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Topic: Tunings - straight up 440 for other (Newman settings, etc. |
Dennis Detweiler
From:
Solon, Iowa, US
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Posted 1 Apr 2020 8:54 am |
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Kind of hard to tune by ear in the clubs sometimes. Then you have to rely on a tuner. Plus, if everybody in the band is trying to tune up by ear at the same time, it's impossible. Or, the juke box is blasting. Thanks to the tuner you can do it quickly. If you're playing a stage show or a steel show, by ear is great. I also know of a few players that tune by ear and in tune with themselves, but sound horribly out of tune with the rest of the band all night. The advantage of 440 for the B pedal A note is the open A chord being in tune with a keyboard. Too many steel players sound flat when playing (A chord) A B down open. But, then again, some aren't too finicky.
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Lee Baucum
From:
McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier
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Posted 1 Apr 2020 9:56 am
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| Donny Hinson wrote: |
| When you're in a group, you need to find the tonal center, that sweet spot that makes you sound "in" with the other instruments. |
Quite a challenge, at times, when the singer slaps a capo on his acoustic guitar ... even more so if the lead guitar player decides to slap one on his Tele.
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Drew Pierce
From:
Arkansas, USA
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Posted 1 Apr 2020 10:30 am
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| Dick Wood wrote: |
| If I had to play straight 440, I'd sell the guitar and quit playing. I've tried it and it ain't pretty. |
To each his own. But Buddy Emmons tuned his E9 straight 440, with a couple of very minor tweaks here and there. If I could find it, there's a column he did in Steel Guitarist magazine where he explained his journey around the world of tempered tunings and why he went back to 440. The article changed my thinking - and tuning - and I've never looked back.
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Drew Pierce
Emmons D10 Fatback, S10 bolt-on, Zum D10, Evans RE500, Hilton volume and delay pedals. |
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Dick Wood
From:
Springtown Texas, USA
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Posted 1 Apr 2020 3:52 pm
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You're right Drew but my experience with 5 different bands in typical nightclub settings wasn't pleasant at all. I use the EM9/EP9 settings in the Peterson and it constantly proves to work the best.
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Cops aren't paid much so I steel at night. |
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Damir Besic
From:
Nashville,TN.
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Posted 1 Apr 2020 4:35 pm
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any tuning is as good as your playing , bottom line is , can you play in tune or not... I’ve watched some of the best players with my face literally 2 feet from the guitar, some tune this way, some the other way , and they are all in perfect tune , so I know it’s not the tuning, it’s the player
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https://steelguitarsonline.com/ |
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John Goux
From:
California, USA
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Posted 1 Apr 2020 9:29 pm
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With most band instruments tuned electronically to 440, we are skating on a thinner sheet of tuning ice than the old days.
Unless your steel has perfectly zero cabinet drop, and you tune all raises and lowers to ET(like a keyboard), playing pedal steel in tune with a band is always going to be a moving target.
Bar hand exercises with a drone, that do not engage pedals, are not giving you a complete picture of your intonation with a band. Most players use some version of tempered raises and lowers, and adjacent strings go flat or sharp from cabinet drop.
Your A note on string 4 fret 5, is not in the same location, once you depress the AB pedals. And every other pedal combination moves the “In tune†target.
Which ever intonation system you choose, its best to practice and play pedal combinations with tracks that have keyboards. Pick a system, and learn how play it in tune with modern well tuned music. Most guitar based bands are now relatively close to 440 as well.
That is the process of your ear, brain, and hands learning, and remembering, where to place the bar...for the current pedal combination.
John |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 1 Apr 2020 10:07 pm
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That’s pretty well said, John.
