Cleartune App for Android?

Peter den Hartogh · Post by **Peter den Hartogh** » 6 May 2016 9:28 am

I have been reading lots of info on the Forum about the Cleartune tuner.
I do use Peterson tuners, but it would be nice to have it on your phone as well, just in case.
However, on Android, I cannot set the Pedal Steel offsets according to Jeff Newman's tuning chart.

Is there a way to make that work on Android?

For the time being I just made a chart suitable for Android, that I can use in conjunction with Cleartune.
It only shows cents, not frequencies like the Newman chart.
And I only use the straight scale, not the rotary one.
All I need to do is switch between the App and the Chart, which sits in the Photo Gallery.

.
You can try and load this picture below into your phone and see if it works.

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 6 May 2016 11:46 am

Indeed. It won't take long using the chart and you'll have all the values memorized.
That's how we did it until recently.

Richard Wilhelm · Post by **Richard Wilhelm** » 6 May 2016 5:32 pm

There is a free app tuner called Pitchlab Lite that I like a lot. There is s choice of readouts, the one with the needle and a strobe is the best. To go into the options press and hold to go to the tempered option and to read the directions to do what you want. You can now set the temperament of each note and save to the title you want. For each title you get only one tempered tuning for each note. There is also a free Pitchlab Pro but I find the strobe harder to read. That said, I've tried working with what Peter supplied (thank you) and also the Emmons chart, but they did not sound good to me. The problem could be is that I'm playing D9 and I'm probally not transposing right. But I did find one tempered tuning chart that does work for me. All of a sudden the sweetness of the E9 tuning came out (D9 in my case). It was in an article called "Well vs Tempered Tuning" written by Michael Rubinstein, put out by University of Waterloo, Ontario. It's on the internet. The chart is called "Adjustments to Equal Tuning in Cents".
C 6
C# 0
D 2
Eb 4
E -2
F 6
F#-2
G 4
Ab 2
A 0
Bb 6
B -2

Peter den Hartogh · Post by **Peter den Hartogh** » 7 May 2016 11:03 am

Thank you, Richard. The link is here:
http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~mrubinst/ ... uning.html

Very interesting.
How did you transpose the "anchor point" they are talking about?
Or to re-phrase my question: How do I tranpose this chart to be suitable for E9?
[tab]Adjustment to equal temperament
Note Adjustment
C 6
C# 0
D 2
Eb 4
E -2
F 6
F# -2
G 4
Ab 2
A 0
Bb 6
B -2
[/tab]

Richard Wilhelm · Post by **Richard Wilhelm** » 7 May 2016 10:35 pm

Peter, I changed my mind about the Pitchlab Pro, the strobe screen is easy to read and very accurate to dial in. It also has the Young temperament. I also entered in the Newman settings. The difference to my ears was noticeable. The Young temperament was sweeter than the Newman. No transposing to E9 requied. I beg all of you to check this out. The Pitchlab Pro is free and there are no ads.

Richard Wilhelm · Post by **Richard Wilhelm** » 8 May 2016 7:28 am

In addition to my previous post, I want to say that I'm probably the last person that should be giving information on this forum. I am a lifetime novice steel player, maybe a hack but certainly a serious one. That said, there is probably a good reason why I get a sweeter sound when I tune to the Young temperament than the Newman. Probably because the Newman settings I was using is for for E9 and I play in D9. Why is there different calibrations for say a B note in Newman and Emmons charts in E9 and C6. Can somebody easily answer that? The more I read about tempered tunings, it seems the more i dont know. I did find out that in most tempered tunings the E is always at 440 hrz but not so for Newman. Also the transposition of the Young temperament in the Pitchlab app was different than listed in the aforementioned article. There seems to be as many theories on tempered tuning as Carter has ....guitars?

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 8 May 2016 7:48 am

Richard, the Bs are different on the two necks because on the E9th neck, B is V, which wants to be a scoche sharp, but on the C6th neck, B is the third of V, which wants to be a trifle flat.
Think that's weird? Look at all the different ways to use/tune F# on the E9th neck!
As V of B, it'll want to be sharp.
As III of D (which is usually IV of IV), it's going to want to be flatted.
And then there's the C pedal, where it is the I to the C#, which is another value altogether.

This confusion and conflict is why I came up with my "barely sweetened" tuning: everything at 0 except for A#, C#, D# E# and G#, which are 4 cents flat.

Peter den Hartogh · Post by **Peter den Hartogh** » 8 May 2016 8:00 am

Thanks Lane, I was looking for that previous post of you.
Now that you sent it again, I can try it.
This gave me the opportunity to try my chart but also your solution.
Very sharp!

Thanks

Richard Wilhelm · Post by **Richard Wilhelm** » 8 May 2016 12:02 pm

Thanks Lane; and I like your "barely sweetened", it works for me. You're probably more in tune with other members of the band than with other sweetened tunings. One more question...is D9 sweetened with the same numbers assignef to the same notes as E9? Anyway my beer is flat and I need to get another.

