You tube. Great for practising chords. Lots of slow ballads with 3 chords

Paul Brainard · From: Portland OR

Yes as Ricky says, you have to practice intonation just like anything else. I've been trying to remind myself to tune by ear, it's really important. Check yourself on a tuner, get a starting point - or even better, use a tuning fork or a reference tone - and tune the rest of the guitar, open strings and pulls, by ear! Because ultimately you have to intonate while you play by ear, and how can you do that if you can't even tune the thing by ear to start with? We are getting so reliant on digital tuners that many of us are losing the ability to tune our instruments at all without them. Think of your ear as a muscle that you have to keep in shape - and tuning is like your warm-up & stretches, maybe the most important part of your workout. . . and, it allows you to find the temperament that works best for you and your instrument (both of which vary individually), rather than just dialing it in according to an LED and a chart then fighting with it the whole time.

Of course on the bandstand you pretty much have to have a tuner to get by during the gig. But I remember something that made a big impression on me: NRPS were coming to town, and I went down to the venue early (I worked there from time to time) and Buddy Cage was on the stage tuning his D-12 after sound check - it was all quiet, everyone was cleared off the stage, and he was very methodically going through and checking all the various intervals and pulls against each other by ear, must have been at it for a good half hour. I imagine he did (does) that every night too. Kind of a lightbulb moment for me.

Jim Palenscar · From: Oceanside, Calif, USA

It is my opinion that everyone tunes a bit differently. For a long, long time I tuned my 6th string with AB pedals down to A 440 then tuned the E's to that beat free and from then on that was my reference to get the entire guitar in tune with itself pretty much beat-free. The problem was that method caused the F notes to be 25 cents flat when tuned to the C#'s beat free and it was pretty much impossible to play in tune with a band utilizing that method using the A/F combination. Rick Schmidt replied when I was grousing about how outta tune I sounded when recording with a band that he tuned straight up and maintained that for every note I asked about- even the F (E-F). As a challenge to that I asked him if he'd mind recording me the following week at a local gig and I would use his method which I did and he did and it sounded just fine when he recorded it(finally Smile

). The guitar sounded bad to my ears when played alone but in the context of the band it was fine. I've kind of rationalized this by thinking that no 2 tuners are exactly alike and with the variations of the instruments in the band the last place I want to be is on the fringe- I'd rather sit in between and it has worked for me at straight up (pretty much). I've got my Peterson programmed with the settings of some amazing players such as JayDee Maness, Frank Carter, Greg Leisz, Dean Parks, and Doug Livingston- and they are all great players and they all tune a bit differently and they all sound really good.

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

well to answer the first question, I tune 440 straight up, then make slight adjustments by ear.

I actually don't pay attention to exactly where I am fret wise, as stated above, the EARS make that determination.

If a track is out of tune because of an instrument or two that will be easy to hear before we even play one note.

It's like Horseshoes, close counts !

use you ears , no engineer or producer known to mankind is going to change a track because the Bass or something else is a tad + or - and doesn't match our Steel guitars.

How we may track at home in our own worlds has NOTHING to do with what we do on a session. Two totally and separate worlds. Tune the Steel, use your ears , adjust a tad if you need to. Don't get so wrapped up in all of those various perfect tuning methods, find what works best for you and your Instrument.

I still just use a $5 pawn shop tuner or a simple Snark. Point me to those two E strings ( at 440) and off we go !

For years I reference tuned the two E's at 442 and that works just fine as well, but it still gets back to EARS and intonation while we play.

Don't ask me why I'm back at 440 , I have no answer.
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Stuart Legg · Posted 7 Aug 2017 8:11 am

If you are overdubbing, turn your tuner on and hold it up to the song, set the tuner to what it shows and tune up as usual to that reference point.
Very seldom is the over all song at 440 when you get around to adding your part.
It depends on the quality of the studio but most times you will need to tune a little sharp.
Then again I've never been to a recording session in a high end first class pro recording studio. So I'm speaking from the poor folks gallery.

John Goux · From: California, USA

I just had this happen. Maybe some of you have had similar experiences.

I was overdubbing steel on a pop tune, with a freshly tuned piano, well tuned guitars(played by me), and a chord progression sporting a mix of minor and major chords. The track was in tune.

I was not comfortable with my pitch on the pedal steel. I was analyzing every note I played for pitch accuracy. Luckily, the producer wanted an active hand in the steel arrangement, so repeated takes gave me time to adjust my bar. But the "in tune" places were not exactly where I expected them to be.

There is no reason for "recording pitch" to be different than "live pitch". The most recorded players, like Paul Franklin, Greg Leisz, Doug Livingston, their pitch is dead on.

I have been thinking about this, and reading threads here about intonation.

Here are my current ideas regarding intonation while recording.

1. Practicing with a low tone is better than nothing, but it is not a real world workout.

Example:
I practice with the Hoffnar tones, do the PF bar exercises, and my pitch is quite good. Playing harmonized scales with the low tones, I'm pretty decent.

This is not the same as playing with a band, on a song.

2. Playing pedal steel with a well tuned Equal Temperment track(everyone straight up on your tuner) especially with piano, is a something we need to prepare for and adjust to.

3. Why not tune the pedal steel to ET and make a few adjustments for your thirds?
The subject of many discussions. (Buddy did this for the last decade)
Answers:
A. Cabinet drop wipes out the perfect ET angle. If you have a guitar with negligible drop, this can work. As long as you don't miss on the sharp side.
B. Pedals steel players traditionally want to hear beat-less thirds(lower than ET) in their chords. That creates pitch rubs with well tuned ET bands.

4. Most of my pedal steel gigs and jams have been with acoustic guitar/bass combos. Rarely have I played pedal steel with a piano.

Practicing with a piano needs to become part my routine.

5. It has been pointed out that my tuning system, from the Buddy Emmons site, is overall low. Newman's later system is a higher-center variation of that. I intend to audition some other tuning systems, as well as move the Emmons up 5 or 10 cents. Meantone may not be for everyone or every guitar, but I will try it out.

Pick a tuning system: ET, JI(what people think of as tempered), or meantone.
It probably doesn't matter which tuning system you pick, as long as you practice your pitch with it.
Practice with tracks that have piano on them. The low tones will only get you part way there.
Use your ears and hands in the practice room.
This way you won't get surprised on a recording session.

One more comment about recording pedal steel, and intonation.
Any recording made before 1973(and many after)was done without the use of electronic tuners. The guitarists used a tuning fork, or took their E off the piano, and tuned their guitars to taste.
The pedal steel player tuned by ear, and played to a landscape of pitch that had a much wider margin of error than we have today.

Buddy E and Weldon Myrick would sound perfectly in tune in our modern world. But they would have arrived by different methods than they used back in the day. They were evolving their tuning methods as time went on. That is a good model for us.

Peace and good pitch, John

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