I would never throw out my tuner. Dennis D. is right about tuning by ear in a noisy venue - it’s not possible. Maybe tuning by ear is a valuable exercise in a quiet home or studio. Unless you intend to play single notes all night long, the guitar has to be in tune with itself (using whatever method) before it can be played in tune with the rest of a band. When you think about it, we are literally tuning by ear constantly when we’re playing, so it’s not like we lose any ear training by tuning with a device. |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 2 Apr 2020 1:08 am
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| Fred Treece wrote: |
| the guitar has to be in tune with itself before it can be played in tune with the rest of a band. |
Too true. There seems to be an assumption that the steel has to be in tune note for note with all the other instruments. This is only going to happen if everyone uses ET and the only instrument that always will is the keyboard if there is one.
As long as the PSG's principal tone (usually the top note) is at the pitch the audience is expecting, the others will be heard as one sonority, not individuals.
If I'm playing trombone in an orchestra, I get in tune with the guys next to me. I may well have the same note as other players in the strings or woodwind, but I can't hear them. I just do my team job of generating in-tune chords, which on brass means JI.
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Jim Palenscar
From:
Oceanside, Calif, USA
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Posted 3 Apr 2020 9:05 am
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At the shop I have a Peterson HD Strobe w a number of well known player's settings programmed for ease in working on their instruments when they come in. In short, most of them vary wildly and these guys have been on thousands of well known records and they all sound great when they play. Sweetened tunings make the guitar sound great when played by itself- especially when the F needs to be 25 cents(+/-) flat to be in tune (beat free) w the C#. I'm not sure that "beat free" actually defines "in tune" but that's a different discussion. One of the problems as I see it is that the rest of the band is not using sweetened tunings- 95% of them are tuning Equal temperament and it is the steel player that is going to sound out of tune. Good players find a way to bridge that gap by fudging here and there but it is an elusive journey for an even foggier destination. More vibrato  |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 3 Apr 2020 10:47 am
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| Jim Palenscar wrote: |
| More vibrato |
Good place to close the discussion, Jim!
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Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Posted 3 Apr 2020 11:17 am
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| Drew Pierce wrote: |
| Buddy Emmons tuned his E9 straight 440, with a couple of very minor tweaks here and there. If I could find it, there's a column he did in Steel Guitarist magazine where he explained his journey around the world of tempered tunings and why he went back to 440. The article changed my thinking - and tuning - and I've never looked back. |
I've never seen that article. Can anyone here quote chapter and verse? Maybe it can be found online. He didn't really say much about the topic here on the forum, except that he tweaked his 3rds a few cents. "The journey" could be fascinating to read.
I tune pretty close to ¼ comma meantone, but I sometimes tweak my A pedal by ear to be totally beatless. Not that anyone cares. Very few people can hear differences of less than 5 cents coming from one instrument in the mix. Horn sections stray further than that. Most out-of-tune steel guitar is caused by the player's bar placement anyway, not by the way the guitar is tuned.
Tuning used to be a big issue with me. Not anymore. My view of it has tempered over the years. 
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Tucker Jackson
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA
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Posted 3 Apr 2020 11:33 am
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| b0b wrote: |
I've never seen that article. Can anyone here quote chapter and verse? Maybe it can be found online. He didn't really say much about the topic here on the forum, except that he tweaked his 3rds a few cents. "The journey" could be fascinating to read. |
I don't know the 'journey' article Drew mentioned, but on Buddy's old website, in the 'Ask Buddy' section he mentioned that he was tuning mostly ET, but said that he was flattening his thirds 'a few cents, as close as the guitar will allow' or words to that effect.
He never elaborated on how many a 'few' was. Probably more than a 'couple,' or he might have used that term. Since you can't much hear any sweetening until you hit about -4, I wouldn't be surprised if he was in that range since he was edging as close to +0 as his ears could stand.
But... tuning that way isn't really ET. It's just a very lightly sweetened tuning, but sweetened all the same, even though he loosely referred to it as ET. It would be more accurate to say that he moved a lot closer to ET than his prior JI.
As best as I can tell, what we have is a lot of players using different levels of sweetening, but not very many who are completely tuning straight up. |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 3 Apr 2020 11:56 am
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To me that's a very good summing-up.
