Peterson V-SAM Virtual Strobe Tuner

Paul Warnik · Post by **Paul Warnik** » 1 May 2003 6:57 am

Peterson Electro-Musical Products Inc. is just about to release "The finest musical assistant device ever made-with Peterson's visionary (pat.pend.) Virtual Strobe Technology"

And thanks largely to the efforts of Peterson Sales Rep. John Norris-We pedal steel players are going to have a tuner which makes all others obsolete-Why?

Because this is the first time that an electronic tuner for musical instruments has ever been designed to have onboard preset temperaments for the E9TH and C6TH pedal steel guitar!

And that is just one of the many functions of this new tuner- I guess that in distance from the Peterson Company (Alsip,IL.)I am probably the closest pedal steel player (they are about a mile away "as the crow flies" from my house) That (and perhaps some recent noteriety in print from a few well-known artists

) got me the call from John Norris to see if I would like to be the first one to try out the new tuner?-Hell Yes I Do!-So I got down there last week and spent an afternoon with John and Mike-I brought out my faithfull old '66 Emmons D-10(bolt-on),Standel Amp,and pack seat-Now I have always wanted to see the Peterson plant operation because they are the world's foremost maker of strobe tuners and I have been using their products for some years-And from meeting John Norris I found out that the people there like him are musicians too-And luckier than heck are we pedal steel players that John (although he does not play pedal steel) has taken a whole lot of interest in us and the theory of pedal steel guitar tuning-He amazed me with his knowledge of Steel Players,the different brands of instruments,and current happenings in "The World of Steel Guitar"

We got set up and the first thing that I did was to use the V-SAM to tune the C6TH neck to ET-Now I have it on good authority that Buddy Emmons tunes the bottom neck straight up ET-and previous attempts by myself to tune my guitar to some kind of just intonation on that neck came out with poor sounding result for me-So I played through several of my favorite tunes on C6TH for John and Mike(Peterson engineer for the V-SAM project)-Then I retuned the strings and pedals using the preset temperament of the V-SAM-Now for a little test-I replayed the same songs again for us at the now tempered tuning-The result was agreed upon unanimously as a noticable improvment of intonation! John remarked about the new clarity in separation of tones in the wider voiced chords and Mike remarked that the diminished chords were the purest sounding that he had ever heard! I have to say that I heard a new "crispness"(if you could call it that)to my sound-So I was now convinced that I will be using the V-SAM pre-set instead of ET on the bottom neck from now on!

But what about the E9TH? I think that we all know that ET does not work well on the top neck-So my E9TH was already tempered to JI that sounded good for me on this guitar-So I just went through and tweaked it using the V-SAM E9TH temperament-I then played through several tunes(slow and fast) and the sound was great! The guitar was now completely in tune better than I have ever had it! Did I notice any difference between the V-SAM settings and the sound of my E9TH as it was at its previous JI?-Some but not much-One thing I did notice was the V-SAM declared more flatting of the E notes on the knee lever lowering strings four and eight-The same happened on the fifth string lower on pedal 5 of the C6TH-Those required some minor adjustment in the tuning rods on the old push/pull Emmons-The new Peterson is simply the best tuner that I have ever used for steel guitar and every steel player should have one-I think you will begin to see many of the finest players of pedal steel using this one soon-And it just might set a new standard of intonation for all of us-WHY?-Because we would all be using the V-SAM temperament "values derived by integrating and expanding upon steel guitar tuning theory and data described by Buddy Emmons,Jeff Newman,and others"?-NO Thats not just it!WHY AGAIN?-Because in their efforts the Peterson engineers have also included two programmable temperaments which allow the user to view,change,and save their own offsets-So now if you don't entirely care for the onboard presets you can go back and tweak your guitar to your own ear and record and save those changes for each neck in the programmable temperament settings-But What about the single neck-12 string universal players?-John explained that because it is built programmed from full twelve note scale you can also tune extended E9TH-And what about those who play D9TH or Bb6TH?-Well you can still use the V-SAM temperaments and adjust the settings for whichever root note you wish for your tuning! In summary I thank John and the folks at Peterson for their great work on behalf of pedal steel players and also for the use of a V-SAM for my own evaluation-The first of these units are coming out of assembly now and are scheduled to be available for delivery this coming June

For more information here is link to the Peterson Forum http://www.petersontuners.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=187 [This message was edited by PAUL WARNIK on 08 May 2003 at 07:11 PM.]

