Strobe Tuners......

[C Dixon]

Yes Jack,

That was when I brought that beauty to St. Louis one year; to show it and my prototype breadboard with those crude solenoids and switchovers. MUCHO has changed since then.

I sold that instrument to a fellow forumite a few weeks back. He is coming to my home to get it; after I get back from St. Louis. The reason for the delay is: I have very short legs (from floor to knee), and I have to have the legs and pedal rods considerably shorter than standard. Few players could even sit under thise guitar as it is setup.

So, when I ordered the new one, I had Mitsuo include the standard length pedals and pedal rods. Then, when I get the new one, I can simply switch them out. This way, both buyer and seller win. Praise Jesus.

c.

PS: Here is a picture of the one I sold.




(Note: the photo does not show the real beauty of this guitar. The logo is brilliant white, and the front is a very rich reddish burgundy. Hazel says it is the prettiest steel she has seen. Also the boxes I made at the left rear corners match the front almost exactly, not quite.)

May Jesus bless the buyer always, and may He bring him much joy every time he plays it. He had Jerry Wallace send me a TT PU. It made a remarable improvement in the sound.

Made me sad to know it is going. But I am tickled beyond words for the dear man who bought it.

"All's well that ends well!"

[Jonathan Shacklock]

I am leaning heavily towards the PST-4, because I love the rotating red strobes. In addition, it is my understanding now that the Peterson tuner does not have filters for preventing display "quiver" when a string is initially picked. And then quivers again, as the note begins to decay.

C.,
JP kindly posted a link above to my enthusiastic review of the Sonic Research Turbo Tuner, which I still stand by, it has very similar rotating red strobes to the PST-4. See THIS LINK for video. I think you should also consider this tuner - it has the added benefit of being considerably cheaper than the Peterson. I admit I prefer the design of the PST-4, which I hadn't heard of before this thread, and the metal housing is a bonus (BTW there is now a stomp box version of the Turbo Tuner). You can see from the video that there's no "quiver" (VERY similar to the PST-4 video).

Now in practice, I have found the red LED display of the Turbo Tuner to be ever so slightly inferior to these videos. By that I mean that the red lights tend to be a little more broken up and the effect is a little less "solid" and pretty looking, perhaps this is overtones in my guitar causing some impurity to the note. However this doesn't effect the ease of use in the slightest. It is obvious which way the LED's are rotating and obvious when you are in tune. The display is very bright and easy to make out.

I don't think there are any filters that average out the note, but I don't think they're needed. It's much easier to tune with than a needle meter and, in my opinion, slightly easier than a digital Peterson. Certainly no need for an E-bow to sustain the note!

One other thing, I haven't read the PST-4 manual but if it can store all your open string offsets as well as raises and lowers in one preset, that's a definite advantage over the Turbo Tuner which really requires two presets that you toggle between. A minor annoyance.

There's a positive review of the Turbo Tuner in the current issue of Vintage Guitar, page 168 (pleasantly, the magazine also happens to heavily feature Mr Lloyd Green!).

I hope post this doesn't make you're decision harder, I only mention it because the red LED strobes are so similar and yet the pricing is so different!

[C Dixon]

Thank you sooooo very much Jonathan for your candid reviews and suggestions. This is what I want. So I like the way you mince no words; rather you tell it like it is.

A few comments:

1. The PST-4 does not "average" out the strings vibrations. Rather, it filters out EVERY thing but the "fundamental" note of the string, which is what the human hears most.

The problem with EVERY tuner I have used (or seen in operation) is: It does not know the difference between the fundamental note and the overtones of a vibrating string. As such the attack of a pick striking a string along with the fundamental note, along with the overtones, causes other tuners to be susceptible to erratic behavior, particularly when the string is FIRST picked and again as the string approaches cut off, particularly as the strings becomes larger in diameter.

Since the PST-4 was designed primarily for piano tuners, this problem HAD to be addressed. And that is precisely what happened. The creator designed filters that would indeed filter out every thing but the fundamental note of a vibrating string.

With this, EVEN the first note on a piano gives a rock solid dispay, from the time the hammer first strikes it until the instant the signal drops below the threshold of the PST-4's pickup.

I like this. In the video on that link I posted, you can clearly see this as the creator picks each string of a regular guitar.

Again, if another strobe can do this at a lessor price and of course has the other features, then I am not one to throw money into a stream. This is why I hope Jim Cambell (the creator and builder of the PST-4) comes to St. Louis, because I truly want to give an A/B test between it and the Peterson.

