Fix for sharpened third issue

[Tim Sheinman]

It's a well known problem that, within Equal Temperament, the third tends to sit a little sharper than is natural for the ear, otherwise known as the Pythagorean comma.

I have recently started using the G# lever to flatten the 3rd a few cents on big open chords (e.g. an open E chord, no bar).

Does anyone else do this? I don't use 'sweetened tunings' because they always seem like a deal with the devil (and the gods of cabinet drop), so I'm always looking for simple solutions.

Tim.

[Jay Coover]

Why no love for the sweetened tuning? It's meant to address the very issue you mention without a lever. My two cents is that not using a lever to do this would feel much more simple. You may want that lever for something more useful someday.

Also, your method only sweetens the major third in the open chord. What about A+B and A+F chords? A sweetened tuning will address both of those as well as the open position.

[Ian Rae]

I've never quite understood the use of even temperament on an instrument that seeks sustain. It's ok on the piano where the pain dies away quickly.

On the basis that if it sounds right, it is right, I tune in natural intervals. But I also live in the real world. While a naturally tuned triad sounds glorious, if the third goes flat by any amount whatsoever it quickly sounds like the kiss of death. So for safety I tune the thirds (in all four positions) just a hair sharp - with just a slow beat - and the problem is solved, or rather it doesn't exist in the first place.

[Sean Borton]

It's a well known problem that, within Equal Temperament, the third tends to sit a little sharper than is natural for the ear, otherwise known as the Pythagorean comma.

I have recently started using the G# lever to flatten the 3rd a few cents on big open chords (e.g. an open E chord, no bar).

Does anyone else do this? I don't use 'sweetened tunings' because they always seem like a deal with the devil (and the gods of cabinet drop), so I'm always looking for simple solutions.

Tim.

Depending on the position, pedals and levers... the 3rd isn't going to be on the same string(s). Dedicating a lever for this seems impractical to me.

Every instrument I own needs a little "sweetening" of it's own in regards to tuning. IMO it's not a deal with the devil, it's just knowing what works best with your particular instrument.

Just my 2 cents...

[Tim Sheinman]

I have no idea where suggestion I have a dedicated lever for this came from, I just apply a little pressure on the G#->G lever.

Now there is a difference between open and pedal down positions precisely because those positions are pulled into and thus can be tuned to pull slightly flatter (if one wishes).

That said, it also comes down to how many applications a pedal has. That's why I think it's relatively harmless in E9 to tune the E->F lever a bit flat, because it's only really used commonly for A-F Combinations. The A pedal would be real nightmare tuned slightly flat, given that it is also the root of a minor chord, among many other uses.

[Jay Coover]

A sweetened A pedal (flat) in a minor chord is OK because the JI minor third is about as sharp from ET as the major third is flat. I believe that's why...I did the math some time back.

The same math works for all the minor chord pulls in JI tuning.

This would mean though that if you go from major to the natural minor by pressing the A pedal, in theory you'd have to also move the bar up about 10 cents so your root is in tune with everyone else.

[Jay Coover]

Every instrument I own needs a little "sweetening" of it's own in regards to tuning.

Me too. I tune my 6 strings a little differently after learning pedal steel. Not so much sweetened as compensated.

[Bob Carlucci]

Sorry, never understood any of this Equal Temperament Pythagorean sweetness stuff. What does that even mean?. If I tune my steel until its in tune open, and then in tune on all its changes according to my ear,, its good..

I still say there is WAY too much over analyzation going on these days. Listen to all the great steel players from the 60's 70's 80's 90's, and all the wonderful and beautifully in tune work they did, without compensators, without ever hearing the term "cabinet drop" and on a lot of the early stuff was probably tuned to a piano, and not an electronic tuner showing the string was 3 cents flat or sharp... If it sounds good its is good... bob

[Jay Coover]

If you're truly tuning by ear, you're likely verging on JI tuning as that's what the ear wants to hear, and what the guys gravitated to before electronic tuners. Anyway, if you sound good to you, run with it. I wish I sounded good to me

[Bob Carlucci]

