The Steel Guitar Forum

I've got a client's guitar on the bench for some tweaking. Jackson Maverick. He is a beginner. I do not use Petersons but I have one. I need to set it up with the Peterson so that he can go home and tune with his.

The problem is, this guitar has maybe 2 cents "cabinet drop" (reading from my Seiko tuner with a digital display). He is using the SE9 program which (if I understand things, and I do get confused about Peterson settings) presumes a lot more drop. It seems to me that he needs a different Peterson setting but I'm not sure about these things.
I am NOT his mentor and I don't want to confuse matters for him.

Any thoughts?

Any drop of 3 or 4 cents (or less) needs to be ignored. Emphasize that tuning should be done so it sounds good, not looks good on a meter.

I'll leave this open for a little bit to see if anybody is interested in actually reading it before they post unhelpful knee-jerk cliches.

Jon Light wrote:I'll leave this open for a little bit to see if anybody is interested in actually reading it before they post unhelpful knee-jerk cliches.

As I understand it, back in the dawn of time, Jeff Newman went around with an ancient strobe tuner taking notes on the actual tunings used by the great steel guitar players of those days. He compiled his results and averaged them out to come up with a set of offsets from equal-tempered tuning to accommodate the peculiarities of the pedal steel. These led to the sweeteners (SE9, SC6) for the Peterson tuners.

I use them, or rather Jack Stoner's sweeteners, which are based on them, on all of my pedal steels. There are a few notes I tune by ear now and again, but in general, the Peterson sweeteners work fine. Any differences in "cabinet drop" don't seem to affect this result.

(I use the sweetener for acoustic guitar, too, which is based on what James Taylor tells his roadies to tune his guitars to, or so I understand. They sound more in tune than they do when tuned "straight up".)

That's my take on it. I ain't proud; if I can tune without having to think about it and get a good result, I'll take it!

--Al Evans

The thing is, some of the Peterson programs are deliberately sharp to compensate for drop. The intention (to my best understanding) is to achieve a straight-up E with the pedals down. But a guitar that has so little drop, using these programs, will end up with the pedal down E's (and the whole guitar) being sharp. As I am seeing with this Jackson after I tune to SE9 and then check it on a standard chromatic tuner. Which makes me think that the owner should be using a different Peterson sweetener.

But again, I am not his teacher or his mentor and he does not need confusion added to his task.

You're hitting on one of the things I really don't like about the the Strobostomp; That is simply, it will not tell you exactly the offset values are for any given sweetener you may choose to try on the device. Sure you can figure out that SE9 is based on Jeff Newman's chart and you can find that chart on the internet and hope/assume that whatever chart you found ACTUALLY matches whatever is in that SE9 sweetener, but that's more work than it ought to be because of the black-box approach Peterson took with these sweeteners.

I'm still experimenting with the various "sweeteners" and figuring out which ones sound the best to my ears. But I expect I'm eventually going to end up making my own sweetener (where, by the way you CAN exactly see and modify your exact offsets) that suits my guitar.

It would be nice if one could treat the Peterson sweeteners like any other digital device preset where its common to copy a stock setting and then just tweak it to your personal preference. But unfortunately, with the Strobostomp, you have to figure out what works for you by just building it yourself unless you're lucky enough to have one of the stock presets just work perfectly.

I realize I'm probably not helping you answer your question, but if you're a bit baffled with these sweeteners you're not alone and I hope I helped explain why that's the case even for someone familiar with the device.

My understanding the "Sweeteners" (a term coined by Peterson) are not for cabinet drop.

I've used the SE9/SP9 (actually my own JE9 which combines the SE9/SP9 into one program, and includes some common changes that are not in the Newman's). I've used it on a Franklin, that has cabinet drop, and on two GFI's that basically have no cabinet drop. The tunings work great on all three.

We can talk about tunings all day. Just my take.

A side comment on Newman's tunings. The C6th tuning numbers must have been from Buddy Emmons. I tuned the C6th using the Emmons harmonic method and then checked the Newman tuning with my Peterson tuner it was 'all on".

This is where I go nuts trying to understand...
I thought that SE9 was several cents sharp of 440 so that AB down gave you a straight up E. But the result was that open, with no bar, no pedals the E's were sharp.
And OE9 was tuned so that the open strings were in tune, straight up.

So that's what I think of as cabinet drop compensation. Right, sweetening is something else entirely, the tweaking of temperament. My mistake in bringing that word into the discussion.
I don't use Peterson myself. I tune my Williams and Fessenden with the E's 6-7 cents sharp. I tune my P/P with the E's around 1-2 cents sharp. The Peterson strobe readout is not happy around the Emmons in SE9 but is pretty close on those other two guitars..

According to some of Peterson's older documentation, the SE9 offsets supposedly have the Es at 9.8 cents sharp and OE9 has the Es with 0 cents offset. Again, the black-box approach to sweetener settings leaves us searching the Internet rather than the device itself for what the actual offsets are.