Ron Randall · Post by **Ron Randall** » 1 May 2003 10:34 am

Paul,
Thanks for the hard work. I know I will benefit. Peterson makes great stuff. John really knows and cares.

Ron

Paul Warnik · Post by **Paul Warnik** » 1 May 2003 11:00 am

Ron R-Thank you-It was not hard work at all and in fact it was an honor to be a consultant to Peterson and now an official endorser of their product-A tour of their website gives a long and impressive list of artists and musical instrument manufacturors who use their electronic strobe tuners

[This message was edited by PAUL WARNIK on 01 May 2003 at 12:08 PM.]

Scott Swartz · Post by **Scott Swartz** » 1 May 2003 11:22 am

The custom temperment storage has been available for years on the 490 series (as I have mentioned here on the SGF), but the V-SAM is certainly a more compact and price friendly solution.

I have both a 490 and a VS-1, and they track exactly together, which tells me the VS-1/V-SAM is just as accurate as the top of the line 490.

I bought the 490 several years ago precisely for the preset storage feature (and the accuracy), and then when the VS-1 came out I bought that for an ACCURATE portable tuner for my 6 strings.

Of course, my luck now there is the V-SAM which will do both, and costs a helluva lot less than the 2 units, although I have gotten several years of the 490 custom temperment feature previously only available on the 490. I guess its no worse than buying a computer that obsolete in a year, or a $2000 ADAT that's now worth about $250 on ebay, etc.

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 1 May 2003 12:03 pm

Does this thing correct "out-of-tune-ness" in real time as we are playing?
Now that would be a breakthrough!

Paul Warnik · Post by **Paul Warnik** » 1 May 2003 12:24 pm

Scott S-I was previously using the 520 model which does not have the custom temperament storage-I believe that the V-SAM is much more effective for pedal steel players because of that feature along with the preset temperaments which as you know the predecessor of the V-SAM (the VS-1) does not have-Also it has been mentioned that some users of the previous unit VS-1 have experienced some distortion of the signal when the unit was connected via a secondary output from the volume pedal and operated in conjunction with the amplifier-John has assured me that this issue has been addressed and corrected for the new V-SAM

Martin Weenick · Post by **Martin Weenick** » 2 May 2003 1:17 am

Paul, it didn't take much reading on the features of the V-SAM to see the distinct advantages of this unit. Mine is on order, unfortunately it will be at least six more weeks before it arrives. The best Musicians Friend could do is a late June delivery. If you know any shortcuts please let me know. Martin.

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Martin W. Emmons LG III 3/5 Peavy 1000

Paul Warnik · Post by **Paul Warnik** » 2 May 2003 5:38 am

Martin-I think that the Peterson website has some types of items that you can order from their on-line store But I think it is for other merchandise than the tuners that sell through retailers and discount mechants like the one you mentioned

Sam Minnitti · Post by **Sam Minnitti** » 7 May 2003 7:30 pm

I'm happy to have just have sold my VS-1 on EBay for basically what I paid for it at Christmas time.

If anyone else has the VS-1 that wants to get the V-SAM, I would think the window to sell the VS-1 on EBay for near retail is closing in.

Paul, any update on the ship date, and do you think the fastest way to get the new V-SAM is through a distributor like Musicians Friend?

Thanks

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www.samminnitti.com

Paul Warnik · Post by **Paul Warnik** » 8 May 2003 6:21 am

Sam-I will email John Norris straightaway to see what he feels would be the fastest route to get one

Paul Warnik · Post by **Paul Warnik** » 8 May 2003 12:14 pm

John Norris tells me that they will be ready to begin shipping the V-SAM to their distributors by the end of the Month (May) Musicians Friend and Elderly Instruments are a few of the familiar vendors of their products-For a more complete listing of Peterson tuner dealers in the U.S. and abroad here is link http://www.petersontuners.com/dealer/index.cfm [This message was edited by PAUL WARNIK on 08 May 2003 at 01:15 PM.]

Sam Minnitti · Post by **Sam Minnitti** » 8 May 2003 1:19 pm

Thanks Paul!

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www.samminnitti.com

Paul Warnik · Post by **Paul Warnik** » 8 May 2003 6:03 pm

Paul Warnik · Post by **Paul Warnik** » 15 May 2003 12:18 pm

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 15 May 2003 2:26 pm

Paul, can the Peterson visually tune out harmonic beats between third intervals?