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 8 May 2016 12:14 pm

Not the notes. The scale degrees or string numbers, yes.
So in D9th, my "barely sweetened" would flatten F#, G#, B, C# and D#

Richard Wilhelm · Post by **Richard Wilhelm** » 8 May 2016 3:50 pm

Got it, THANK YOU.

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 8 May 2016 4:30 pm

From memory, if you wanted a more "normal" steel tuning chart for D9th, I'd use something like:
A +4
B -17
C -10
C# -4
D 0
D# -24
E +8
F# -8
G -4

Richard Wilhelm · Post by **Richard Wilhelm** » 8 May 2016 6:51 pm

Thanks again Laine. I created a new tuning on the Pitchlab Pro. Only it does not let you adjust the A.

That I have to read the cents, not a problem. It sounds great. It has a depth I never had before. I can even try to improve on it with my ears, if I can.

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 8 May 2016 6:54 pm

If you want to move to A=442 or 442.5, add 8 cents to every value (ten for 442.5), so A becomes +12 and B becomes -9, and so on.

Mark McCornack · Post by **Mark McCornack** » 25 Jul 2018 1:21 pm

Hi Richard,
I was just about to post a "new thread" on this topic, and fortunately ran across this older one. I have a solution for your PitchLab Pro conundrum.
As you have discovered, one can make custom temperaments for pitch lab, but the problem of not being able to temper the A note can be resolved by changing your Calibration/Temperament Reference.

When you first open the Settings tool in PitchLab, you will see a screen like this, only the Calibration/Temperament ref will be set to an "A". Edit this and make it a "C" as I have shown

I changed this to a C because the C note doesn't get modified (stays at 0.0 cents) in the Newman scheme.

Now, go in and edit your custom temperament. I called mine "E9 Jeff Newman", but choose your own name to describe the temperament. Hit Edit, then the name of your custom file.

At this point, you may edit all the notes in the scale except for the "C", which is grayed out, but you don't care because that was specifically selected by you as the cal/temperament ref, due to its 0.0 cent offset.

Whatever tuning scheme you might have, just pick a note in the chromatic scale that is Not Modified by the temperament and pick that as your cal/temperament ref. That should work for you. If your own custom temperament calls for tempering the C note, just pick another cal note that is not tempered.

I find this PitchLab app to be pretty handy and personally, I like the "race track" display to tune to. Play around with the different display modes and you will see what I'm talking about.

Hope this helps you!
Mark

Dan Robinson · Post by **Dan Robinson** » 25 Jul 2018 7:18 pm

I use PitchLab Pro. Program two sets of offsets, I named mine Newman Open and Newman Pedals. With a cable from android device to the volume pedal's tuner out it works great.

Peter den Hartogh · Post by **Peter den Hartogh** » 26 Jul 2018 7:23 am

Mark McCornack, thank you so much for your brilliant solution. Would it be possible to show the second half of the Temperament Editor?

Mark McCornack · Post by **Mark McCornack** » 26 Jul 2018 1:38 pm

Hi Peter,
Thanks. Here is the rest of that table.

C 0
C# -6
D +6
Eb -4
E +10
F -18 (I'm not sure I agree with this one !)
F# +6
G 0
G# -4
A +4
Bb 0
B +8

I took this from a published Jeff Newman E9 chart I found somewhere on the SGF site. Here's that chart.

One thing worth noting here is that there are a few notes where the temperaments are different for pedaled/(levered) and open strings. For example, according to Newman, the F# open 1st string is +6 while the F# on string 4, pedal C is -2. There are also two D's given (-4 and +6), and two D#'s (-4 and +2). You will have to punt on that. Just shoot for the appropriate "detuned" solution when using the tuner. You'll figure it out. You may also be using unique changes that will have to be addressed outside of this particular standard.

Also, you may find that these tweaks are just not to your satisfaction. There are as many musical temperaments as there are personality temperaments

. Find what suits you. The PitchLab app will at least assure repeatability to whatever you end up preferring.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you need more info.

Cheers, Mark

Peter den Hartogh · Post by **Peter den Hartogh** » 26 Jul 2018 2:32 pm

Thank you, Mark, for the chart and for the other details.
This will avoid two different offsets like Open and Pedals.
I did notice the two F#'s and D#'s but it is hardly noticable.
I will connect the Peterson tuner at the same time and see what happens.
Cheers
Peter

Mark McCornack · Post by **Mark McCornack** » 26 Jul 2018 2:34 pm

Small ERRATA in my table.
Newman has an A#Â at +10. I listed this in my table as a BbÂ with 0 cents offset . I donâ€™t have that change on my steel, so I huess I overlooked that one.
Mark

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 27 Jul 2018 6:44 am

Mark M. Thank you for explaining how to get Pitchlab Pro to allow tuning the A note to an offset. That is the sole reason I wasn't using it.

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 29 Jul 2018 3:20 am

I'd point out that multiple values for the same note work against the modern practice of taking strings into and out of unison with the same note on other strings.