Jeff Newman Tuning Charts

Thomas Bancroft · From: Matawan, New Jersey, USA

Jeff Newman published "Hertz" and "Cents" tuning charts with his newsletters and course materials. I use his "Cents" chart to tune my steel and am comfortable with the way it sounds. I am assuming that many of you guys have seen/used these meter offsets and I would like to know your thoughts on them and any alternative methods of tuning you might suggest.

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Mullen D-10, Melobar Rattler, Nashville 1000, Alesis Midiverb, Too Many Guitars!

[This message was edited by Thomas Bancroft on 29 September 2004 at 11:14 AM.]

Thomas Bancroft · From: Matawan, New Jersey, USA

Just searched the archives and I see that this subject has been done and done well!
Thanks guys!

Gary Preston · From: Columbus, Ohio, USA

Thomas i tryed the 442 tuning of Jeffs and it did'nt sound good to me . This is only good if your steel drops that far when you engage the pedals . I have a Sho-Bud Pro-II and a Williams SD-10 and they barely drop when you look at the tuner with the pedals
engaged . If you want the tuning that i use please e-mail me and i will sent it to you . Both of my guitars sound great with my tuning . Best regards,,,Gary .

Dustin Rigsby · From: Parts Unknown, Ohio

Gary taught me his tuning and it sounds great. I tried another tuning and did not like it.

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D.S. Rigsby
Carter Starter and various six string toys

Sidney Malone · From: Buna, TX

Jeff's tuning works great for me and I've used it on guitars with quite a lot of cabinet drop and also on my MSA Millennium which has virtually no cabinet drop.

I guess what you hear and what sounds right to you should be the deciding factor.

This subject is really to deep for me to get into but I can assure you that this tuning was not devoloped to only adjust for cabinet drop. It goes way deeper than that!!

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MSA Millennium S-12U
Fessy S-12U
Walker Stereo Steel, Hilton Pedal

Mark van Allen · From: Watkinsville, Ga. USA

Years ago Jeff's charts were based around E's at 0 cents (440 on a meter). At the time it helped me get in much better tune than I was getting by ear, and sounded great everywhere but open (Key of E, etc.). Eventually I shifted the whole thing up a few cents and tweaked some offsets and was very happy with the results on the PP I was playing at the time. (I really didn't know much about cabinet drop at that time). After Jeff raised his whole chart up a couple of cents, I was surprised at how close my numbers were to his, and for that matter, the offsets loaded into the Peterson Tuners. As I remember his literature said that he had raised the whole chart up to compensate for cabinet drop. But the original offsets themselves are I think an extremely effective way of balancing the pulls so most chords play in better tune. For the life of me, I cannot understand how anyone can play in tune when tuning everything "straight up".

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Stop by the Steel Store at: www.markvanallen.com

Jim Smith · From: Midlothian, TX, USA

To compensate for whatever cabinet drop may be in the guitar I'm playing, I tune my open strings F#, D#, E, and D with the pedals down. Then I tune the open B's with the B pedal down, and the open G#'s with the A pedal down.

Allan Thompson · From: Scotland.

Where`s Eric !!!!!!!

KENNY KRUPNICK · From: Columbus, Ohio

I used to use Jeff Newman's 442.5 tuning,and changed a good while back. What I did was, took the 442.5,Dropped 2 hertz down to 440.5 on the "E"s,and everything else accordingly.
Even applied this to C6th.

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

On C6th and on my odd-ball F diatonic, I'm tuning to the numbers of meantone temperament. This doesn't take cabinet drop into account, but neither instrument has much of a detuning problem anyway.

The basic concept is that you walk around the circle of fourths, widening each one a little bit. This has the side effect of narrowing the thirds by 4 times the interval that you used to widen the fourths. It sounds really nice, almost like JI.

I use the 2nd note of the scale as the center point, and 2.5 cents as the interval (for convenience - my tuner is marked in 5 cent increments). So, on C6th, this is the circle of fourths chart with D in the middle:

Ab +15


Eb +12.5


Bb +10


F  +7.5


C  +5


G  +2.5


D  0


A  -2.5


E  -5


B  -7.5


F# -10


C# -12.5


G# -15

The wolf in this system is the difference between G# -15 and Ab +15. I use the G# tuning for the high G raise because I want it to be a third of E, and I use the Ab for the A lowers because I want the C to be a nice third above them.

I used to tune C6th to equal temperament (all notes centered), and I still believe that it's probably the correct tuning for 12 tone music. The Big E's argument is that he can mix any pedals and levers and not have to worry about wolf notes. I can't disagree with that, but I play much simpler music than Buddy and I know where my wolves lie. I just have a passion for those beautiful narrow thirds. Hey, it's my guitar.

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Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Sierra Session SD-12 (Ext E9), Williams D-12 Crossover
Sierra Laptop 8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster (E13, C6, A6)

[This message was edited by Bobby Lee on 03 October 2004 at 11:23 AM.]

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