440 or 442?

Dan Hatfield · Post by **Dan Hatfield** » 11 Jun 2016 5:48 pm

I'm with Henry on this one. I always have a keyboard in my band, and I don't have a clue whether I tune 440, 450, or 490. The important thing is that when I strum an open E chord is that it sounds perfectly in tune with an E chord on the piano. You should never tune single notes to the piano because the piano is not "just" tuned. But if you match a CHORD with the corresponding CHORD, you will be golden. So when my open E chord is matching the piano E chord as perfectly as possible, then I program the tuning into my Peterson and I am set for life. The tuner never loses its setting. If you don't have a keyboard in the band, in my humble opinion, you should still go to a music store, find a high quality keyboard, and set your tuner to that just in case you have a guest sit in on keys at some point. Sure works for me, YMMV. [[ Here is an edit to what I just said. Not only do you want the E chord to match the keyboard, you also want the A chord (with A & B pedals down) to match the keys. So if the A chord is slightly flat to the piano then you will have to split the difference and make the E chord slightly sharp. But once you find the best balance between the two, you are set.]]

Jamie Mitchell · Post by **Jamie Mitchell** » 11 Jun 2016 6:44 pm

Pete Burak wrote:
I think the thing about 440 or 442.5 or whatever has alot to do with Parallax Error, which probably has to do with how tall you are....

ok, i'll bite.
i'm 5'5".
what reference pitch should i be tuning to?

Jim Palenscar · Post by **Jim Palenscar** » 11 Jun 2016 9:35 pm

More vibrato

Tom Campbell · Post by **Tom Campbell** » 12 Jun 2016 4:44 am

Dan...Amen

440, 442, etc. is totally irrelevant when playing in a band. Your either in tune with the other instruments or your not!
The key board/piano is not going to tune to your Peterson or whatever.

Georg Sørtun · Post by **Georg Sørtun** » 12 Jun 2016 4:52 am

Jamie Mitchell wrote:
Pete Burak wrote:
I think the thing about 440 or 442.5 or whatever has alot to do with Parallax Error, which probably has to do with how tall you are....
ok, i'll bite.
i'm 5'5".
what reference pitch should i be tuning to?

I'm 5'7", and, there is no "Parallax Error" in open position

Fact is that if we place the bar using our ears, instead of or rather in addition to using our eyes, there is no "Parallax Error" to bother with anywhere up the neck.

When we "JI" tune our steels to keyboards (ET), we will have to play visibly off-fret in many, if not most, positions up the neck to get the center note right in pitch and the chord to sound right with the keyboard chords. All talk about "Parallax Error" and other visual errors that we can come up with, should be totally ignored then. Play by ear.

Georg Sørtun · Post by **Georg Sørtun** » 12 Jun 2016 4:56 am

Jim Palenscar wrote:More vibrato

...use a Flanger

Works wonders while tuning...

Len Amaral · Post by **Len Amaral** » 12 Jun 2016 8:17 am

b0b,

Who makes that tuner you posted. I use a Snark and all my regular guitars and the old Standard Boss TU-12. Would be nice to have a clip on tuner that read cents.

Jamie Mitchell · Post by **Jamie Mitchell** » 12 Jun 2016 9:41 am

Georg SÃ¸rtun wrote: All talk about "Parallax Error" and other visual errors that we can come up with, should be totally ignored then. Play by ear.

well, yeah.
i don't see any possible way that your *height* would influence your tuning. or how tuning to a different reference pitch would help parallax, really. that would be a fretboard adjustment, not a tuning adjustment, as far as i can tell. i don't know, the parallax thing has never given me a rash in the slightest.

if you were customizing an steel for height, it seems like you'd be changing the scale length, not the tuning. right, arm length?

that's why i asked Pete, because it doesn't make any sense to me. i'm 5'5", my buddy is 6'2". what should we each be tuning to?

j

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 12 Jun 2016 10:05 am

What you tune to is irrelevant to the center frequency.
Do you want to stand out or fit inin?

Georg Sørtun · Post by **Georg Sørtun** » 12 Jun 2016 11:16 am

Jamie Mitchell wrote:that's why i asked Pete, because it doesn't make any sense to me.

Right ... it doesn't make sense.

Yes, "Parallax Error" is real, but it doesn't affect tuning. Even when tuning by 12th fret harmonics it relates to open tuning, and the bar is not part of the equation.

Also, "Parallax Error" shouldn't be an issue worth worrying about when playing, unless one tries to intonate precisely by eyesight alone.

Some say we should "place bar exactly over and lined up with frets", but I cannot imagine anyone being able to keep their head and eyes so still in one position that they can precisely determine the angle along the fretboard and calculate the degree of "Parallax Error" to intonate with any degree of precision by eyesight - without correcting by ear and experience.

Of course we do move and position the bar partly by eyesight, but that soon - with practice - becomes more of a reflex than actual visual aiming.
Practice also trains our ear-to-hand reflexes to time off-fret moves and/or bar-pushes those few cents necessary to pitch our JI or sweetened tuned steels to intonate and sound in tune with other instruments - including ET tuned keyboards.
I constantly "micro-tune" with the bar while playing, and I rarely ever add bar-vibrato for anything but to extend/sustain the tone.

