The Steel Guitar Forum

I play along to music tracks. For example, Jeff Newman tracks from his course. There are times I feel I sound out-of-tune even after tuning up. Being that the Pedal Steel Guitar is a fretless instrument, it seems a person should be able to play in-tune to any recording by just making slight adjustment with the bar location to find that 'in-tune'spot. Is this assumption true or not?

What is unfortunate is that I am finding at times that I just can't find that 'in-tune' spot and assume it's just because I am not very good.

Comments? Suggestions?

Hi Ken. I'm having that problem to often, but do to neuropathy in
my feet and arthritis in both hands. Sometimes after playing I just
give up after after a short time and try it again later in the day.
Getting old and playing steel ain't easy, but I still enjoy doing it.
Where are you in Illinois. I'm in West Union.

Tuning and playing in-tune are the most important skills that any steeler needs to master. Both of these require a good ear, and a good ear comes from listening to what you're doing (both as you're playing, and on recordings) and making constant tiny adjustments. Some steelers acquire these skills in a few months, and some take far longer. Keep at it, and try to record yourself occasionally to check your progress. One tip is to try to play along with something that isn't in tune with your guitar. This forces you to listen, rather than relying just on lining up the bar with the frets. Lastly, keep in mind that full chords are a lot harder to keep in perfect tune than just one or two notes. One or two notes can always be "tweaked" in tune with the bar, but that's not the case with fuller chords. Sometimes, a compromise is the best we can do.

Good luck!

I still use a casssette player with Pitch-Control when I need to get the track in tune with the Steel.
I hate playing between the frets .

Love the tin Jim! I’m guilty of using a tin opener when I should know better by now!

Here’s a link to a site Ive found very helpful for tuning practice. http://www.dronetonetool.com/

It has an octaves worth of natural cello drone notes and I use it to practice scales and chords over. Soon makes a difference!
Cheers
Calum

I always put my tracks on jump drives. A lot of tracks are way off pitch
when I get them. I use Audacity or Riff Station to correct the pitch and
sometimes I'll even change the key or tempo to the way I want to play it.

It could be the difference of just intonation v. equal temperament in the track you're playing along to. I've played along to tracks in the past where I had to tune all my strings and bends to 440 to make it sound in tune.

I do transfer audio to my iPad and play it using 'Anytune Pro+'. Its a great program for modifying pitch and tempo. I do try adjusting the pitch at times when I feel I am having tuning issues. Sometimes it has helped. Other times it still seems a bit off.

I'm thinking maybe Curt is onto one of the issues I may be experiencing. That is, not being exactly in tune with the recording artists. It just might be slight enough off to cause some of that out-of-tune sound. Of course I do accept my playing needs more work and experience. I will try out that 'tuning practice' app mentioned by Calum.

Thanks guys.

This may be way to elemental but I found a few years ago that my Tuner helped a lot on finding the perfect position
to be in tune. The tuner reads chords as well as single notes and as we go from Key to Key and raise or drop strings we will come up a little flat or sharp I let the tuner give me an idea if the song is flat or sharp and then I find the proper spot with the tuner to play as close as I can in tune. In my case many years around loud music and even louder machines its easer to measure with my eyes(the tuner) and verify my ears are hearing subtle differences.
And honestly after recording and re recording some songs are just a little to be desired Pitch wise.

Barry

Hey Ken,

'. The fact that your noticing how badly you are out of tune is a good thing. This means you have a good enough to ear to tell that something is wrong, whch means you can change it. I find that playing along with drones helps dramatically with my intonation. Playing along with drones is not only good practice but helps determine flaws in your current tuning method. I feel it is important to not constantly make tuning adjustments while practicing. Once you feel you have the guitar in tune play it that way for a little while before you make adjustments. Its easy to get sucked into a few hours of not being satisfied with a tuning. The sooner you can forget the idea of a perfect tuning and work on your bar intonation the better.

I'm a beginner too. I couple things I've noticed -

Even though I tell myself to never go sharp, err on the side of flat if anything, I still tend to go a few cents sharp for whatever reason, even though I have good pitch normally. This is something I feel I can self-correct.

On my guitar, the AF pedal combo always sounds a little off. I'm pretty sure I can flatten my F lever a bit and smooth it out.