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Last edited by Ian Rae on 3 Apr 2020 11:57 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Posted 3 Apr 2020 11:57 am
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| Ian Rae wrote: |
| Jim Palenscar wrote: |
| More vibrato |
Good place to close the discussion, Jim! |
I don't think anybody should close this discussion. It is reasonable and proper that people discuss how to tune a steel guitar and then play it in-tune on the Steel Guitar Forum. If it was bloody obvious, everybody would be playing in-tune and there'd be nothing to talk about - and that sure is not the case.
What is not appropriate is for people to get sanctimonious about how they tune. There are lots of different reasonable approaches, and it depends on the player, the type of music being played, and, IMO, also the guitar. It's the journey towards playing in-tune that matters, and tuning is part of that struggle. And I think it's a struggle for a lot of players, especially new players. |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 3 Apr 2020 12:01 pm
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I totally agree, Dave, I was just being flippant.
It is a serious subject and a fascinating one. It's not just about the mathematics, but about how individuals exploit their chosen system to satisfy the customer.
I have a system that satisfies the scientist in me, but I still have to slant the bar a bit sometimes!
My advice to beginners would be to tune straight up because it's easy to do and then decide for themselves if there's anything they don't like about it, maybe dropping a hint about the thirds.
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 3 Apr 2020 12:22 pm
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| Ian Rae wrote: |
| I have a system that satisfies the scientist in me, but I still have to slant the bar a bit sometimes! |
Sometimes when I hear myself playing out of tune I’ll look down at the bar and notice the slant. Straighten it back up, and magically go back in tune. I believe the straight bar is a very important part of basic technique. It is amazing how little it takes to slant out of tune, or as Ian indicates, get back in tune. Obviously the further up the neck you go, the less and less it takes. Equalizing bar pressure across the strings is important too. Push too hard on one end or the other, and you get that goose fart sound... |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 3 Apr 2020 12:48 pm
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Just to be clear, Fred, I was talking about intentionally slanting the bar.
But what you say is certainly the first thing to check.
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Larry Bressington
From:
Nebraska
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Posted 4 Apr 2020 8:22 pm
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I’ve done this for about 20 years: I tune my E, B’s to 443 mark on any tuner, then sweeten others slightly -4 -2 etc which pull in lower. It’s in Tune with any band with open chord E or pedalled A and all the other diatonics, sweet as a nut.
I have done some experimentation with the straight up but I couldn’t tolerate it, I get it that the big boys do it but it wasn’t for me, so I went back old school after a few very serious tries. |
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Chris Bauer
From:
Nashville, TN USA
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Posted 5 Apr 2020 5:57 am
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I am routinely the last instrument on overdub sessions. I tune to where the guitar sounds best to me in the track. Solo the track and the steel often sounds jarringly out of tune.
My point here, I guess, is just that whatever tuning method we use, we still have to remember that we’re imbedded in various layers of other sounds and need to learn to both tune and play so that we fit rather than fight with whatever else is going on musically. We can do it by tuning, by technique, or both, but it needs to be done. |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 5 Apr 2020 2:42 pm
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"Fit, don't fight!"
I'll remember that
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Rob Segal
From:
New York NY
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Posted 5 Apr 2020 4:03 pm Buddy Emmons' Posts Re. Equal Tempered Tuning
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Some exerpts from Buddy Emmons’ many posts regarding tuning to equal temperment on the Forum.......This is not exhaustive of his comments.....