If you're truly tuning by ear, you're likely verging on JI tuning as that's what the ear wants to hear, and what the guys gravitated to before electronic tuners. Anyway, if you sound good to you, run with it. I wish I sounded good to me

I wasn't trying to be nasty.. I just truly don't understand... Either the steel is in tune or not.. If all the strings are in tune open, they the should also be pretty close in relation to each other when using correct bar placement.. So now, each raise and lower is individually adjustable.. If a raise or lower is sharp or flat, you just tune it, and its in tune.. Maybe my ear just isn't as sensitive as some, but I just never understood why there so many tuning/intonation issues for so many when it comes to pedal steels... i never found much of an issue as it concerns strings not sounding in tune with one another on a steel, and not being able to adjust it... On standard 6 string guitars, electric and acoustic, intonation drives me crazy, because I ALWAYS notice issues with strings/frets or chord positions not being perfectly in tune.. Personally I just don't hear the types of issues that this thread alludes to.. No great ear here either, just "musician average"... bob

[Charlie McDonald]

Sure, blame it on Pythagoras.

Sorry, never understood any of this Equal Temperament Pythagorean sweetness stuff. What does that even mean?

(Yes,Many players have no use for this matter and have attended more than one of the many tuning wars for which 'dnt undrstnd' was banned from the Forum.)

If you stack octaves and fifths up the scale, they don't meet and never will; there's a comma between them. What does that mean?

Contrary to the wishes of scale builders and musicians from antiquity to the present, the powers of the integer ratios 3/2 and 2/1 do not form a closed system.

This is the basic process in tuning a piano in equal temperament, where each fifth is reduced by a twelve of a semitone, thereby distributing out the comma equally among the twelve pitches of the chromatic scale.

What does that mean? Relativistically speaking, and borrowing Peter to Paypal, flat the third and you sharpen the fifth;
or as Lao Tzu would put it, sharpen the fifth and flat the octave. You can't have everything.

So for safety I tune the thirds (in all four positions) just a hair sharp - with just a slow beat - and the problem is solved, or rather it doesn't exist in the first place.

It's not a problem. It's not the Pythagorean theorem which has a proof. Science and music don't meet in this arena.

And what does all that mean? Referring to Buddy Emmons:

[Tommy Cass] told me that Buddy had a knack of slanting his bar just enough to remove the "beats" which is inherent to ET.

The hand is the final arbiter in tuning. It's more accurate than the knee.
Exploitation of the comma is the science of splitting hairs.

[Donny Hinson]

My opinions on this align very much with Bob's, I don't tune anything intentionally flat or sharp. He's also right about players decades ago, before tuners and compensators, having the skill to tune, and to play in tune. Yes, tuning is a skill, and just like playing, it's a thing to be learned. I tune one string with a reference (a tuner, or other player's instrument) and then I tune everything else so it sounds in tune with that.

[Tim Sheinman]

So I was right! Small, contextual adaptations do work better than an adapted tuning.

[Richard Sinkler]

If you're truly tuning by ear, you're likely verging on JI tuning as that's what the ear wants to hear, and what the guys gravitated to before electronic tuners. Anyway, if you sound good to you, run with it. I wish I sounded good to me

I wasn't trying to be nasty.. I just truly don't understand... Either the steel is in tune or not.. If all the strings are in tune open, they the should also be pretty close in relation to each other when using correct bar placement.. So now, each raise and lower is individually adjustable.. If a raise or lower is sharp or flat, you just tune it, and its in tune.. Maybe my ear just isn't as sensitive as some, but I just never understood why there so many tuning/intonation issues for so many when it comes to pedal steels... i never found much of an issue as it concerns strings not sounding in tune with one another on a steel, and not being able to adjust it... On standard 6 string guitars, electric and acoustic, intonation drives me crazy, because I ALWAYS notice issues with strings/frets or chord positions not being perfectly in tune.. Personally I just don't hear the types of issues that this thread alludes to.. No great ear here either, just "musician average"... bob

I think a lot of the out of tune complaints stem from having the tuner plugged in all the time. I had a studeng that had his StroboFlip inline from guitar to volume pedal,and clipped to the leg. He kept saying the guitar was out of tune. I couldn't hear it, but he swore up and down that it was. The next lesson, I told him that I thought the tuner was causing slight distortion in his signal. I took it from him, and he went through a whole 2 hour lesson without saying he was out of tune. He was seeing the slight amount of cabinet drop from his guitar. If he couldn't see it, he couldn't hear it. Not saying this is true for everyone, but I would bet it is the case for a lot of them.

