The Steel Guitar Forum

I am not a psychoacoustician. I'm not even sure if there is such a thing. But if I were one I would be fairly certain that the listener to music is more tolerant of sharpness of pitch that flatness. Even being in tune can sound dull compared to being a fraction sharp.

I don't enjoy playing on the open strings much but I did have to play a solo on Kind Woman in A and the only register that sounded right was A/B at the nut. At rehearsal I checked that the electronic piano was tuned to A=440 and dutifully did the same. Terrible - so I requested time (they were easy-going) to crank it up to 442 and it sounded fine. No logic there.

Over the years I have sat in a good many symphony orchestra brass sections and the ritual is always the same: tune carefully to the oboe's A and then when you think no-one's looking push in a bit. (Of course no-one's looking because they're all doing the same thing... ) There is a practical reason. On all wind instruments it is easier to correct the intonation of an individual note downwards than upwards, and tuning a little sharp avoids that feeling of being "trapped" under a dull note.

I have always used the “old” Jeff Newman just intonation settings with E straight-up at the “440” (zero) mark.
Several years ago, Larry Bell (an excellent player and an engineer) described on the SGF what I believe to be the most logical way to tune one’s pedal steel to accommodate the “cabinet drop” that occurs when the A & B pedals are engaged.

Basically Larry recommends tuning the E9 fourth and eighth strings (the Es) to "440" with the A & B pedals engaged. Then release the A & B pedals, and check your 4th string. Whatever the offset from “440” the E string reads with the pedals disengaged, tune your B string with the same degree of offset.
For example, my guitar has little cabinet drop, so the E (with no pedals engaged) usually shows up at about 1.5 Hz higher than "440" (“441.5”), so I tune my B strings to “441.5”.

As Pythagoras discovered 2,500 years ago, the purest musical relationship is between the root tone and the fifth tone.
The result of Larry’s method is that when the A & B pedals are engaged, the E note (the fifth scale-tone in A) is at 440, and when the A & B pedals are disengaged, the E note is in tune with the B note (the fifth scale-tone in E) at 1.5 Hz high (441.5).

Very logical, very simple, and the guitar is in perfect tune.

For a more detailed explanation:
http://www.larrybell.org/id29.htm

- Dave

Edited to correct "cents" to "Hz".

Jeff Harbour wrote:I was fortunate that my first band had a harmonica player

that's something you don't hear very often.

David, 1.5 cents is NOT 1.5Hz off. 1.5 cents sharp is more like A=440.3

I tune straight up 440, and learned that way. If I felt it didn't work I'd try something else.

A more interesting thing to keep in mind is when bringing the guitar into a new environment (A/C, outdoor, etc) , tuning it , and then later the new climate sets everything sharp or flat. I've had more than one gig where retuning is necessary before the first song is ever played.

Parallax?? Not in my bag of tricks.. How does sight relate to sound? Out of pitch is out of pitch, it has nothing to do with what you see.. You hear out of pitch, not see out of pitch It's all about sound.. If you have trouble with pitch try using a tuner to guide you. Learn the differences in pitches. How sharp or flat can you detect, etc..

Lane Gray wrote:I usually tune my Es to 330. Sometimes 331.5

b0b wrote:I have a 329.6 Hz tuning fork around here somewhere. You can get this tuner from Amazon:

I just received one of these tuners and tested it. The Hz display is preprogrammed for guitar and bass. It does not work for steel guitar or any unusual guitar tunings. You can tune a pedal steel to equal temperament with it, but the Hz feature only works if you're tuning guitar or bass, and tuning the strings in order (low to high).

Bummer.

Does it only do E A D G B E?? That's dumb on their part

Carl Mesrobian wrote:Does it only do E A D G B E?? That's dumb on their part

It will tune all notes, but the Hz feature only works on guitar or bass notes, in order E A D G B E ascending for guitar, G D A E descending for bass. Very strange!