Confessions Of A Former ET Tuner

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 6 Jul 2005 4:16 pm

...make not only your chords bland and beatless, but your single notes too.

IMHO, beatless is not "bland". If just adding "beats" improved our music, we wouldn't bother tuning at all.

There's occasions where it's okay to hear beats, but if I hear too many, or hear them all the time, I just assume the player's not very good.

And so, I presume, do most others.

Stephen Gambrell · Post by **Stephen Gambrell** » 6 Jul 2005 6:14 pm

"I hope people will stop repeating the idea that it doesn't matter how you tune as long as you play in tune."

I suppose I was paraphrasing, David.And you repeat the comment about tuning with, and without, a tuner. I'll repeat--I DON'T CARE IF YOU, ERIC, OR ANYBODY ELSE CALLS IT ET, JI, Ernest Tubb, or a freakin' 1936 FORD!!
Either you're in tune, or you ain't!!!
Chicken and rice? This close to 4th of July, I'm still eatin' leftover hash.
Peace out. I'm going over and start something with Carlucci.

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 6 Jul 2005 7:07 pm

Thank you Mr. Doggett (and I truly mean that in a good and respectful way) for a thoughtful and well-presented series of posts, the ET/JI chart itself is well worth the price of admission. Thanks also for the details on your educational and professional background, I knew you had something going on, now I have some idea of what, how and why.

I choose to read and comment on selected threads because, as I mentioned before, I like to know what my associates are up to and occasionally feel that I can shed a wee bit of light on the subject at hand. It's good to be aware of what others are doing, sometimes I glean a real epiphany, sometimes I'm floored by the hyperbole, but it's simply not worth throwing firebrands over.
Occasionally I have let a sour word get under my skin and reacted in kind but I bear nobody any malice, in the case of this thread I was primarily hoping to throw a bit of holy water on a fire that was beginning to heat up between folks whom I know to be highly intelligent and reasonable men. I suspect, however, that Steve English probably has done a better job of that than I have this time.

As far as tuning the PSG goes, (oh yeah, back to the topic) I'm pretty sure that there are as many ways to go about it as there are players - just as a tuba or trumpet player must constantly adjust to the various inaccuracies inherent in their instruments and each makes different choices when tuning their valves, so must we pedal steelers - thus my comment that it's not about how we tune per se but how we play that makes our music sound good.

I tune my open strings straight up relative to A=440 everytime there is a change in venue or temperature, but the pedals and levers on my personal instrument are simply incapable of being tuned precisely to either standard, so I just get them as close as I can to the same and don't touch them for weeks - thankfully, most of the time I manage to play it in such a fashion as to sound pretty good, unless of course a crowd of steelers walks into the room and then I usually begin to poop all over myself, but that's got nothing at all to do with how I tune the thing.

Peace - dg[This message was edited by Dave Grafe on 06 July 2005 at 08:23 PM.]

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 6 Jul 2005 7:16 pm

Okay, Stephen, now I see where you got the idea. All I meant was that, of course we all want everyone to play in tune, but some people find it easier to play in tune using one tuning method, and others find it easier using another. For them it matters. And if you haven't tried both methods, how do you know which one works best for you. It is not a useless exercise to learn the meanings of the terms JI and ET, and how to tune both ways, and to try each, and also possibly b0b's favorite, mean temper. You might end up prefering one way or the other, or some combination. There just seems to be a kind of anti-intellectual bent among some players who don't want to have to fool with all this complication, and resent us discussing it. I just think it's not that complicated, and it's worth discussing and playing around with.

I once took an art appreciation course. The instructor started off with a very good point that is relevant here. He said a lot of people say they don't know anything about art, but they know what they like. He said they are probably wrong. If they don't have some exposure to a lot of different kinds of art, they don't know whether there is something out there they like better than what they think they like.

Okay, the heck with this for now. I gotta go practice.

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 6 Jul 2005 8:16 pm

Mr Doggett,

I love you man..

Donny.

Sometimes there's just no accounting for personal preference.

Others.

I admire and obviously fall as short of Mr Emmons' brevity (being the soul of wit) as I do his playing.

I'm working on both.

Continuing to tune straight up in the mean time as god and his circumstances allow.

