440 or 442

[CrowBear Schmitt]

May i ask you all which do you use as your tuning ref
440 or 442 ?
For those who tune to 442, could i ask why you use it ?

Thank you

[Robert Gifford]

In the USA the standard has been A=440Hz, however I know from my orchestra days it depends on the orchestra and some countries have other standards. France's standard was A=435 for the longest time and Germany if I recall correctly is A=442Hz Standard, same goes for some other European countries. It can be crazy sometimes.

I've heard some orchestras in the US have been tuning to other frequencies (some as high as A=445Hz).

I know some consider the higher tunings to be "sweeter" to the ear and the lower ones "darker." Where A=440 is flat and dull. Again everything is subjective.

[Tracy Sheehan]

IMHO the important thing is all the instruments being in tune together. As i have posted before years ago when most clubs furnished a piano (not a key board) some of them were tuned so low or high above standard (440 accepted concert pitch) for instance we could be in A and the piano player would have to play in B flat or B so as to be in tune with the band or maybe A flat. Depending on how far out of tune the piano was.
Thank God they were piano players back then and before electronic tuners. Even the fiddle players could play in any key. Now i know many are not going to believe this but you had to have an ear for music back in those wonderful days. Tracy

[b0b]

My marimba is tuned to A=442 Hz, but it doesn't sound bad when I play it with a band tuned to A=440 Hz. I don't think it's a very big difference.

I center my steel guitar tuning on A=440 Hz.

[Gary Preston]

Crowbear . I tune my Sho~Buds at 440( E's ) with the ''A&B '' pedals down . But i must add that the ''buds '' don't have very much cabinet drop at all . The rest is at '' no beats '' to what sounds good to my ears ! My guitars aren't in tune at straight up ''440 '' . Some players are happy with straight up tuning but it wont work for me ! My Emmons LeGrande lll is a different story with the ''Counterforce ''as you know .

[Tony Dingus]

I tune my E's to 442 then tune the rest by ear to the E's. Were I tune the 3rds flat, tuning to 442 keeps everything closer to 440, some a little sharp and some a little flat. Works for me.

Tony

[Paul E. Brennan]

I tune the 4th string E to 440 with A & B pedals down. When the pedals are released the meter reads about 441.5. The other strings I toon by ear. I make sure the 3rds are slightly on the sharp side of beatless. I know this can be difficult to hear properly at a noisy gig. However, you don't need to tune a G# with an E with a crowd watching. (You can do this in comfort at home). With pedals down you're tuning an A with an E and that's much easier. I get the F#s beatless with the Bs and then flatten them slightly to get a more acceptable harmony with the C#s.
That's the way I do it and I'm stickin' to it. Seriously though, I'm playing for over 20 years now and I consider I'm still learning about tuning and intonation. If I come across a better method of tuning then I'll gladly adopt it.

[Rick Winfield]

I approximate the Newman chart, then tweak it by ear, until it blends with itself and others.Usually this leaves the I & V sharp and the III a little flat
Rick

[CrowBear Schmitt]

Thanx for your replies & participation guys
Tony D's reply seems the most pertinent so far

[basilh]

442 until 8 years ago, because the RTE Concert orchestra tuned to that, and also If I used that string section on any of my productions in Ireland, the Romanian and other Slavic players didn't like 440.
Most European string section players hear 442 as acceptable and 440 as almost unplayable especially in the "Flat Keys" i.e. F-Bb-Eb etc.

Since retiring from commercial production I've reverted to A=440 straight up, on all my stell guitars with the exception of the ones using E9th. For them I use the pre-sets in the Peterson StroboFLIP VS-F and also the VS-II.

[Dave Mudgett]

On E9, I generally tune my Es a bit sharp of 440 and tune the rest by ear. The goal is 442 (+8 cents) but I don't pedantically insist that it be that exactly. If I check the tuner and it's, let's say, +6 or +9 cents and everything is in tune, I don't always retune the whole guitar for a couple of cents in the nominal baseline.

I do it this way because it sounds a bit better to me that way in most situations. I imagine there's a bit of cabinet drop involved in this, and I guess I also think that open strings sound a bit closer that way - that A+F combination isn't so flat. It's a compromise.

Of course, sometimes I'll play with someone who's tuned noticeably sharp or flat of 440 - i.e., 'out of tune'. In this case, I'll move towards their pitch center by ear.

[Franklin]

To add to Tony's post.

Tuning to 442 also puts the instrument centered with the piano's octave above the A440 note.......My reason for choosing that register of the piano has nothing to do with cabinet drop compensation.

