The Steel Guitar Forum

I just watched a guy on YouTube showing how he tunes his guitar. It looks like you could spend a while just learning how to do that properly. I remember fiddling with my student model MSA 30 yrs ago, and never being able to get it back in tune haha. A guy told me that he played with a PSG player who would tune to the tuner, and then tune by ear and was always out of tune. I could imagine that being kind of a nightmare on a gig. Is this something that is very hard to get the hang of?

This is a subject that will never get agreement. Everyone has their ideas on how to tune a guitar or when its in tune.

There are many (long) forum threads on this. (And this will eventually be another).

Haha! I suppose this is another complicated subject of study involved in this instrument. I guess I'll have to spend some time figuring it out when I get it here.

Some tune to a guitar tuner and sound fine. Equal Temperament(E.T.)
Some tune to a tempered tuning such as a Peterson tuner or by ear. (J.I.)
It takes practice and time to make a PSG sound in tune.
A practice track really helps to play along with.
I use a Peterson personally and like that for it's simplicity.
Tuning to Equal Temperament is even more simple but can sound out when playing by yourself however when a playing with an accompaniment it will sound more correct.
Tuning by ear to a reference note is a slippery slope with PSG. That is the old school way and predates electronic tuners.
My opinion is do yourself a favor and get a Peterson tuner so you can focus on practicing the instrument in stead of taking a year or two learning to tune it.

What a Ken said, get you a tuner. There are many ways to tune your guitar and what's right for you may not be right for me. Just learn to play in tune is what it's about and the Peterson or some other brands will get it where you can accomplish that.

Peterson Strobo Plus HD will get what you are looking for. Use the pre sets. OE9 and 0P9 for pedals and knees.

I forget who gave me this method of tuning a Stage One, but it works great for me.

Simple quick. you only need two setting 441 and 440 and you only have to change from one to the other one time. So you can use a very basic cheap tuner for this and it works fine.
1. tune all the strings 441
2. engage E lever (lowers the Es to Eb)and tune the E lever to 441
3. push A & B down and tune A & B to 440
4. continue to hold down A & B and engage D lever (lowers the D# to D)and tune the D lever to 440
5. push B & C down and tune C pedal (tuning wrench on E and B string) to 440
6. engage F lever (raises the Es to F) and A pedal and tune the F lever to 440
when you touch up your tuning during the gig you simply push and hold down the A & B pedals and tune all the strings to 440.
It only take a few minuets to tune up this way and only seconds to touch it up later.
Since the steel is tuned that way from the last gig I usually just mash the A & B down hold and tune straight across 440 just like a touch up.

This means that the string and the E lever are tuned 441 and all the pedals and other levers are tuned 440.
with the cabinet drop with the pedals down everything across the neck will read 440
This is tuning straight up allowing for cabinet drop

Bobby, I think oBo, has a tuning chart here on the forum somewhere. Go to it and tune to it. If you tune to the one above, I guarantee you, your 100% out.

I have been using a clip-on for the nonpedal and it works fine. I just picked up a Boss Chromatic. Rich Gardner's post is pretty close to the video I watched. When I get the MSA here, I'll get a Peterson and, I'm going to try and keep it simple so I can spend more time learning to play like some of you have suggested - Thanks.

there is way more involved in playing in tune then just the tuning process itself... bottom line is you can either play in tune or you can't, if you can't play in tune no tuner or other system will help ... people spend tons of money on tuning gadgets, and they still sound out of tune... the same goes for the tone, you either knowhow to get a good tone or you don't, people spend thousands of dollars on boutique amps and effects or guitars, and they still sound like crap ... Buddy could play Carter Starter thru $300 Peavey, and you couldn't touch his tone ... it's 90% in the players hands, tone and tune ...

You are right about the hands Damir. That's a work in progress for me right now. But I do, at least, have some experience w/that on 6-string. In respect of this topic, the fact that my ear is my best attribute should help. Thanks.

If you have a tuner (any kind), and take the time to get your guitar tuned right, write down the offsets or program the tuner with them. This shouldn't take more than a week as I can see. Of course some people will have a harder time. After that you should not have to spend most of your time trying to tune.

Bobby Nelson wrote:You are right about the hands Damir. That's a work in progress for me right now. But I do, at least, have some experience w/that on 6-string. In respect of this topic, the fact that my ear is my best attribute should help. Thanks.

