How do you tune your guitar?

Buck Dilly · Post by **Buck Dilly** » 11 Dec 2003 2:03 pm

After trying all the above methods, I decided to go back to keyboards.

Charlie Moore · Post by **Charlie Moore** » 11 Dec 2003 5:14 pm

If you tune straight up 440 you will be out of tune with the rest of the band especially piano's and reed instrument's, sorry!!!!!!!why do you tune your 6string with out adjusting bridge?CM.......

Ray Montee (RIP) · Post by **Ray Montee (RIP)** » 12 Dec 2003 2:04 am

Me..........I prefer to tune accurately and in tune.

Ron Bryson · Post by **Ron Bryson** » 12 Dec 2003 3:47 am

I'm with Eric West. If you don't like how a Sho-Bud sounds tuned "straight up", just wait a few minutes...

Gordon Titcomb · Post by **Gordon Titcomb** » 12 Dec 2003 5:58 am

My process is quite simple really.......
First I just pick all of the strings to determine which one is MOST out of tune,
then I tune all the rest of them to that one!

------------------
Best regards-Gordon
http://www.gordontitcomb.com

C Dixon · Post by **C Dixon** » 12 Dec 2003 6:18 am

"If you tune straight up 440 you will be out of tune with the rest of the band especially piano's and reed instrument's"

--------------------------------------------------------------

Really?

carl

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 12 Dec 2003 6:33 am

All keyboards are normally tuned straight up in the middle octaves (but stretched for the higher and lower octaves). Reeds, like all horns, are tuned A=440 to a single concert pitch, typically A or Bb, and all the rest of the notes are played by the lips to ear, which means mostly JI. The double reeds (oboe, English horn, bassoon) are a little different in that the pitch can't be varied as much by the lips.[This message was edited by David Doggett on 12 December 2003 at 06:35 AM.]

Charlie Moore · Post by **Charlie Moore** » 12 Dec 2003 7:03 pm

Yeah really !!

Charlie

Graham Griffith · Post by **Graham Griffith** » 13 Dec 2003 2:41 am

"How do you tune your guitar?"

My BMI is keyless and so I use a male Allen key for the strings and a female for the pedals/knee levers.

Graham[This message was edited by Graham Griffith on 13 December 2003 at 02:42 AM.]

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 13 Dec 2003 7:59 am

So then when "we" fret this "changed tuning" say with pedals down, at the 7th fret, how much off the fret are we to place the bar? is this automatic or is there a chart?

EJL

Bill Stafford · Post by **Bill Stafford** » 13 Dec 2003 8:09 am

For all you "universal" E9/B6 players who have to tune per all the various temperment charts, the new EXCEL will allow you to temper both tunings on an individual basis. The lock lever that lowers the Es to Eb on this new instrument model has incorporated individual changer tuning adjustments rods that will allow you to tune your Eb lever for your E9 tuning, and then it will allow you to tune the B6 when you utilize the lock device. Works great, but in my case, I have always tuned straight up to A440 on both tunings and in complete disagreement with Carl Dixon as to being out of tune etc..Merry Christmas to all..(This individual tuning capability is only one result of the five raise and five lower capability of the changer mechanism).

Bill Stafford

Bill Llewellyn · Post by **Bill Llewellyn** » 13 Dec 2003 8:23 am

Am I supposed to tune this thing? Hmmm, maybe that's my problem....

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 13 Dec 2003 8:59 am

"How do you tune your guitar?"

....so it doesn't "clash" with the guitar player!....

www.genejones.com

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 13 Dec 2003 9:16 am

I tune so it does "clash" with the guitar player and convince him that HE is out of tune.

Ray Montee (RIP) · Post by **Ray Montee (RIP)** » 13 Dec 2003 9:29 am

Bill.......you shouldn't have to tune it.
Didn't it come "tuned" from the factory? If not, give em a ring and complain about it.
Don't mention your age however, as they will likely categorize your the nature of your complaint.

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 13 Dec 2003 10:09 am

I dig your position Richard....but I have found that two guitars "out of tune together" sound less bad than one "out" and one "in".

......give me an "E open chord"!.....

www.genejones.com [This message was edited by Gene Jones on 13 December 2003 at 10:19 AM.]

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 13 Dec 2003 12:17 pm

Eric, assuming your question is directed at what I said, if you tune to open E at the nut, then your pedals-down A chord (assuming you have tuned your A and B pedal strings to the E strings) will be flat by the ammount of your cabinet drop, as Ricky pointed out above. That is usually only a few cents. When you play with the bar up the neck, that difference is practically imperceptible visually, and would seem to be well within our motor and visual error in placing the bar directly over the fret (parallax, etc.). I think most players only use the frets as guides to get in the vicinity, and they adjust to suit their ear, and that would automatically take care of that small cabinet drop difference everywhere but at the nut. So I see this cabinet drop problem as forcing one to decide whether they play at the nut more with the pedals up or down (or whether you prefer your error at the nut to be sharp or flat, as Ricky also pointed out). Everywhere else, your ear should take care of it automatically.

This is an empirical question. To test it, slide up or down to a particular fret (not the nut) several times without picking the string or listening to it and check each time with the meter. This will indicate your visual error range. Then do the same thing picking and listening. That will indicate your ear's error range. My bet is that your visual error range is the greatest, and is bigger than the cabinet drop range. And I'll also wager your ear error range is about the same with the pedals up or down, and the cabinet drop difference at the nut is not added on to your normal ear error range. Also, both your eye and ear error range will get worse as you get higher on the neck and the frets are closer together (unless you are John Hughey).

