Peterson settings on a guitar with little drop

[Jack Stoner]

From the Peterson StroboPlus HD steel guitar tuning document:

What is sweetened tuning?
Up to now, the word temperament has been used mainly in conjunction with keyboard instruments and is defined as a way of placing the 12 notes of the chromatic scale at varying degrees of pitch from one another. We at Peterson Tuners thought it was high time a name was coined which described altering the pitch of some or all of those notes. We came up with the name “Sweetener” which means any variation from Equal temperament when tuning an instrument.

What about cabinet drop?
Cabinet drop is something we all have to live with, to a more or lesser extent, depending on the degree. However, one more variable does not mean that we shouldn’t strive for better tuning, to make our playing more eloquent.

[Jon Light]

My history with pedal steel guitars is with all-pull machines that have all had the kind of drop that made the SE9 type of standard work pretty well close enough. (Although I don't use the Peterson, it matches up with my own numerical methods fairly closely).
I learned to tune with the Newman chart that came with my Carter and with similar standards that I applied to my first guitar, BMI (although I seem too recall that it has less drop than average...I need to refresh my memory).

But it was my work on my recently acquired push pull that brought to my attention the idea that the global offset numbers that incorporate a presumed cab drop of the 'average' all pull guitar are not appropriate for the Emmons which, like my client's pull-release Jackson, shows around 1-2 cents drop -- something I had not realized even existed in the world. Tuning with my numerical-display tuners, I had to create an entirely new set of numbers.

And back to the issue at hand, if the Jackson were mine, I would have tuned it and learned the sort of numbers that I needed to work with. But I was tuning it for a guy who used his Peterson, relied on a method he had been taught, and was a beginner who did NOT need someone telling him 'no, here's what you should be doing'.
So the purpose of this post was to get a better understanding of Peterson and to confirm, as has been, that there is a better Peterson patch for him that will require no change on his part beyond using a different setting.

And no, this will not make him play in tune. He is a beginner and he has his work cut out for him. My job was to give him a guitar that is in tune and is easy to keep in tune.

[Tim Herman]

Just a question... Are you tuning the pedal and knees to SE9? I used SE9 for the open strings, and then SP9 for pedals and knees. Also made sure to tune in common pedal combos, like tune A pedal with A and B depressed. Tune E lowers with B pedal depressed, and so on. Sorry for the response if you already know this stuff.

[Jon Light]

Tim -- as far as I'm concerned, your question is the right question. And clearly I won't have a decent answer.
This is the biggest reason I don't use my Petersons. I have never seen this discussed where there was a single, clear, unanimous answer. Just when I'm getting a handle, someone comes along and says 'no, that's wrong. Here's the answer'.

I've used SE9, tuning the open strings open with no pedals and that's given me a proper E with A & B down, on another tuner.
But I've also gotten proper A pedal C# in SE9.
I just don't understand.

[Steve Mueller]

John,
If you're giving a beginner tuning instructions and they have F# comps on A pedal, just tune open to JI with G# 3 cents above JI and D# beatless to the D#. Tune pedals to JI and the open D to the B pedal A note. Tune your F pedal slightly sharp of JI from the A pedal C#. F# comps to C# with pedals down. Most combinations will sound good. This is basically PF's method. If you have access to an old Peterson 400, 420 or 450 tuner, you can see JI 2nd's, 3rd's, 4th's 5th's, 6th's and Maj 7th's right off the E note. With this info you can easily develop your own set of temperments for your specific steel, the only way to get it completely right from a tuner. As for the E note, You can try comparing it to the E above middle C on the piano you play with and try that. 440 or 442 is not important for a beginner. He can figure that out later. If no F# comps, string 7 is a "split the difference" and string 1 close to JI of B. You can use this method and tune completely by ear, if you can hear the beats clearly. Full disclosure, if you use a Universal tuning, this method will not work to get all those C6th type changes. This may be one reason why PF did not go to a Uni tuning. Purely speculation on my part.