2. The PST-4 has 40, 88 note offsets. So there is no chance of a PSG player ever running out of tunings shifts "examples" he might like to try.

3. The PST-4 can shift EVEN the ET standard + or - which will shift the entire A=440 standard up or down. This is a blessing if you take your steel to a club where they are not dead on, for whatever reason. In a second you can shift to them, and then everything in the offsets will shift accordingly if you wish.

Finally, and again, I just love those rotating red strobe LED's. And it has a other features too many to list here.

Ya really gotta read the owner's manual. It is quite impressive.

Thanks again Jonathan.

c.

[Brian Kurlychek]

Is a rotating led considered a "strobe"?

To me it is a "Rotating LED".

[C Dixon]

Is a rotating led considered a "strobe"?

To me it is a "Rotating LED".

Oh indeed it is. No differently than an ole Conn strobe tuner is; for in reality ALL it is, is a rotating disk with some markers on it where a light goes on and off periodically to make the markers appear to stand still or rotate the further a string is out of tune with the reference built into to the Conn strobe tuner.

No differently than spokes on a wagon wheel in old "Cowboy" movies, appear to rotate backwards slowly, or stand still; caused by the timed off and on light of the shutter in the projector.

So with an LED strobe tuner the same thing is done; only instead of the lights rotating, the LED's are turned on and off sequentially; which makes them appear to revolve or remain still; depending upon whether the string is in or out of tune with the built in reference.

No differently than the off and on electron beam that creates a sense of movement on a TV screen; when in reality nothing is moving.

So the abbreviation PST standing for "Precision Strobe Tuner" is correct.

c.

[Earnest Bovine]

... the difficulty in a tuner holding steady between the attack of the string when it is first picked versus when the note decays AFTER it begins to sustain...

Most strings vibrate faster immediately after the attack, and slower as the amplitude decays. It may be wrong to blame a tuner for accurately displaying this.

[Earnest Bovine]

1. The PST-4 does not "average" out the strings vibrations. Rather, it filters out EVERY thing but the "fundamental" note of the string, which is what the human hears most.

The ear hears all the partials (harmonics) as well as the fundamental. In fact, a listener with a musical ear can tell you what note he is hearing, even if the fundamental is absent, and only the higher partials are audible. For purposes of "sounding in tune", it is the relationships between partials, and not just fundamentals, that makes chords sound good or bad.
So in my opinion it might be a mistake to tune only the fundamental and ignore the partials when you tune a string. An electronic tuner that "averages" all the partials might therefore be better than one that hears only the fundamantal.

[C Dixon]

Most strings vibrate faster immediately after the attack, and slower as the amplitude decays. It may be wrong to blame a tuner for accurately displaying this.

1. You are correct Ernest IF you mean a very strong picked string whereby you actually stretch the string beyond what it is tuned to when you pick. I am not talking about that attack. I am talking about the nature of ANY "plectrum" insrument the moment ANY string is picked, regardles of how hard or softly it is picked at the instant it is picked.

2. Who blamed the tuner for displaying what it is programmed to read? The filters in a PST were designed specifically to filter OUT ALL vibrations; except the fundamental vibration; so it became easier to "read"; not only after the attack and before the beginning of the decay, but during the attack; as well as during the longest part of the decay of the vibrating string.

This made this tuner able to do something some other tuners are not capable of and that is: to read accurately the fundamental frequency of a vibrating string regardless of any other accompanying "sub" vibrations, that would make the instrument for the most part useless on these strings.

As such it becomes a greater blessing even for PSG's and other stringed instruments.

c.

[Earnest Bovine]

...ole Conn strobe tuner is; for in reality ALL it is, is a rotating disk with some markers on it where a light goes on and off periodically to make the markers appear to stand still or rotate the further a string is out of tune with the reference built into to the Conn strobe tuner.

No differently than spokes on a wagon wheel in old "Cowboy" movies, appear to rotate backwards slowly, or stand still;

The old Conn strobe tuner was different from the wagon wheel in one vital respect: it had not _one_ but _several_ (about 6 or 7?) rows of markers. Their sizes were proportionally : 1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, etc. The separate rows of markers showed the pitch of each partial separately. IMO this visual display of inharmonicity is the only advantage of a strobe tuner (or new virtual strobe tuner) over a meter. If the fundamental is rotating left, and all the other partials are rotating right, you would be well advised to heed the partials and ignore the fundamental, but at least the multiple-row display gives you the option to use your judgment in each instance.