EJL

Lee Baucum · Post by **Lee Baucum** » 6 Jul 2005 8:44 pm

I certainly didn't mean to start any fights when I started this thread. I just wanted folks to know that I was pleasantly surprised to find that I preferred the way my guitar blended with the other instruments, after tuning the 3rds about 8 cents flat.

Back in the mid-1970's, when I first started trying to learn to play pedal steel (I already played the regular 6-string guitar) I used an "E" tuning fork to tune the E's and then tried to use harmonics to tune everything else. I quickly found out that those danged old F#'s really caused problems. They just could not be adjusted to sound good with both the B's and the C#'s so I would just find a happy middle ground for the F#'s and hope for the best. Many years passed and I met Michael Douchette (anybody remember Mikey?) on the old AOL steel guitar board. He told me about Buddy Emmons tuning everything "straight up" (ET). Well, in order to do that, I bought my first little Korg tuner and learned to tune "straight up". I found that by doing that I accomplished two things. First, the problem with the F#'s went away. Now they were in tune with both the B's and the C#'s. Also, I started blending much better with a band member that doubled on guitar and keyboards. He could hit an open D chord on his guitar, first position, and I would play a D chord on the fifth fret, pedals down. They did not blend well at all until I started tuning straight up.

By the way, when I say I tuned ET or "straight up", I don't mean that all the notes are tuned to "440". Because of "cabinet drop", that won't work. I would tune all the open strings, pedals up, to 442. Then I would press the A and B pedals and tune everything straight up to 440. I would do this with different combinations of pedals and knee-levers and try to get everything "straight up", relative to that particular chord. I suppose that with a guitar that had no "cabinet drop", you could tune everything to 440.

One thing that I have noticed over the years is that when I tuned to ET, I really had to listen and manipulate the bar properly to play in tune with the rest of the band. I took it for granted that it was just the nature of the beast. I also noticed that, even though I was playing in tune with other band members, there has always been a certain "harshness" to my tone, whether I was playing my Emmons push/pull or my Mullen through my Nashville 400 or my Evans. I always figured it was just my hands and poor picking technique.

Just for grins, I tried tuning the thirds a bit flat, not as flat as called for by JI, but 8 cents flat of ET. Of course, it did sound good at home, in my music room. I knew it would. I figured it would clash terribly on the bandstand though. Well, I was wrong. It sounded great. The harshness was gone. The guitar seemed to be more forgiving, as far as bar placement was concerned. It just seemed easier to play in tune with the rest of the band. And, as I said, the harshness was gone and the overall "timbre" seemed to be improved.

A few years ago, after posting about how much I loved ET tuning, Paul Franklin sent me an e-mail, telling me how he tuned his guitar, which was not ET by any means. His question to me was, "I don't sound out of tune to you, do I?" Well (gulp) no, he sure doesn't sound out of tune to me. I continued to tune ET, though. It just made good mathematical sense to me.

I'm happy with the way my guitar sounds, with the 3rds lowered just 8 cents. Larry Bell's web site (Click Here) is a great place to read about using what he calls a "hybrid" method of tuning between JI and ET. I call it a "tampered" tuning method. It really works well for me.

Some may think that this thread will be confusing to a newbie steel player. I don't agree. I think this whole discussion and all previous discussions about ET vs JI tuning methods are very educational. When I first discovered, all those years ago, that the F#'s just couldn't be tuned to match up with the B's and the C#'s, I had no idea why. I just knew there was something wrong. With this wonderful Forum, we are able to share a lot of information with a lot of people in a short amount of time.

So, I'm sorry to inform you ET tuners, but you are not playing in tune. The same goes for you JI tuners. You're also wrong. You have to meet somewhere in the middle, where I am, 'cause I'm right and all the rest of you are wrong! Tampered tuning is the place to be. Right Larry?

Peace.

Lee

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 6 Jul 2005 8:56 pm

Fair enough, Dave G. I think we're hearing each other, and probably agree more than we disagree. I'm sure I would think you play great, and have lots of licks I wish I knew - same for Eric.