I'm a steel guitar newbie, so take this for what its worth. Just a thought:

When asking whether or not sweeteners are designed to compensate for cabinet drop or imperfect intonation, I have to think a functional "sweetener" would address both. The problem being addressed is that the instrument can't be perfectly in tune (for whatever reason - cabinet drop or what ever else), so we make calculated compromises when we tune. The only difference between adjusting for cabinet drop vs adjusting for imperfect intonation is that cabinet drop is a physical manifestation that is different from one guitar to the next, while imperfect intonation is theoretically not dependent on the specific guitar in question. That's why I think the ultimate answer is likely to just build your own "sweetener".

I guess one could ask the question: When Jeff Newman created his tuning chart, was he addressing only intonation, or intonation as well as the effects of cabinet drop? Whatever the answer is to that question (which someone here likely knows), then that's the answer to the previous question as well, at least as it applies to the SE9 and SP9 presets (those are based on Newman's charts).

Good post, Brian.

Summation of my situation: Any of the programs will get the guitar well enough in tune with itself. I specifically asked the client which patch he uses and he said SE9. I need to send him home with a guitar tuned to the system he uses that will stay in tune when he touches it up in SE9. It will not be tuned to 440 because of how little drop it has. The good news is that it plays in tune with itself and that he is not going to be playing with other people for a while. When that time comes, he's going to need a different Peterson patch.

And btw, this is a thumbs-up to Jackson for a stable guitar in the Maverick.

Jon - I agree too many options add to confusion. I use Sid Hudsons SH9. For guitars with little cabinet drop, this seems to be a good tuning.

Mike D

Thanks Mike.

I'm going to tell him that eventually he's going to have to address this. Doesn't have to be today. When the time comes, we can talk.

Meanwhile, this just doubles my commitment to my method and to my tools -- tuners that give a numerical readout of the amount of deviation from -0- .
And ears.

I think the SE9 offsets (which is sort of an adjusted JI centered around 442 Hz) on the Peterson are fine as a starting point for someone learning to play. Definitely a lot better than how I (and I imagine many others, especially guitar players) started - tuning straight up to a standard ET tuner.

As far as cabinet drop and the 442 tuning center are concerned, I think that is something to just adjust to by ear. There are other threads that I can't find right now where Paul Franklin discusses this, but these examples sort of clarify how he has explained this:

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=191057

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=230171

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=206337

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=230171

I know there was a lot of blather on this thread, but this is where the light came on for me about the limitations of how I was tuning:

https://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/010572-3.html

Jon Light wrote:This is where I go nuts trying to understand...
I thought that SE9 was several cents sharp of 440 so that AB down gave you a straight up E. But the result was that open, with no bar, no pedals the E's were sharp.
And OE9 was tuned so that the open strings were in tune, straight up.

Jon, I think your assumption is only partly correct. While cabinet drop is a factor, I think the reasoning for raising SE9 by 9.8 cents is so that the other flattened notes aren't so flat in relation to "straight up". Even with A&B pedals down, the E's are intentionally sharp. If you're concerned about tuning the E's so sharp, OE9 is essentially the same offsets only with the E's tuned straight up. EM9 also uses zero offset for the E's.

Peterson has a library of downloadable sweeteners, and your client may eventually want to experiment. For now, simple is probably best, and that would mean choosing one of the built-in sweeteners. Why don't you experiment to see which sounds best....EM9/EP9 or OE9/OP9? FWIW, my guitar has roughly 3 cents cabinet drop, and to my ears, OE9 works well.[

Dave -- you've supplied a reference library for when I've got the time and motivation. Thank you.

Tommy -- that's great. Both what you said and even more valuably, your comment about your experience with a stable guitar and OE9. Thanks.

Of course the StroboPlus HD™ - and perhaps other Peterson tuners - can measure the amount of cabinet drop of any steel guitar.

https://www.petersontuners.com/beyond/?p=880

Can anyone tell me exactly how this measurement can then be applied to create a 'sweetener' that is tailored to that individual steel?

Greg Tudor wrote:Of course the StroboPlus HD™ - and perhaps other Peterson tuners - can measure the amount of cabinet drop of any steel guitar.

https://www.petersontuners.com/beyond/?p=880

Can anyone tell me exactly how this measurement can then be applied to create a 'sweetener' that is tailored to that individual steel?

Once again, the Peterson "Sweeteners" DO NOT compensate for cabinet drop.

The Newman system available in Peterson has a built-in assumption of what the guitar's cabinet drop will be and tunes around it. Looking at the numbers, they assume your guitar will have 4-8 cents of drop on the E-string when you step on the pedals. If your guitar has that, all is well. But Jon found that if you have a guitar that doesn't have that much drop, this tuning system won't sound good.

It's not about where the E string alone is set. It's all about the difference between the offset of the E string, and that of the "A" note (on strings 6 and 3 with B-pedal down). That difference is where cabinet drop is taken into account and 'tuned out.' But in any canned chart like this, the creator of the system can't know how much drop your particular guitar has, so they just build in a generic assumption.