Man this is gettin' pretty nerdy, ain't it?

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 13 Dec 2003 1:01 pm

I know Dave..

Right now I'm not having ANY problem finding reasons not to plug in my guitar after watching that Emmons/Rugg vid I borrowed from a friend....

Today I'll just say that I haven't figured whether I'm using "just intonation" at the 5th fret, or a "tempered" fret position..

DAMN what A video!

Those guys even in their 50s can STILL make it happen!

Also great was the "Summit" Vid with Lloyd, Hal, Jimmy C, and Weldon. That one's a little older but I got a better insight into "the way things came about".

Actually after I plug in in a minute or two I'm gonna spend a day or so over at Ricky's Intro page.

EJL

Frank Harris · Post by **Frank Harris** » 29 Dec 2003 2:46 pm

just play your steel with a cd by george s or joe diffie and you will see why jeff newmans way is the best he knows believe me go to his webb site and get the info on tunning steel this is the last word and truth on subject.

Frank Harris · Post by **Frank Harris** » 29 Dec 2003 2:48 pm

use jeffs tunning and play with a cd by george s and you will see why jeffs way is the way to go

Michael Johnstone · Post by **Michael Johnstone** » 29 Dec 2003 4:55 pm

I've chased my tail around the E9 neck for years trying to get rid of the beats etc only to have them stack up at the F# strings blah,blah,blah. But all that changed last year when I got my U-12 Excel with the anti-detuning gadget.It's essentially a great big compensator that works across the whole keyless tuning block and effectivly zeros out all cabinet drop by sharping the whole neck microscopically by variable amounts according to which
pedal(s) you engage.So all this pre-emtive sharping your E strings and all that is history.I also have seperate compensators on my F# strings so THAT problem is addressed.Then I sat down for 2 days and fine tuned my guitar back and forth,up and down till I was satisfied it was as in tune as it could ever be and wrote down all my offsets and programmed them into my Peterson tuner - then I tested it on gigs and tweaked my offsets some more.Finally now I'm very,very close to beatless JI throughout my strings and changes.Yeah - I still have to play my A+F and a couple other combinations sharp to the fret but I've been doing that all my life and it's a small price to pay for the heretofore unattainable: real practical,across-the-board JI without grossly out of tune,unplayable combinations here and there. Plus,w/the Peterson I can tune silently in a noisy honky-tonk - now if I could just learn to play..... -MJ-

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 29 Dec 2003 4:59 pm

I play along with my favoite records or CD's and touch up the guitar as need. When I compare with the Emmons chart it's real close!

William Steward · Post by **William Steward** » 30 Dec 2003 7:42 pm

I am a relative newbie to the steel but not to tuning (I have tuned my own Rhodes electric and acoustic grand pianos for some time)and I have struggled with the tuning on my Mullen D-10 guitar. The 'cabinet drop' is very noticable and a major inversion at the A-F position sounded particularly sour with some of the tuning 'formulas' I have tried thus far. As someone pointed out it is difficult if not impossible to tune by ear on stage unless you are to show up in the middle of the afternoon in an empty nightclub after leaving the instrument in the air conditioning for several hours to cool down...playing outside in warm weather is even wose. Herby Wallace's tempered formula seems to work for my ears as a guideline in a situation that doesn't allow the luxury of tuning by ear:
1. 0
2. -14 (K3 -16)
3. -14 (A -10)
4. 0 (C -18) (K1 -14) (K2 -23)
5. +2 (A -16)(C -16)
6. -14 (B -10)
7. -18
8. 0 (K1 -14) (K2 -23)
9. -7
10. +2 (A -16)
Fairly standard Emmons pedal setup:
Pedal A - 5,10(+C#)
Pedal B - 3,6 (+A)
Pedal C - 4(+F#),5 (+C#)
K1 - 4,8 (-Eb)
K2 - 4,8 (+F)
K3 - 2 (-C#)

As for the C6 neck I am still experimenting with how far to flatten the E and A notes. I know there have been endless discussions about this subject and it is a matter of taste, etc etc. I play piano as well so when I am playing steel in my band I do not have the problem of trying to blend with a piano however I do know that if an acoustic piano were tuned to ET it would sound awful. For me so far I agree with Dave Dogett about tuning to A in the open position...the sweet single note is always only a fraction of an inch away but it is the chord inversions that I had trouble getting to sound nice further up the neck (thanks Herby). I would be interested to know the built-in program values from someone who owns a Peterson VS-2 or V-Sam tuner. I will also experiment with some of the other ideas presented but it may not be an accident that Herby probably based his tuning on a Mullen and it sounds well on my guitar. Herby - if you ever drop in to these discussions please comment?
[This message was edited by William Steward on 30 December 2003 at 07:43 PM.]

Tiny Olson · Post by **Tiny Olson** » 31 Dec 2003 11:53 am

I strongly agree with the method as mentioned by Ricky Davis and use this myself.

BTW Ricky, our buddy Red Kilby sent me a copy of the tape you guys made at the Fulawka Room at the convention. Looked like fun and you sounded great.

Chris "Tiny" Olson

Bob Cox · Post by **Bob Cox** » 4 Jan 2004 8:29 am

Srike horseshoe ring with finger pic tune e string to sync vibration.