I'm supposed to get my Sho-Bud Pro III tomorrow (if God smiles on UPS). It was the top of the line when I started playing in the '70s and traded a metal Dobro to Bobbe Seymour for a Maverick. A Pro III was 10 times more than I could afford at the time. I've dreamed of that guitar ever since. Maybe tomorrow I'll join the Bud brotherhood with you and Eric.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 6 Jul 2005 9:25 pm

Lee, you didn't start anything. Eric and I have been fueding in good faith for quite awhile. The truth is we probably all tune closer to each other than we think. I don't tune my major 3rds all the way to JI. They are somewhere in between, but closer to JI than to ET. And like you, I tune my Es and Bs a little sharp, to account for cabinet drop and "stretch" tuning (another topic you'll find in the old threads); and I tune my pedal-down A down to the cabinet-dropped E, which puts the A a little flat of 440. In other words, I split my cabinet drop error between the pedal-up and pedal-down combinations, so that neither is too far off at the nut.

Here's another trick I discovered. If I tune my F#s as 5ths to the Bs, The F# is not quite right as the root of the II minor with the BC pedals down. So instead of using the 7th string as the root for that minor, I pull my 8th string up to F# on the C pedal, and I tune that stop to sound good with the rest of that minor chord on the BC pedal stops. As a bonus, I love the sound of the root raising with the rest of the chord. And I don't have to worry about blocking string 7 when I move off that chord. The F# on string 7 then sounds great as the 9 of the open E chord, and the F# raise on string 8 sounds great as the root of the F# minor chord.

Well, I'm glad we're all warm and fuzzy now. I really gotta go practice some more, and Steve's probably out of popcorn.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 06 July 2005 at 10:31 PM.]

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 7 Jul 2005 5:00 am

Lee,
It's a great thread, and I really like the concept of 'tampered' tuning. Whether you start with ET or JI, there's probably going to be some tempering--adjusting the tuning to achieve the 'timbre' you desire.

I don't even play pedal steel, tho I tried once with a cheap model. Tuning it took longer than tuning 6 pianos. So I read the tuning posts from end to end to see where the steel world is going with it, just because tuning is an interest of mine.
So I think every beginner could appreciate what it takes to arrive at his sound.

Many paths to same goal.

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 7 Jul 2005 5:01 am

Cheers.

EJL

John Macy · Post by **John Macy** » 7 Jul 2005 5:46 am

, too...

jim milewski · Post by **jim milewski** » 7 Jul 2005 6:37 am

so maybe there was no steel in the Fruit of the Loom commercial cause he couldn't tune up?

Steve English · Post by **Steve English** » 7 Jul 2005 7:42 am

sour grape......

Marty Pollard · Post by **Marty Pollard** » 7 Jul 2005 3:59 pm

John, good question.

Nuh uh! John told me hisself that the gEEtar pikkers in the studios DO tweak their Bs for difernt keys. Wassup w/that John?!?

Sorry all but I couldn't bring myself to do it Wed. nite. I was skeered that it would SUCK!

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 7 Jul 2005 7:18 pm

I just want to say that I've gotten a lot from these 'tuning' threads the last few months. I don't have any "absolute answer", I don't think there is one. But I've experimented around a lot, and in the process, I think my ears have gotten attuned to some things I didn't hear before. I also think I understand what a compensator can do much better now, even though my steels don't have any, nor will they likely any time soon. Maybe I should rethink that position.

Like David D., I am a Ph.D. scientist (and in my case, engineer), and just love to analyze everything to death. Once I start playing, I don't analyze a bloody thing. But I need to do a lot of careful preparation before I can do that and enjoy it.

I start out with a 'straight-up' 440-ET tuning to get things close, but then tweak to my ear (and to the band, if that's where I'm at). I deliberately make compromises between the JI triads and the inversions/7th chords/diminished chords and what not, until overall, it sounds good everywhere. I'm probably not far away from ET, but there's just a bit of 'sweetening' of triads. I guess people call this 'meantone' or 'tampered' now. Oh, boy - some new buzzwords.

Without compensators, I don't see how to get good sounding inversions and more complex chords with pure JI open triads (the open bar being the I chord). Of course, the VI A+F inversion is the real clinker, but there are others, like the V B+Eb dom7 or V A+B+Eb dom9 or II A+B+Eb+X dim7. These inevitably conflict with the I maj7 (Eb lever - or equivalently the inversion of the III minor). My X-lever also fails to work the same with different open and pedal/lever combinations.