Some guitars do have enough cabinet drop to hear. My fairly new Mullen SD12 (2017), the 12th string E goes noticeably flat when I press a pedal. Flat enough for me to not use it. I don't hear it on strings 4&8.

[Jim Palenscar]

more vibrato

[Ian Rae]

I tune one string with a reference (a tuner, or other player's instrument) and then I tune everything else so it sounds in tune with that.

which is a much simpler way of saying what I said. I have been wondering though whether there are players who have only ever tuned using a meter and have not developed that skill of listening to an interval and telling if it's correct, and if not why not. I take analytical hearing for granted, but maybe I shouldn't.

I once worked for a band director who was an inspirational teacher but insisted on tuning up the trumpets by sticking a Korg tuner up each bell in turn and having them blow a Bb. The result was scientifically poor and they learnt nothing about how to tune to each other.

more vibrato

I can report that this works every time on trombone, the steel guitar's nearest relative

[Richard Sinkler]

more vibrato

Will moving the bar 1 fret above and below the target fret help? 🤣

[Tucker Jackson]

So I was right! Small, contextual adaptations do work better than an adapted tuning.

I disagree. And so do most steelers, if you look at what they do.

A poll here showed that of the members who responded, only 16% tuned to ET (straight up to zero on a tuner). All others tuned in myriad ways, each of which involved flattening their 3rds to differing degrees which is often referred to as 'sweetening.' Note that it's often not a conscious flattening -- when people tune by ear they inadvertently do that flattening, at least compared to what the electronic tuner shows. It doesn't sound flattened in any way, it sounds perfect... and they often don't realize that it's happened compared to what the tuner might show. But I'll use the terminology 'flattened' here since our main measuring device is calibrated to the ET system and it's flat compared to that.

All tuning systems have deficiencies or 'deals with the Devil' as you put it. ET is itself a deal -- and the Devil came out on top on that one, at least in my opinion. It was created for instruments (unlike ours) that don't have any other options.

Even when Buddy Emmons famously migrated toward ET, he still flattened his thirds "a few cents." So even his self-proclaimed ET was actually sweetened, just not to the extent it had been before.

The vast majority of the great steel we've heard on recordings and in-person has not been tuned to ET. It's been tuned to some other system. People are so drawn to the sound of steel -- there's a beauty to our more natural intervals that the 6-stringer can't match since they are forced to tune to ET. But not us... we have all those nylon tuners where we can adjust a chord position without messing up another chord position. We have the power, so why not use it?

So, the process of sweetening for the "84% majority" involves flattening 3rds of the major chord positions at least as measured by the standard of the ET tuner. It's not flat per se, it's only flat by comparison to one particular tuning system, the ET system which we use in these discussions because that's how electronic tuners are setup. This flattening is done half-inadvertently, if tuning by ear -- or maybe by a tuning chart like, say, the Newman/Peterson that was created by transcribing a guitar that was tuned by ear. The core controversy there is just how far to flatten the 3rds. There are advantages and disadvantages to going the Full Monty of -14 cents, so it's not automatically recommended. All steelers have to make their own deal.

For example, if you tune by ear, you probably end up with beautiful, beatless Just Intonation (JI). This is what the ear wants to hear. Check it against the electronic tuner (set at ET), and the 3rds will be about 14 cents flat of that system. It doesn't sound flat,it sounds 'most correct' -- but I'll use the term 'flattened' in this discussion; it's been "tuned flat" compared to ET. We heard a lot more of these intervals before electronic tuners came along and incorrectly told steelers they were 'out of tune' (on Major 3rds, the ear will accept anything from +0 to -14 as 'in tune'... but the preference is -14). But going all the way flat to JI makes the "two F#s" issue much worse. And some feel it's a little harder to blend with 6-strings and keyboards that tune to ET. So there are compromises with any system.