Paul Warnik · Post by **Paul Warnik** » 15 May 2003 6:15 pm

Kevin H-I am not exactly sure if I understand your question correctly as I usually tune out the beats on the thirds audibly-I like to use the Sho-Bud Boss Tone for that as the inter-frequency-distortion enhances the beating-What I did do after tuning to the V-SAM presets(on the E9TH neck)is to re-check it with the distortion method to see if the beats were indeed tuned out-I discovered that it was quite close to what I had before but not perfectly tuned out-Perhaps this is due to the fact that my old Emmons detuned and their presets were calculated without the detuning factor-Again this is where the programmable offsets could come into play-You CAN visually calculate on the V-SAM in tenths of a cent (digital readout)the difference between the onboard presets and where your guitar sounds comfortable J.I. by using the control that works similiar in part as the vernier on the older models-Hope this answers your question-John Norris can be E-mailed through the Peterson website and he is very happy to help with technical advise on the finer points of the unit's operational features

[This message was edited by PAUL WARNIK on 15 May 2003 at 08:32 PM.]

Larry Bell · Post by **Larry Bell** » 15 May 2003 6:18 pm

Kevin,
The only way you're gonna get it to do that is to chime the 4th fret on the 4th string and read the deviation from 0, then save that as your temperament for the G#. It'll be about 14 cents flat. You can't actually see beats with a strobe tuner, but you can accurately measure any pitch. Unlike the VS-1 (which I use), the V-SAM will store the offset.

How'd I do, Paul?

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

Paul Warnik · Post by **Paul Warnik** » 15 May 2003 7:53 pm

Larry B-I just tried to do what I believe you are talking about and the problem I incurred is that the fourth fret harmonic is too weak to register on the strobe for sufficiently long enough time to be able to dial in any difference for comparison

Larry Bell · Post by **Larry Bell** » 16 May 2003 6:33 am

It works on mine. You may need to use the 8th string to get the JI G#, but I can see both the 4th and 8th string 4th fret harmonics on my VS-1, either with my push-pull or my Fessy.

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 16 May 2003 8:28 am

Larry, as usual, thanks for your expert advice. By the way, you are one of the few guys who understand that beats temper out at aorund -14 to 15. I've met many who told me I'm nuts, but I've confirmed this with both electronic and written sources. Thank you Mike Sweeney also. [This message was edited by Kevin Hatton on 16 May 2003 at 09:46 AM.]

Sam Minnitti · Post by **Sam Minnitti** » 12 Jun 2003 10:45 am

Does anyone have an updated delivery date for these units? Musician's Friend is now saying late June delivery.

Thanks

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www.samminnitti.com

C Dixon · Post by **C Dixon** » 12 Jun 2003 12:29 pm

beats "temper out at -14 to 15"?

Which beats?

Beats of a 5th (or 4th) (ET) is very close to NO beats, while the beats of a 3rd (ET) can be as much as -14 to -15. 6ths fall somewhere in between.

So I have a problem with all beats falling that much away from zero beat (no beat).

Here are the mathematics to back it up:

(A = 440HZ ref)

A = 440

E (5th) = 659.26 (ET). 660 would tune the beats out.

C# (3rd) = 554.37 (ET). 550 would tune the beats out.

Not sure what these equate to in "cents", but you will note that the E note is less than one cycle away from zero beat. Whereas the C# is almost 5 full cycles away from zero beat.

carl

chas smith · Post by **chas smith** » 12 Jun 2003 8:26 pm

Carl, the 660 is about +2cents, the 550 is about -13.5 cents from the tempered intervals. So 660 is around 702 cents from A-440 and 550 is about 386.5 cents.[This message was edited by chas smith on 12 June 2003 at 09:29 PM.]

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 13 Jun 2003 4:49 pm

Carl, -14 to -15 being thirds.

Ron Randall · Post by **Ron Randall** » 13 Jun 2003 5:15 pm

Yes,

Peterson has done some great work.

The following numbers are from the current Peterson VS-1 tuner owner manual for JI. There are 100 cents to a semi-tone (half step). May shed some light.

For JUST INTONATION:
major third interval is -13.7c
minor third interval is +15.6
major fifth interval is +2.0c
major sixth interval is -15.6c

These settings will produce zero beats.
You can down load the owner's manual from Peterson's website for the VS-1. It will show you the JI and ET and several others. http://www.petersontuners.com/support/pdfmanuals/vs1english.pdf
Trying to help the thread.