How much of all this is cabinet drop vs. theoretical pitch differences (see David D.'s chart) is strictly empirical. Either way, it seems to imply either a very complex compensation system or some kind of compromise.

All of this is, of course, even more of a problem on the universal, since there are a lot more multi-use changes. I see why many avoid the universal approach, although I still like it.

So I compromise, which BTW, I also sometimes do on 6-string guitar. Not always, but if I know I'm going to be leaning hard on a lot of major open chords, I may tweak ET just a bit. Most experienced guitar players I know will also bend notes within a sustained chord when possible to get things to sound "right".

As I noted in some earlier posts, the trigonometric sum formula explains why this is all so much more important in slow, sustained passages. It seems to me that somehow tweaking out the beats in sustained chords is really critical, however it's done.

Another point. A lot has been made of the idea of tweaking the bar slightly when using open-bar JI tuning to tweak the the various pedal and lever combinations so that they're OK. That makes sense, but why is that any different than tuning ET, and making even smaller bar tweaks to make the open bar triads sweet? It seems to me that these are reciprocal approaches.

Of course, if the open-bar and standard triad pedal/lever changes are the main course, then it makes sense to tune them more JI. But if that's not the case, it seems that a more ET approach may work better. I probably veer closer to ET on universal than on an S-10. In other words, choice of tuning approach seems to be more from convenience than necessity.

All this said, I agree with those who argue that "if it sounds good, it is good". This is not to say it doesn't matter how one tunes. For me, it's important to understand the ramifications of how I tune.

Final thought: Keep 'em comin'. This really IS useful, IMO.

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 7 Jul 2005 9:36 pm

Without compensators, I don't see how to get good sounding inversions and more complex chords with pure JI open triads (the open bar being the I chord). Of course, the VI A+F inversion is the real clinker...

I keep hearing people say that they can't get the A+F position in tune beatless, and I don't understand that at all. It's like this:

Tune the G# to a beatless third above E.
Tune the pedaled C# to a beatless fourth above the G#.
Tune the F lever to a beatless third above the pedaled C#.

If you do this, this A+F position gives you a pure JI triad every time. It's no "clinker".

The interval frequency ratios are spelled out on this page. As an engineer, it should be easy for you to do the math. You'll find that the intervals in all of the common 7th and 9th chords work out real nice, as do diminished triads with the F lever.

I don't have the A+B+E+X for a dim7 combination, but I think if you tune your 5th string split about 14 cents higher than you tune your B pedal it will sound just fine.

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/Hotb0b.gif" width="96 height="96">Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Williams D-12 E9, C6add9, Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop S-8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, C6 or A6)

Jussi Huhtakangas · Post by **Jussi Huhtakangas** » 7 Jul 2005 9:48 pm

Geez, and I thought the yahoo linoleum discussion forum was geeky!!

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 8 Jul 2005 1:29 am

Dave M., some good comments and questions, that I'm going to look into when I get a chance.

A lot has been made of the idea of tweaking the bar slightly when using open-bar JI tuning to tweak the the various pedal and lever combinations so that they're OK. That makes sense, but why is that any different than tuning ET, and making even smaller bar tweaks to make the open bar triads sweet? It seems to me that these are reciprocal approaches.

Here's what I make of this. Tuning strings and stops so that thirds are JI rather than ET makes it so you can keep the bar straight and have the sweet JI intervals (that is, major 3rds and 7ths flat compared to the root and 5th, minor 3rds and 7ths sharp compared to the root and 5th). If you tune ET, and only play two strings (diads), you can slant the bar slightly and get those flatter or sharper notes. But, if you play triads, you have three non-aligned points you need to reach, and as an engineer you know that three non-alighed points form a curve, and the bar don't curve. If you tune JI, you get all three points lined up, but the price you pay is that you cannot play exactly over the fret for some positions (for example, the AF position ends up being about 16 cents flat at the fret). Good players easily play the AF position by ear to the appropriate point above the fret to correct for this. But if you tune ET you need to make the bar curve - good luck with that. At the nut, JI has the whole chord flat, but the intervals correct; ET has the roots correct, but the 3rds (and 7ths) off. Take your pick.

b0b, analysis pending. I think before I figured out that, for me, your F lever tuning method works out theoretically, but cabinet drop throws in a monkey wrench. I end up having to slant one way or the other, depending on which inversion I am using. That, plus playing sharp of the fret, make that postition dicey for sustained chords, even before I use the third drink ticket. I need compensators.