It seems that a compromise between the two extreme poles -- between ET at the extreme sharp end and JI at the flat end -- is popular these days, flattening somewhere between 4 and 10 cents. It gets the benefit of some sweetening, but still allows easy blending with other instruments tuned ET.

My advice is to tune by ear (which automatically adjusts for any cabinet drop or raise in the process). Or if you don't quite trust your ear, use B0b's 'Quick and Easy' E9 chart, based on flattening the 3rds by 10 cents. It's fault tolerant if those thirds drift a little north or south, and it does a better job than, say, the Peterson chart in dealing with the "two F#'s" issue (by not adjusting all the 5ths away from what the ear wants to hear). Recommended!
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=334580

Just remember that you have to push the bar far above the fret marker on the A+F position and
A-pedal minor chord, as you do in ALL sweetened tuning systems! That's your main deal with the Devil on sweetened tunings, and it's more than worth the trouble to get all those beautiful intervals.

[Donny Hinson]

...I have been wondering though whether there are players who have only ever tuned using a meter and have not developed that skill of listening to an interval and telling if it's correct, and if not why not.

Why not? Because it's hard, that's why. And today, everyone (well, almost everyone) is just looking for an "app" to do what they should know how to do, but don't have the time or patience to learn.

[Tim Sheinman]

People are so drawn to the sound of steel -- there's a beauty to our more natural intervals that the 6-stringer can't match since they are forced to tune to ET.

Ah the theology of tuning, how I've missed you.

You know I didn't think this topic was necessarily the place for it. How wrong I was.

Do you find there's more than a little 'flat earthiness' to the just intonation crowd?

You know, like the whole history of Western Temperament took a serious wrong turn around 1860 and in fact the sun does also revolve around the earth.

[Bob Carlucci]

more vibrato

Will moving the bar 1 fret above and below the target fret help? 🤣

absolutely!,, The listeners you are playing for, and the musicians you are playing with will run screaming for the door with hands over ears.. Everyone is gone, gigs over, pack up, go home, life is good!.... bob

[Bob Carlucci]

more vibrato

yeah,, pretty much..

[Bob Carlucci]

Tune your E's to a tuner, and tune the open strings to them so there are no beats/quavers... Then set all your pedaled/levered notes so they are in tune as well with each other.. done... Never had an issue that way.. Too much reliance on high tech these days.

Some of the most out of tune steel players/ 6 string guitarists I have heard had tuners clipped on to their respective axes, and were monitoring religiously.

Ear training is mandatory for any good musician.. sadly I have seen way to many guys with good chops, and cast iron ears... bob

[Tucker Jackson]

People are so drawn to the sound of steel -- there's a beauty to our more natural intervals that the 6-stringer can't match since they are forced to tune to ET.

Ah the theology of tuning, how I've missed you.

Oh, my. You couldn't possibly be more off base. The 'natural beauty' of JI isn't some mysterious New Age fake thing... it's basic hard science. The peaks of the wave forms of those beatless '14-cent flatted 3rds' line up on the oscilloscope with those of the root. Our ears knew it sounded best thousands of years ago, and then science came and long and showed why. And yes, that's 'natural.' It's physics, explaining the natural world. We only abandoned that natural beauty that the ear automatically gravitates toward for ET when fixed-pitch instruments came along that required a new 'kludge' tuning system. But PSGs don't fall into the category that requires us to use ET. We have options.

It's fine to be uninformed on a topic. But I guess folks don't know what they don't know. Still, I wouldn't jump straight to sarcasm (JI = flat earth???), especially when people here are trying to help you sound better. And by the way, I don't tune to straight JI, so I'm not part of an indoctrinated 'JI crowd.' Just trying to give information that some may not quite get so they can understand the issues and make their own decisions.