We can figure out exactly what their assumption is by looking at the details, so here are the numbers that tell the tale:

In SE9, the open E is rooted at +10 cents.

When you step on the pedals, that pitch may (or may not) drop several cents depending on how the guitar is constructed.

The question, then... is does it drop down enough to fall in line with where the system has you tune the pedals-down "A" chord? The root "A" note on string 6B is tuned to +4 in this system.

So, that E string starting at +10 needs to drop down close to +4 so it will work in the "A" chord.

Specifically, you need the E-string to drop enough so that it will land within a range... a range of 2 cents on either side of what's happening' on the "A" note. Since "A" is at +4, it needs to land within the range of +2 to +6. Note: the reason for '2 cents on either side': the E-string forms the 5th interval against the root on 6B. The rule for 5th intervals is that they need to be no more than about 2 cents away from whatever the root note is tuned to.

So, simple subtraction, if your guitar has 4 to 8 cents of drop on the E-string, it lands it within that in-tune range and that interval sounds fine in the pedals-down position. But if your guitar has very little drop, that "A" chord may sound a little sour because the E-string will be too sharp. It didn't drop enough to fall in line with the rest of that pedals-down chord. Lots of guitars these days don't have the requisite 4 cents (or more) of drop that the Newman system assumes your guitar will have.

Wonder why Peterson haven't done anything about this? It should be easy for them to offer presets that are compensated for differing amounts of cabinet drop.

(Not that it matters to me. I used to have a VSII, but the cryptic manual and unintuitive operation made my already grey hair go white... Apparently their forum explained and simplified a lot, but you shouldn't have to take that route. Plug and Play is the way forward.)

Per Berner wrote:Wonder why Peterson haven't done anything about this? It should be easy for them to offer presets that are compensated for differing amounts of cabinet drop.

Yes, all they would have to do is offer another pedal/knee option that was a few cents sharper than the one I used in the above example and that would cover any guitar that had between 0 and 4 cents drop. I don't have Peterson... maybe one of the other available pedal/knee options is configured that way behind the scenes, with "A" at +2 or so?

Or anybody could just get the numbers off of the old Newman chart and add few cents to the pedal offsets and enter them into the tuner as a user-created patch. That would work for guitars with very little drop. Or better yet, arrive at those offsets by tuning the pedals by ear and create a patch from that.

Thank you, Tucker. This is exactly what Peterson just confirmed as well:

“At least some of the Sweeteners - the SE9/SP9 Sweeteners for example - are deliberately preset a little sharp to help with cabinet drop.”

Once again, some - but not all - "Sweeteners" DO compensate for cabinet drop.

Jon,
If this person is a beginner and is only playing by themselves, as long as the guitar is in tune with itself, which sweetener is used probably doesn't matter? Or does he think he is out of tune already?

Once they start playing with other instruments, etc, they will find, if they have a good ear, that they may be out of tune. Then there will need to be a change as to how to tune the guitar and be more in tune, assuming the tuning is the actual problem and not the player.

I play a Jackson Blackjack and use OE9 but that same program on my Sho-Bud sounds far from great in a few places.

So, I chime tuned my Sho-Bud, using Junior Knight's method, and then programmed all of the offsets into the Peterson so I can tune to those offsets anytime I want without needing to chime tune it again.

If by chance this player never gets the hang of tuning his guitar, if you have an experienced player tune it to play in tune with the band, and then program the offsets into the Peterson, going forward that program can be reused to tune that specific guitar.

Every guitar is different I'm afraid and the sweeteners are, in my opinion, a compromise created by a specific person for a specific guitar(s) and then they still likely tweaked a little bit by ear to get it all sounding the way they wanted.

Hopefully that makes sense and may help, at least down the road.

Thanks Andy. In fact, he & I had "the talk" when he picked up the guitar. I told him pretty much what you said in your first couple of lines. I told him that there is no pressing need to change right now but the day will come when he needs the guitar to be in tune with a band. At that time (or before if he wants) we will need to revisit the subject and look at OE9, for starters, and take it from there.

"I think the ultimate answer is likely to just build your own "sweetener"." - Right on Brian! It's easy to build your own 'sweetener' on the Peterson website. Of course, vibrato may negate this entire conversation...

FWIW, A = 442 Hz is 7.85 cents above A = 440 Hz. So 10 cents above A = 440 leaves just a couple of cents for cabinet drop if what you want is the tuning center to be around A = 442 Hz.

I, personally, wouldn't pay much attention to 2 cents in the tuning center, one way or another, as long it sounds in-tune. If it doesn't sound in-tune, then it's gonna have to be adjusted by ear, no matter what system is being used. That was my takeaway from Paul F's comments in the links I provided.

To my understanding, the point of that SE9 sweetener is to give a sort of 'universal' set of reference pitches to get a guitar pretty close to 'being in tune with itself' with that A = 442 Hz pitch center. On my guitars, it works reasonably well, but I generally still just tune by ear after getting my E's in the vicinity of A = 442.