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 8 Jul 2005 5:11 am

"b0b's analysis pending.".

I think that goes without saying.

Bless his heart.

EJL

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 8 Jul 2005 5:25 am

"...and also possibly b0b's favorite, mean temper."

B0b does not have a mean temper! We have to stop this slander!

I believe I can say now, maybe we're all looking for an even temper.

But I still find it hard to go with this:
"For those of us who find the ET dissonance irritating and objectionable...."

I realize we're talking apples and oranges here, but I'd be hard pressed to find Clair de Lune dissonant, much less irritating and objectionable.
But then, Debussy didn't have to deal with a pedal steel. I do think he'd love to hear his tune on steel, regardless of the tuning method.
Remember Clair? Realy sweet, but a little loony....

John Macy · Post by **John Macy** » 8 Jul 2005 5:54 am

Marty, I did say I see guitar players fudge a note here or there in the studio, but it's to get the beats out of the chord and make it sound in tune...

There has been some talk about one's own ear adjusting to either JI or ET, but what about other peoples ears? Bruce posted about almost getting fired by Ricky Skaggs when he tried out ET, and Ricky has some of the most picky ears in town. The couple of times I messed with it onstage, the guitar player looked at me like I had been drinking. When I messed around with it in the studio on a project, the producer told me he had never heard me play out of tune until then...

So that put to rest the fact that ET does not work for me, and never will. If the other way works for you, that is great, and if you can walk into my session and sound in tune that way, fantastic. But another 15 pages of forum posts and a scientific calculator will never make it work for me, or the people I work/play for...

These threads are a great read, though...

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 8 Jul 2005 6:23 am

b0b, analysis pending. I think before I figured out that, for me, your F lever tuning method works out theoretically, but cabinet drop throws in a monkey wrench. I end up having to slant one way or the other, depending on which inversion I am using.

The only unaltered string in the A+F triad is the G#, which is already in tune with the pedaled C#. Are you saying that activating your F lever changes the tuning of your G# strings enough to notice?

Maybe it's because I use a wound G#, but I've never had to slant the bar at all to get A+F to sound in tune on any guitar that I've owned. And I use the F lever a lot.

Now, if I tuned ET, I'd probably be doing little slants to make the 4th and 8th strings sound better with the F lever. Instead, I tune the lever to E# (the third of C#) so that I don't have to worry about it.

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/Hotb0b.gif" width="96 height="96">Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Williams D-12 E9, C6add9, Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop S-8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, C6 or A6)

Stephen Gregory · Post by **Stephen Gregory** » 8 Jul 2005 7:48 am

Eric, you're "right on" again as usual in regard to this topic. I once heard Mr. Newman say at a seminar in St. Louis that it was wise to avoid playing three notes at a time and to play predominantly two string harmonies. If one followed this "recipe" it would somewhat minimize the problems with JI. But, the fact of the matter is, once you alter a pitch in relation to another pitch you have immediately set off a series of problems as the "roles" of these pitches changes, within other voicings, inversions, extended chords, etc. In other words, if you are willing to only play within the confines of your "sweetened" changes, you'll be fine, take your playing outside of those confines and you have issues plain and simple.[This message was edited by Stephen Gregory on 08 July 2005 at 08:55 AM.][This message was edited by Stephen Gregory on 08 July 2005 at 08:58 AM.]

Steve English · Post by **Steve English** » 8 Jul 2005 9:37 am

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 8 Jul 2005 10:21 am

Charlie,

Claire de Lune is written with 5 flats, but it doesn't stray far from its tonal center. It doesn't present any serious problems for "just" harmonies. I think it sounds better in meantone or JI than in ET, or on an instrument with less sustain than the piano (harp, marimba, etc.).

Of course, I can hardly tolerate piano music anyway...

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/Hotb0b.gif" width="96 height="96">Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Williams D-12 E9, C6add9, Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop S-8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, C6 or A6)