Electronic TUNERS....vs. string gages

Ray Montee · From: Portland, Oregon (deceased)

Ole Bobby Seymour has just sent out a memo introducing/explaining about his favorite new tuner. It's all mechanically rigged so all you have to do is match up the strings and all are in perfect tune. SIMPLE, eh?
MY QUESTION: If one employs different gage strings (other than factory standard) on his/her steel guitar, different than the next persons, will that not make a difference in the exactness/or tuning accuracy since each person applies differing amounts of left hand bar pressure?
Does a player no longer have to LISTEN to see if he/she is accurately in tune?

Colm Chomicky · From: Kansas, (Prairie Village)

I don't get Bobbe's email newsletter, so I just signed up on his website. Was he talking about the Peterson VS II ?

Jennings Ward · From: Edgewater, Florida, R.I.P.

Ray, please SPLAIN,,,,I dont get it. Mechanical tuner????? What Gives???? A tuning fork....??????? Jennings......

PLAY STEEL FOR THE BEAUTIFULL ANGELIC SOUND.....

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EMMONS D10 10-10 profex 2 deltafex ne1000 pv1000, pv 31 bd eq, +

Pete Burak · From: Portland, OR USA

Ray,
Tuners don't care what gauge the string is, only what frequency it vibrates at when picked.
Programmable tuners allow a player to tailor their individual tuning needs.
For example, here are the Jeff Newman tuning charts: http://www.jeffran.com/tuning/tuning.htm
Using a programmable tuner, you could create and save a program so that when the needle is straight up, you are tuned to exactly 438.5 Hertz, instead of trying to eyeball 438.5Hz every time you tune.
Several other playing parameters (including an individuals average bar pressure) could be taken into concideration as well.
With regard to your final question, I'm thinking it is every players desire to hear themselves playing in tune when they listen to recordings of themselves playing with their band, so of course, it is paramount that all band members listen to hear if they are in tune (but that's a whole 'nuther topic).
~pete b.

[This message was edited by Pete Burak on 04 November 2004 at 05:41 PM.]

Ray Montee · From: Portland, Oregon (deceased)

Yes, Colm, he was........

Thanks Pete for your keen insight.

No matter HOW I tune my guitar, it never fails that within only moments, I'll need to tweak this strang or that strang, in order to make it "perfect". I was just curious if this is also a factor when tuned with a TUNER.....or is it safe to just play it all night, since it was tuned with a TUNER?

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

It's never safe to play anything all night.

I'm surprised anybody ever thought it was..

EJL

Pete Burak · From: Portland, OR USA

Ray,
If you are serious about having to tweak your tuning within mere moments of just having tuned, then there are other factors that need to be concidered (the tuning keys themselevs, string age, string gauge vs scale length, cabinet drop, changer deflection, tempeture change, etc...
With that said, the use of a tuner would, for example, allow one to tune accuratly, quickly, and silently, during a song.
You could check and/or tweak your tuning during every verse that the steel lays out, and FWIW, I have seen Buddy Emmons do this at steel shows.
As a side note (no pun intended

), when I'm just messing around in the basement with various acoustic/electric guitars, pedal/non-pedal steels, and even my alto sax, it's nice to know that every instrument is tuned dead-on to the same referance pitch (based on A-440).
If I am missing your underlying concern ie. Tuners, maybe we can get Bobbe to "chime in" (pun intended

) on the tuner in question, and tuning in general.
~pb

[This message was edited by Pete Burak on 05 November 2004 at 12:50 PM.]

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

There's many methods of tuning, all probably valid for someone. There is, however, no method of tuning that is valid for every player or every guitar, and that's why we have so many different systems, methods, charts, tuners, etc.. More important in this grand equation is the player's ear. Without a good "ear", you're lost...totally and utterly lost...once the bar hits the strings.

I think that's what Ray's alluding to, here. There's seems to be a lot more said here on the Forum about getting in tune than there is about actually playing in tune.

Rick Aiello · From: Berryville, VA USA

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

I don't think that string gauges make any difference at all. Two notes are either tuned in harmony or they are not.

Wayne Cox · From: Chatham, Louisiana, USA * R.I.P.

Assuming you have a good steel guitar,lighter guage strings do tend to be more prone to change pitch with temperature changes than heavier guage strings. Nevertheless,there are many things that affect your perception of pleasant intonation,such as: whether or not the other instruments are in tune. But, b0b is right,the guage or string size doesn't have much bearing on the initial tuning process.
That is...unless you go to an extreme. For example, I wouldn't put an .012 in the #8 position on an E9th neck and expect it to sound right.
~~W.C.~~

Larry Bell · From: Englewood, Florida

Wayne, gotta disagree on this one, old buddy

(this assumes a large, unwound 6th string)
Tune your 3rd and 6th E9 strings to a tuner.
Warm the strings by rubbing between your thumb and forefinger or by using a hair dryer. Check the tuner.

I believe you'll find that the larger the gauge of the unwound string the more the pitch will change with an identical change in temperature. For wound strings, it is the size of THE CORE that the string is wound around.

Same is true of a mechanical pull. Larger diameters will require a shorter pull. E.g., when one changes from a plain to a wound sixth string, the diameter of the core goes from 024 or so to 008 or so and a much longer pull is required.

------------------
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

Ray Montee · From: Portland, Oregon (deceased)

What ever happened to the small triangle or pitch-pipes that were used to tune steel guitars? They used to have a six-tone harmonica looking device, all chromed, etc.
One for a Universal Tuning today, would look like a huge harmonica, right?

Ricky Davis · From: Bertram, Texas USA

Speaking of string guages and intonation.
Lets say you have a .014 for an E note and right next to it you have a .017 for a B note; and tune them open. Now when you fret with the bar; the size of the strings, do make a difference when playing them together with proper intonation, with the regular amount of bar pressure. As if you take the same notes open; but use a .018 for the B note; and then fret them in the same place as the previous guages; you will find the intonation to be different. Playing strings in tune with the bar is totally different than playing the strings in tune without the bar. String size does make a difference in how they sit on the rollers and the scale length of the guitar and what the bar weight does to them when fretting the strings.
Ricky

Pete Burak · From: Portland, OR USA

Ray,
It doesn't matter what kind of tuner or tuning method you use, you're still going to have to listen to make sure you are in tune with the boys in the band!
FWIW, My baby daughter has a 6 string pitch pipe that she loves to play with!
Ie. Universal pitch pipe... I used to have a chromatic pitch pipe, which is kinda like a round, 12 tone, harmonica.
The nice thing about a pitch pipe is, you can bend notes on the pitch pipe to get your Just Intonation

.
Ricky's string guage experiment can be verified by watching the tuner needle as you tune with the bar at a fretted position.
One could also roughly calculate/calibrate their bar pressure coefficient by tuning with the bar placed at various frets using typicall bar pressure.
All this fun stuff you can do with a tuner has me thinking... can somebody give me an "E"?
There is currently an interesting intonation based thread in the No-Peddlers forum regarding the 6 string non pedal C6/A7 tuning (using a tuner), which is the tuning I use on my Supro. http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum2/HTML/006002.html
Here's a fun read on string gauges: http://www.hawaiiansteel.com/learning/gauges.html
Ricky had posted a nice chart concerning guage vs scale, but I can't find it at the moment.
Fun Stuff!
~pb

[This message was edited by Pete Burak on 08 November 2004 at 03:28 PM.]

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