I find all these technical details that may complicate tuning and playing the PSG, interesting and worth knowing about - thus well worth discussing.

But, in the end it is only what we, and others, hear that matters, and I will never blame such "technical matters" if I fail audible when playing a PSG I'm familiar with. It is entirely my fault if I don't time and intonate correctly when playing.

The only time I have blamed "technical matters" for my failure to play with what at least sounded like perfect pitch, was when I tuned up someone else's Carter Starter and tried to play it for the first time. With me being used to playing Dekleys, the C.S. simply did not measure up and my attempt at playing it sounded awful

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 12 Jun 2016 12:35 pm

Len Amaral wrote:b0b,

Who makes that tuner you posted. I use a Snark and all my regular guitars and the old Standard Boss TU-12. Would be nice to have a clip on tuner that read cents.

That's a Snark HZ-1. It doesn't show cents - it shows actual Hz (waves per second). I don't know if it will work on pedal steel. I've ordered one, so we'll soon find out.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 12 Jun 2016 12:52 pm

dude!! try tuning to 420, man...
it's far out. sweeet!

Tommy Shown · Post by **Tommy Shown** » 12 Jun 2016 1:32 pm

I used to tune straight up 440 on all my strings. Until, I met Jim Lindsey. Jim taught me to tune the 2nd,3rd, and 6th strings 12 cents flat to 428. Then the rest of the strings are tuned straight up. This method has helped achieve the proper intonation, that I needed to play.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 12 Jun 2016 4:10 pm

I use 440 because I want my open "E to sound good with the guitar players "E" chord. Never saw much common sense in tuning 440 "pedals down" because I use the no-pedal open position far more that I use the "pedals down" open position.

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 12 Jun 2016 5:23 pm

Donny Hinson wrote:I use 440 because I want my open "E to sound good with the guitar players "E" chord. Never saw much common sense in tuning 440 "pedals down" because I use the no-pedal open position far more that I use the "pedals down" open position.

How does your G# sound against the guitar player's "E" chord?

Ian Rae · Post by **Ian Rae** » 13 Jun 2016 12:01 am

it turns out he was tuned almost +20 cents sharp!

We assume that when we see a guitarist staring at a tuner, he knows what he's doing; but my science teachers always told me not to assume anything...

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 13 Jun 2016 5:30 am

b0b wrote: How does your G# sound against the guitar player's "E" chord?

Better than it would if I tuned ET.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 13 Jun 2016 9:20 am

Jamie Mitchell wrote:
if you were customizing an (a) steel for height, it seems like you'd be changing the scale length, not the tuning. right, arm length?

huh??

Dennis N Brown · Post by **Dennis N Brown** » 13 Jun 2016 5:53 pm

gents I must say how is a newbie like me ever going to figure out how to tune when all you experienced just tune to whatever suits our fancy soi guess fornow I need tostick to the frequency values sent upby mr newman until I can get good enough man you guys are really confusing littleold mr dennis n brown Pocahontas Arkansas a true son of the south

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 13 Jun 2016 6:13 pm

Dennis, this is a neverending discussion, but a basic tuner will get you close enough to get started

Dennis N Brown · Post by **Dennis N Brown** » 13 Jun 2016 7:32 pm

thanks lane for now I am going to keepwhat ihave the carter and the marlen didn't get to go tojohnny coxs money trouble or more specifically woman trouble oh wellthat is the story of a males life trying tokeepa woman satisfied dmmif they cant go thru that green stuff sound famililar guys dennis

Ian Rae · Post by **Ian Rae** » 14 Jun 2016 1:15 am

Another suggestion Dennis is use your ears. That's not sarcastic. If it sounds right, then it is right. I have tried some tunings that however carefully you follow the numbers, they sound bad. So trust your musical sense.

Jeff Harbour · Post by **Jeff Harbour** » 14 Jun 2016 4:42 am

I was fortunate that my first band had a harmonica player (a fixed, non-tune-able instrument). At the time I was loosely following the Newman Chart (with the E's at "0" cents relative to the reference pitch), but tweaking it here and there to my ear's preference. When my open chords didn't sound right with the band, I played with the reference and settled on "442.7" being ideal for my GFI D-10. Haven't had to change it since.

I would guess that other brands would have varying "cabinet drop" effects that would make that reference different. As Ian said, always let your ear be the judge.

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 14 Jun 2016 8:29 am

Harmonicas are tuned to just intonation with the root note matching the A=442 Hz standard - the equivalent of our "tune E to 442". See http://harp.andrewzajac.ca/Tune for more information.

Dennis N Brown · Post by **Dennis N Brown** » 14 Jun 2016 12:32 pm

guess what when I got my carter starter I also got a dvd with it and asusual I put it up and forgot where welli found it yesterday and as usual I didn't have a dvd so another tripto Walmart gotthe dvd going and watched the video they did a really bang up job I amnow confident about tackling any number of issues by the way they said the same thing to tune by ear so that is what I amgoing to do their section on the mechanics of tuning was exceptionally good a word of thanks to the carter people on a super good job dennis yep guys I am stil replacing stuff the ex wife took oh well that's life