Bobby, I was just talking in general, people depend on tools, but the real magic is in your hands and ears of course .... playing that thing in tune is an art on its own, and electronic tuner will help, but most of it is in the player... IMHO

If you see a steel player that spends a lot of time tuning, chances are that he is trying use to Just Intonation (JI). The main problem with JI is that if is slips just a little bit in the wrong direction, it will sound horrible.

Our ears are culturally conditioned to accept sharp major thirds (up to a point), but not flat ones. Once you understand that, you can "temper" your guitar to be a little bit out but "fault tolerant" so that the small amount of detuning that happens during a show won't sound bad at all.

Meantone temperament is the simplest way to do this. When your thirds are tuned 10 cents flat of ET* instead of JI's 14 cents, there is enough wiggle room for comfort and confidence. That's my approach, anyway. If you disagree, I don't care.

*ET = equal temperament

Damir, you are so correct, in this. I never thought of it that way, but it is. bOb, you have to be the old stand-by. The years have gave you so much to offer. I do tune to the Newman, but my ear, tells me where my hands needs to be. I guess that is called Vibrato.

Damir is correct, hands and ears is where the tuning is. Knowing when and how much vibrato to use and hand and eye and ear contact is what makes the steel guitar sound in tune. A perfectly tuned steel guitar is a figment of someone's imagination. There's no such thing, it has to be tempered to sound In tune even with its self.

I have two push pulls and rarely ever have to tune either one unless drastic temperature change but when i tune, I tune E's to 440 and get beats out with other strings. Works for me.

I don't disagree bOb - I have very little knowlege of this subject at all haha. I'm just trying to digest some of what you folks are talking about. Before I watched that video the other night, (he was demonstrating Just intonation) I hadn't thought about it and, guess I figured I'd bring it home, tune it up and start practicing. Watching that, made me remember how badly I got my little MSA out of wack by screwing w/the tuners all those yrs ago. I figured I should do a little reckoning about it. I'm glad there are other methods than JI - it looks pretty well complicated.

another interesting thing is that some guitars may be easier to play in tune then others, at least for me... I was recording some stuff for my latest project in my home studio couple weeks ago, I started with Sho~Bud Pro II, and then I cut another track for the same song with my bolt on Emmons, and even tho the both cuts were done in tune, I noticed that it was much easier for me to keep in tune on the Sho Bud then on the Emmons, I had to fight little harder to keep Emmons in tune for some reason, while Sho~Bud was piece of cake, effortless, I enjoyed playing it, it was so easy to play in tune... not sure why is that...

I watched Lloyd Green play at what was effectively a garden party in Nashville last Sunday. There were very few people around before the show, and I watched intently as Lloyd lifted his guitar out of the case, plugged it into a Webb amp via a delay pedal and volume pedal and started playing it. I didn't see a tuner come into the equation at any time. Lloyd didn't like the tone first off as he had not played through this particular amp before. A tweak here and there and there it was - Lloyd's sound!

I recall that he may have adjusted one string fractionally and that was it. No sitting there for ages tuning up. He just got on with it and that was it until he came back to do his set later. Lloyd was perfectly in tune for the whole of his set. It's not rocket science. I have to agree with Bobby Lee about people who spend an age tuning up.

I heard from some guys who were there, that Lloyds tone was unbelievable... 1973 Sho~Bud LDG played through Webb 614 by Lloyd Green will not sound nothing short of great ... no need for 10K guitar or expensive boutique amp, all you need is a man who knows what he's doing ... don't even need a tuner lol

Hi Damir. Lloyd's tone was magnificent. I have heard many people describe Webb amps as being in the expensive boutique category. I was hoping you would be at the show.

I think it was Robbie Turner who plugged into that Webb later in the afternoon and asked who had set it up. He said that it sounded (bleep) fantastic!

hi Ken my friend, You can get a nice Webb for less then what you'd pay for a new Quilter Steelsire, and I wouldn't consider a Quilter experience boutique amp... I was supposed to be there but promised my daughter I would take her to the pool, so that's where I was, maybe next year...

No problem Damir. You have to get your priorities right in family life.

music was my priority for a big part of my life, for the last 10 years that has been my little girl... life is good

Well that's good news Ken. I'm going to need all the precious little time I have learning to play. Hopefully it won't be a time consuming learning curve.