Paul

[Pete Burak]

I tune my E's to 440, pedals up.

Based on PF's 442 comment I can't wait to get my tuner to an electric piano and check the A's up and down the keyboard. I guess tuning to the piano players right-hand range makes sence.

I have one of my Steels tuned to 440 straight-up ET across the board.
Anyplace there was a pedals up/down difference, I split the difference.

There are plenty of things that sound great to me with the Steel tuned straight-up.
It's really easy/fast to tune everything to 440.
There is also a certain peace of mind, like... how could I possibly be out of tune... I know for a fact every open/pedal/lever note is straight-up.

Here's one I recorded fully JI. It sounds very in tune to me.
Choose "Wheels On My Heart" from this playlist:
http://www.myspace.com/jonahhoward

[Franklin]

Pete,

In the studios here, the acoustic piano is tuned and adjusted by ear above the middle 440 A.........And how much varies depending on who tunes it. The next octave up is usually between 441 and 442.......On the piano starting at the low keys the next octave goes sharp from the last octave..That is what defines ET .....The steel blends with the track instruments that are in this upper range..........All string instruments that tune to ET have an adjustable bridge to help ET instruments gradually sharpen at the correct intervals per string

.......Paul

[Clete Ritta]

Great thread!
I have an acoustic piano which I have tuned by a reputable tuner every year. I sit and listen as he tunes, and I am fascinated by how stretch tuning works!
I can't explain it, but I sure can hear it!

442 tuning makes sense to me now, thanks Paul. Playing in the upper register at 442 is in tune with that stretched tuned octave ET tuning on the piano.

I tune 440 ET and flatten the thirds just a few cents. Its easy to check quickly on a Boss TU2.

Clete

[Earnest Bovine]

fascinated by how stretch tuning works!
I can't explain it, but I sure can hear it!

Stretch tuning is a pretty simple concept.
Your piano's A string is tuned to 440 Hz. You might think that its second harmonic is 880 Hz. But in fact it is higher; say 882. This difference is called inharmonicity, and it is a property of all strings. So piano tuners will tune the higher A to 882 (stretch tuning) and it will sound in tune with the (harmonic of the) A=440.

You really don't have to worry too much about it because when you tune by ear, you are listening to all the harmonics.
An electronic tuner may be identifying different harmonics and may have trouble deciding which one to show. Depending on the software, a needle type tuner may be showing the fundamental, or it may be showing an average of the lower harmonics.
A strobe tuner shows the first few harmonics, so if you see them moving at different rates, then you are observing inharmonicity.

[John Sluszny]

In E9th,442.5 for the "E"s.Like this:
http://www.jeffran.com/tuning.php
Works great with my Carter S 12 Universal.

[Dale Rottacker]

I tune the E's to 442, and then make everything else sound in tune to that

[Frank Parish]

I clicked 440 as meaning in A 440 with my pedals down. The E's will be a tad sharp and I tune everything to them from there. The high F#, and B's will sharp of 440/ The G#'s, C#'s, D#'s will be about 436.5. The D will be about 439, the F's will be 432. I'm trying to get the waves out and it always sounds good to me. The back neck is C's, G,F tuned to 440 open. The A's and E's are 436. I tune the D to my G note so it winds up a little sharp but seems to sound good. The erest of the band always tunes to 440 so I'm trying to sound in tune with them and if I tune it to 442, I don't see how it could be in tune.

[Alan Brookes]

I tune to a keyboard, and the keyboards I have all use 440.

[Chris Schlotzhauer]

I tune my E's with A&B pedals down, so I guess that's 442. Then I chime out from there.
This leaves your A's (3rd and 6th) at 440 with pedals down. This, to me sounds more in tune with guitars and pianos

[Ben Jones]

oops wrong thread

[CrowBear Schmitt]

Thanx again for your contributions guys
keep'em comin' !

i asked Jean Yves Lozach about his tuning ref & he said 442 w: A&B down
he then releases them & tunes the rest by harmonics
on a gig : via the programmed settings in his tuner using 442 as the basic ref
he first got into 442 when doing studio work

[Robert Parent]

For years I tried all the different tuning suggestions only to be disappointed. About 6-8 years ago I started tuning everything 'straight up' and after a short adjustment time I couldn't be happier. Why I wasted all those years playing 'out of tune' with the rest of the world is beyond me. YMMV.

Robert

[Tony Prior]

neither, I tune 441 !