I haven't tried a Peterson, but it looks like the display shows you only 4 rows, including the fundamental.

[richard burton]

Thanks for the switchover mechanism explanation, Carl

If I've understood correctly, when the yoke is in one position, it engages with a crossrod, and disengages with another crossrod at the opposite end of the yoke shaft ? (and vice versa)

[C Dixon]

If I've understood correctly, when the yoke is in one position, it engages with a crossrod, and disengages with another crossrod at the opposite end of the yoke shaft ? (and vice versa)

You are exactly right Richard. Moving the yoke from left to right (however it is moved) will cause the knee lever's (or pedal's) action to move either the left or right (Green OR Yellow) crossrods. But NOT both.

Thus, the bellcranks and pull rods on either of the crossrds will be in affect when a given knee lever (or pedal) is engaged. While the opposite crossrod, bellcranks and pulls rod remain idle.

The switchovers I now am going to use are similar to the crude prototype shown in the picture, but it's smaller, more finely machined; and it has some built in "failsafe" features.

IE: It would be awful IF the switchover did NOT switch for whatever reason. In addition, if it hung up in one or the other position and was not allowed to switch. OR it hung up half way in the middle. This would cause BOTH crossrods to be engaged at the same time.

This happened one night with Hal Rugg on the Opry many years ago, on his Baldwin (Sho-Bud) D-10 switchover model. That of course spelt the demise of that system. I believe the idea of it was superb, I also believe the Baldwin was poorly engineered.

This is not a new problem in the creation and design of any new device. Design engineers have fought this malady forever. I have spent untold hours thinking about this, and I believe it is now as fail safe as is I can possibly make it.

But it took much thought and trial and error to reach this plateau.

Praise Jesus for His giving me the ideas when I ran into yet another "drawback". Which happened often. And thank Him for his causing the Japanese to come up with the ideal solenoid for my (automatic) application.

Note: The picture shows nothing concerning the "electronic controlled" mechanism, since it is still "proprietary". I trust you understand this. The concept has not changed. How it does it has, many times

Again, if the Lord is willing and I can make it to St. Louis next year, I hope to be able to show it all finished and my dream of 45 yrs years will be reached.

Per chance, I run into an insurmountable problem, I will shelve the idea for good, and be blessed in the joy I have had all these years, trying to improve upon what I believe is already the world's most beautiful musical instrument.

Thanks for your interest dear friend,

c.

[richard burton]

Thanks for elaborating, Carl

Solenoids would be ideal for your scenario.

I'm starting to brainstorm here, so disregard any ideas that are patently unusable.

Instead of using one solenoid and a spring-return yoke, use two solenoids, remotely connected to the yoke by Bowden cable, to pull the yoke one way or the other.

The advantage of this is that momentary solenoids could be used, instead of one solenoid which would be permanently 'on' when the yoke was in the pulled position, maybe causing interference problems with the PSG pickup

[Herb Steiner]

Carl, my pal
I'm looking forward to you giving me a guided tour of the undercarriage on your new Excel!

Guys, one of the reasons I love Bro. Carl is this: A few years back at ISGC, when he was showing me the little tricks and gizmos that Mitsuo and he himself came up with on the last guitar he showed me, Carl simply couldn't contain his joy at demonstrating some of the clever ways mechanical problems were solved and design innovations were accomplished.

All the while, he was downplaying his performance skills. But I told him that some people want to write the world's greatest novel; others want to create the world's greatest typewriter. BOTH TYPES are needed for development in literature and communication. So is it also with steel guitar.

Carl smiled with understanding. That, and a beautiful heart, is why I love Carl Dixon.

[C Dixon]

Herb,

I am humbled. Thank you.

Richard,

You have a very "enquiring mind". You and I would enjoy many hours of talk MOST players would not care to listen to.

If you are still interested, check out the following photos. Any questions I will be happy to answer.










Note: This was the prototype breadboard I brought to St. Louis that Herb was speaking of. It is very much different now. With a lot of newer and better goodies .

It is also much smaller and quieter. And all control electronics is now hidden from view completely, except for the indicator LED's. But even its housing has been completely redesigned and will fit esthetically and unobtrusively very well (I believe) in the new Excel.

I am sorry the pink writing did not come out clear. If you can enlarge the pictures, it shows up quite clear.

Thanks for enquiring dear person.

carl

[richard burton]

Carl,
That's Steeltastic !!

Thanks for the detailed explanation

[C Dixon]