Tempered Tuning Armageddon.

Jeff Hogsten · Post by **Jeff Hogsten** » 1 Aug 2004 6:28 pm

I have two question and probably the best people to answer the first will be Paul Buddy or John Macy

question one Ive heard there is a piano tuner in Nashville that is tuning for all the major studios that is using a different temperment is this true and if so do you have any idea what he is doing

question two if you tune ET are you tuning absolutly everything straight up

at the present all the playing Im doing is in church with a kurzweil keyboard player playing both keyboard and keyboard bass at the same time I also double on kurzweil keyboard and have a stand built around my steel I wonder if anyone else doubles on keyboard and steel I would tune up and sound great we start playing and I sound out I finally started tuning then hiting chords on the keyboard and adjusting and that has worked to an extent I think Ill try the Et tuning and see how it works just want a little more info about it

Jeff

C Dixon · Post by **C Dixon** » 1 Aug 2004 7:37 pm

"question two if you tune ET are you tuning absolutly everything straight up"

Yes. ET (equal temperament) IS everything is absoulutely dead straight up, which on a tuner means refrencing every note equally* to A @ 440.

carl

* NOTE: Equally in this context, means every note is separated by a fixed numeric factor. Both in frequency of
every half note step; AND in distance between any two adjacent frets.

The fixed factor is determined by taking the 12th root of the digit 2. Why 12 and why 2? Because all frequencies AND distances, double (or halve) every 12 half tones.

This is why on every guitar, the 12th fret is exactly half the distance from the bridge; AND the frequency of ANY note at the 12 fret is exactly twice its frequency at the open fret.[This message was edited by C Dixon on 01 August 2004 at 08:40 PM.]

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 1 Aug 2004 9:27 pm

Well, I'm about as far away from Nashville and the two greats you mentioned as I can get.

I'd like to know too. This is a kind of a bump.

I tune "straight up", to a good korg tuner, like I have for the last 25 years, and I'm usually the one in the bands I play with that doesn't find an electronic piano to be "out of tune, unless they use a flanging effect.

I've always played that way out of ignorance, and now I thank god for it. I don't need no 43 note scales...

Stringed piani are a different bird, as even the "unison" strings are tuned to "have beats" from what I remember or they deaden the timbre. That's the way I look at "beating" thirds. I like 'em that way. They sparkle.

I think that rather than getting "too complex for the average brain" to understand, it is getting simpler, and the reasons are only as complex as one cares to make them.

That thesis that Mr Lampert posted really does say it all if it can be looked at and read fully. Especially the only palpable alternate solution offered is that 43 tone scale.

Also I find that in my subsequent studies, that East Indian music is not quite as complex and "ahead of it's time" as sometimes purported. It appears to be as arbitrary as the ET system.

EJL

David Deratany · Post by **David Deratany** » 2 Aug 2004 6:49 am

Many years ago when I was building an electric guitar and asked a repair guru how accurately the frets had to be placed, he said: "If you want to play in tune you've got no business playing a guitar".

Perhaps the same can be said for steel?

Joe Alterio · Post by **Joe Alterio** » 2 Aug 2004 7:36 am

OK....time for the DEFINITIVE answer. Really! Well...to me anyway

As have been mentioned by others, these I believe to be true.

1) If you are playing your pedal steel by yourself in your practice area or on stage, then JI would allow you to sound more in tune and should be used.

2) If you are playing with other musicians, you must use ET.

I have recorded many of the shows I've played. Before I started playing with my current band, I was practicing all of the songs in my music room, with no backing tracks, and tuned JI. It sounded great to my ears. When I played my first few gigs, I thought I sounded OK on stage...THOUGHT being the key word. When I played back the recordings, I realized I sounded horribly out of tune....and when I asked my bandmates, they agreed.

Once I tuned to ET, while I heard a harshness in my ears, I sounded completely in tune with the other instuments when I played back the recordings. Of course, when practicing, I still hear the harshness, but this appears (to me at least) to be the result of certain notes coming up a bit sharp to my ear. But sharp I can live with....flat I cannot. And now, months later, I can live with it (and my band mates have thanked me).

Joe

(ps - I also tune my 6-string guitars JI when playing at home, and ET when on stage. For the sake of sanity, I just leave the steel tuned to ET all the time now).

Rick Schmidt · Post by **Rick Schmidt** » 2 Aug 2004 9:21 am

I totally agree Joe. The other day I did a recording session for a Kiki Ebsen ("Jed Clampett's" talented daughter.) The song was in C#. The producer liked these open harmonics I was playing, and I actually had a big ending chord playing open 12th fret harmonics using the A+F combo. No way could it've happened any other way than ET.

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 2 Aug 2004 11:28 am

If it made a difference how people tuned why is it that some guys can play in tune that tune JI and some guys can play in tune that play ET ?

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

Bob
intonation help

C Dixon · Post by **C Dixon** » 2 Aug 2004 12:39 pm

What is "in tune"?

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 2 Aug 2004 3:52 pm

Oh sh!t.... Here we go again.

EJL

John Daugherty · Post by **John Daugherty** » 3 Aug 2004 3:59 am

Since the rest of the world has posted here, I won't be left out. I play steel guitar a lot with a guy who does a one-man-band show. He uses Roland midi equipment that produces sampled sounds. His lead guitar has a midi pickup so he can sound like any instrument(except steel guitar). He uses a harmony device with his voice and keys the chords with a floor pedal that looks like an organ pedal bar.
I have tried tuning with Jeffs offset chart. The only way I can sound in tune with this setup is to tune straight up 440. PLUS.. I can't get through a job without playing the steel guitar rag. Try playing that with open strings and tuned JI.