Are there certain pedal combos that are more problematic than others? A symptom of a perhaps an off-sweetened tuning or mistuning.

Leo Grassl wrote:...forget the idea of a perfect tuning and work on your bar intonation...

Amen.

C. D. Maclean wrote:Love the tin Jim! I’m guilty of using a tin opener when I should know better by now!

Here’s a link to a site Ive found very helpful for tuning practice. http://www.dronetonetool.com/

It has an octaves worth of natural cello drone notes and I use it to practice scales and chords over. Soon makes a difference!
Cheers
Calum

+1 on using the drone tool. there's no hiding when practicing with it.

Curt Trisko wrote:It could be the difference of just intonation v. equal temperament in the track you're playing along to. I've played along to tracks in the past where I had to tune all my strings and bends to 440 to make it sound in tune.

Exactly correct! All tracks are not created equal.

I have also noticed , especially live with some bands , that the guitar player and or the bass apply to much pressure on their strings , causing them to go sharp , throughout the song making things somewhat difficult for the steel player. this also happens on some recordings.

So your inability to play in tune with some tracks may play in part to these problems.

Try playing along to an old Neil Young track. It's almost impossible to play in tune.

JIM'S TIN CAN!!!!

Try playing along to an old Neil Young track. It's almost impossible to play in tune.

Haha! I think that was part of the allure to Young's music - sounding like a train almost off the rails: off tune; off time;instruments not tuned exactly together. Most of the hippy bands were like that - NRPS for example, Buddy Cage was the only codifying factor to the whole band haha.

Jay Coover wrote:I'm a beginner too. I couple things I've noticed...

...certain pedal combos that are more problematic than others? A symptom of a perhaps an off-sweetened tuning or mistuning.

Definitely! In the real world, there are certain chords and pedal combinations that will probably never be in perfect tune. Your phrase "off-sweetened" is kinda the dead give away, since "sweetening" a tuning means tuning means making it intentionally off so that things will sound better. Any tuning involving offsets or "sweetenings" is a compromise in the first place, in that you're just getting things "close" enough, so they all sound in-tune. Technically though, everything winds up being a little "off".

Nature of the beast, I guess. That is, unless you want to load up the guitar with mechanical compensators, which probably isn't worth all the expense and effort...for most of us.

Donny Hinson wrote:

Nature of the beast, I guess. That is, unless you want to load up the guitar with mechanical compensators, which probably isn't worth all the expense and effort...for most of us. Winking

This thing sort of reminds me of the gut string classical guitars I started on as a kid. If you got open E tuned correctly, you could count on the G in your open C chord being almost halfway between G & F# - it was horrible! So you had to tune in between and live with them both being a little off. That problem was much less pronounced in steel string (especially electric) guitars. As time went by, and you got better, you either compensated a little with your fingers, or just didn't hear it as much.

The A pedal/F lever combination is inherently troublesome. While it's a very useful position it is, in my opinion, best used as a brief stepping-stone to somewhere else!

I don't linger there.

... or if you prefer a different analogy...

Roger Rettig wrote:The A pedal/F lever combination is inherently troublesome. While it's a very useful position it is, in my opinion, best used as a brief stepping-stone to somewhere else!

I don't linger there.

Saying this might ruffle a few feathers, but I think insights along the lines of Roger's above are more helpful for beginner steel players than telling them to spend hours fighting with their own ears instead of accepting the fact that the instrument has its limitations that need to be worked around.

I remember that when I started I wasted plenty of time and effort on trying to change things about my playing technique or my listening ability to fix issues that were inherent in the instrument, amp, etc.. Taking Roger's example, it's not hard to imagine a beginner steel player being confused about why they can't make A+F sound in tune... and then eventually just trying to persuade themselves that it's their own ears that are the problem. Besides being a waste of time, it could make the beginner lose faith in their ears, which is a terrible impediment for a musician.

Roger Rettig wrote:The A pedal/F lever combination is inherently troublesome. While it's a very useful position it is, in my opinion, best used as a brief stepping-stone to somewhere else!

I don't linger there.

Thanks Roger . I have fought this for 40 years and always thought it was me.

Deleted. Too contentious.