February 11, 1998
.....Ideally I like to be 440 all the way or as close as my guitar will permit. 438 to 440 on thirds is acceptable for for me. Sometimes I'll tune the thirds at around 438 to keep from snapping the high G# if conditions are where I think the temp might get cooler
......What I meant by getting used to the sound was adjusting to a sound you've thought all your life was sharp. I'll be the first to agree there is no better sound than the pleasant harmony of a theoretically flat third in your music room. Drop it in the middle of a piano solo and there's nothing worse. No we're not all tin eared. The beauty of playing 440 or near 440 is that no matter how bad it sounds to you alone, because all the other fixed pitch instruments in a band are tuned that way, you will also sound in tune. I started playing 440 off and on about fifteen years ago and on a regular basis for the last ten years, which I hope will answer the last question. Buddy
......I used [to use] the slightly sharp to the ear idea at that time as a compromise between true 440 and tuning the pleasing sound to the ear. I too had a hard time dealing with the 440 sound and tuned the compromised way for several years. Although it worked, it still left many pedal combinations that would not tune up properly, especially on the C6 tuning. It was an attempt to get a pleasing sound closer to standard pitch for those like myself who couldn't stand the straight 440 sound. Now that I tune 440, I feel uncomfortable trying to convince others that it's the only way. All I can say is that knowing each note will be on the money has made a big difference in the way I use pedals. Thanks, Buddy
......There is no tuning chart on this planet that will ever serve two steel guitars equally. Steel guitars are not created equal. . . Buddy
......My two prime reasons for making the 440 switch is when I heard flat thirds, I would pull the bar sharp and create a new problem of two strings being out of tune. Second, tuning 440 solves the problem of the guitar being in tune with its self to the point of not being afraid to use all of the pedal combinations on either neck.
March 7, 1998
......Re: Tuning everything to 440 Posted by Buddy Emmons on 6 Mar 1998 at 9:36 pm In Reply to Re: Tuning everything to 440 by C Dixon..........Carl, You said it very well. If it will help matters, I can't stand the sound of the 440 third either. To take it a step further, I can't stand the thirds sound of a standard guitar or piano. In spite of all that, the explanation is very simple. Though none of them sound good alone they sound perfectly in tune when playing together because they are indeed in tune with each other. Let's not forget all the other parts of a chord a band is playing. For the same reason you can't detect a flat third on a recording, you can't detect the beats of a 440 third because of all the various frequencies in the music track masking and blending with those intervals.
.......Posted by Bobby Lee on 8 Mar 1998 at 10:57 am In Reply to Re: Tuning everything to 440 by Buddy Emmons...........B.E. wrote: "For the first time in my life, I'm able to use every pedal and every combination they're capable of." That is the only valid argument (in my opinion) for Equal Temperament on the steel. Some people avoid, for example, using the 2nd string lowered to D with the 1st string F#. The 4th string raised to F# is typically more in tune with the D.
.......Posted by Buddy Emmons on 8 Mar 1998 at 12:49 pm In Reply to Re: Tuning everything to 440 by Bobby Lee.........Thanks bOb. If I could have explained it that way days ago, we'd have had a lot more time to discuss more important things. I hope this wraps it up for a while. Buddy
......Posted by Buddy Emmons on 22 Mar 1998 at 5:39 pm In Reply to C6th temperament by Bobby Lee bOb, I find the out of tune sounding thirds are masked more so with the C6th tuning because of the grouping of four or more harmony parts. The E9th problem with 440 tuning is the use of thirds and minor thirds by themselves. There are so many combinations on the C neck that cry for the equal temperament it's by far more important that it should be tuned to 440. I'm willing to discuss the pros and cons of it in more detail if anyone is interested.
.......? For Buddy Emmons Posted by Buck Reid on 23 Mar 1998 at 6:25 am.........Buddy, don't mean to beat a dead horse, but pertaining to your tuning approach, I'm curious to know if you temper your raises and lowers just a little,or if everything is straight up 440? I've found that there is less of a need for compensation with certain string groups in some positions,but it is hard to get use to. I was also wondering if you knew when we could catch you doing the Mid-Nite jamboree next?Thanks for the many years of inspiration, Buck
Posted by Buddy Emmons on 23 Mar 1998 at 6:34 am In Reply to? For Buddy Emmons by Buck Reid....... Buck, Once I'm in the 440 world, I go all the way with it. The primary purpose for me doing it is to have each pedal and lever in tune with every combination. I haven't heard from Darrell about the Midnight Jamboree, but if you see him, tell him I want first call. Just teezin'. Actually Darrell is on line and looking for the Forum. As you know he's one of the biggest steel guitar fans on the planet. Even plays a little too. Not enough to hurt his singing though.
......Posted by Buddy Emmons on 30 Mar 1998 at 10:39 am In Reply to Straight 440 Buddy! by C Dixon............... Carl, I start by tuning everything except the thirds straight up. I tune the thirds at 439 just to keep them from getting sharper in case of a temp change that might shorten the rod. It's a psychological thing that probably doesn't amount to a hill of beans, but that's common with me. When I'm in good temp controlled conditions I'll normally touch it up through harmonics. I do check the needle from time to time and if the E drifted, I'll go back to the tuner.
.......Buddy Emmons posted 11-25-98 09:15 AM Pacific (US) Carl, I believe I first tuned the E to Eb string slightly lower than where it appeared in tune to the ear, which brought it closer to 440 than the rest of the strings. Then when the diminished sounded out, I adjusted the 5th and 9th strings to bring it closer. Either way brought the same dissonance problem you are referring to, and at best, only one of the three "sounded" in tune to the ear. That's when I thought if two of the three chords are going to be out of tune with both my ear and the band, why not tune 440 and be in tune with the instruments that are set to that standard. Once I did, I never regretted it. That feeling of having to dance around or eliminate pedals that are not in tune with anything is a thing of the past. As for the F#s, I've always tried to keep them tuned the same.
Buddy Emmons posted 12-13-98 07:33 AM Pacific (US) Carl,Welcome to the club! That is a problem I've had on every guitar I've everhad, which is a reverse of the pitch drop problem. As you know by now,when you lower you release the tension on the cabinet which causes thecabinet to flex in the opposite direction and pull on the more vulnerablestrings. The anti-detuner on the Legrande lll, as well as it works for raises, hasonly solved half the problem, but I'll take it over not having it.Until the reverse problem is taken care of, I'll say what I've said foryears, and that's that a pedal steel guitar is never in tune. . .and that includes my 440 preference.
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Rob Segal |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 5 Apr 2020 4:26 pm
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Rob, thanks for that compilation.
Many interesting and useful thoughts there.
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Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Tucker Jackson
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA
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Posted 5 Apr 2020 5:18 pm Re: Buddy Emmons' Posts Re. Equal Tempered Tuning
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Great. Thanks for pulling together all those comments! We have some actual numbers for just how flat Buddy sweetened his thirds.
| Rob Segal wrote: |
| Buddy: "Ideally I like to be 440 all the way or as close as my guitar will permit. 438 to 440 on thirds is acceptable for for me. Sometimes I'll tune the thirds at around 438 to keep from snapping the high G# if conditions are where I think the temp might get cooler." |
So 438 to 440 is tuning the thirds somewhere between -8 to +0 cents.
| Rob Segal wrote: |
Buddy: ..."..I start by tuning everything except the thirds straight up. I tune the thirds at 439 just to keep them from getting sharper in case of a temp change that might shorten the rod.
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And 439 is about -4 cents. Right in the middle of the range he listed above.
So Buddy used a lightly sweetened tuning, even though he referred to it as ET. I guess compared to how he used to tune -- and how most of the world was still tuning (thirds at -14) -- it felt like a huge change. So close to ET that he just called it that. |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 5 Apr 2020 7:00 pm
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| Today’s lesson seems to B.E., tuning out the beats is BS if you intend to play in tune with other instruments in the band. |
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Larry Bressington
From:
Nebraska
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Posted 5 Apr 2020 7:31 pm
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| Thank you Rob for those wonderful postings, very good read indeed. |
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