Playing in tune

[Fred Treece]

Of course, trust your ear. Except when you hear a recorded playback of your band when you thought you were playing in tune and discover you were out, either with the band or with yourself, or both. That’s what Jim Palenscar’s OP was about. That, and a way of practicing with an electronic tuner in line to help develop a sense of what “in tune” actually is. Or re-develop that skill, which may have taken a turn somewhere in your 52 or 65 years of playing.

My hat is off to anyone (especially a pro) who publicly owns up to a shortcoming they didn’t quite realize they had and follows his own teaching skills to correct the problem.

[David Farrell]

Very interesting, friends.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has tuning/intonation problems.

It can be a very humbling experience to be in the studio playing and/or hearing a recording of yourself.

Steel on my friends!

[Paul Mozen]

3 words..... parallax, parallax, parallax....

[Jim Palenscar]

The playing of 2 notes will help keep the "eek" down for sure. The tuning issue is a bit of a different issue than my original post and can be a quagmire for sure. For 45+ years I tuned all the beats out of my guitar(s) and the guitar(s) would sound fantastic by themselves but I never really liked how it sounded in a band situation. Especially the A pedal and E raise. I would tune the A to 440 w the pedals down and then use that relatively sharp E (cabinet drop)as the basis for the rest of the tuning. The C# would usually be about 4 cents flat and the F to the C# about 25 cents flat. That requires rolling the bar up almost 1/4 of the way to the next fret for the guitar to be in tune with the music. I am aware that Paul said he doesn't/didn't do that years ago- don't know currently but not sure how one would play it in tune otherwise. On the Peterson tuner that I have at the shop I've stored many players' tunings in order to not have to bug them about it when I work on their guitars. Players like Doug Livingston, JayDee Maness, Greg Leisz, Frank Carter- all sound so marvelously in tune and most of their tunings are wildly different- go figure. I suppose the lesson is to get your guitar in tune- however you might go about it- and learn how to play it in tune. One of the problems in using sweetened tunings and a Peterson tuner is that it will only display correctly when at the open position- if you check it up the neck you won't find it to be useful unless you set it back to equal and now your sweetened settings are out the window. I suppose that the roots would be ok but have yet to try that.

[Martin Day]

I have a GFI Expo S10. It has pretty significant cabinet drop in one situation: when I engage the A pedal and the LKL knee lever (to lower raise the Es), the 6th string drops by about 13 cents. The 3rd string, an octave higher, stays in tune. I use that pedal & lever combination a lot so this is a nuisance. I know GFIs are supposed to be pretty good re. cabinet drop. Is this a fluke of my particular guitar or have other owners of Expo S10s encountered the same problem? I’d welcome any insights or suggestions.

[Tucker Jackson]

I have a GFI Expo S10. It has pretty significant cabinet drop in one situation: when I engage the A pedal and the LKL knee lever (to lower the Es), the 6th string drops by about 13 cents.

Is that a typo? You lower your E's (rather than raise) to end up with all that cabinet drop on the 6th string when used with the A-pedal?

In any event, that level of drop seems out of bounds. A few thoughts:

Tighten all the screws that bind the endplates to the cabinet.

Don't stomp on the pedals with excessive force. Just get them firmly pressed down.

If you are using a plain 6th string, you could cut the bad effect of cabinet drop roughly in half by converting to a wound 6th string. Note that a wound string will sound different (many don't like the sound). And if you did this, it would require making a couple of changes under the guitar to connect the pull rods to a different slot on the bellcrank to get a little more leverage. It's easy and the Forumites can tell you what to do.

Other than that, you can try to 'tune around' the drop, but before saying more, it would be good to get clarification of my first question.

[Martin Day]

Yes, "lower" was a typo - I meant raise. I have checked for loose screws (none found), and that the rear legs meet the floor with equal pressure. On your advice I tried using as little pressure on the pedal and lever as I can but that didn't seem to make a difference. I do notice that most of the drop is from the A pedal. The knee lever contributes a little, but not as much as the A pedal. I do have a plain 6th string. The 6th string I have on did not come from the same set as all the others. I cut the 6th string that came with the set I put on too short and replaced it with the same gauge but different brand from a local guitar shop - could that be contributing? Thanks for your advice!

[Tucker Jackson]

If you replaced a plain 6th string with a plain of the same gauge (but different brand), that is probably not causing problem... not unless all this cabinet drop suddenly appeared for the first time after the string change.

What is your tuning procedure? By ear? To a regular guitar tuner? A sweetner in a Peterson tuner? The reason I ask is because we may be able to 'tune around it' by making some tweaks to your tuning to minimize the negative effects of cabinet drop.

[Martin Day]

I use a Peterson Strob Plus HD, with the SE9 sweetener for the open strings and SP9 for the pedals and levers. I double check the octaves (10th & 5th strings, 8 & 4th, 6th & 3rd) to eliminate any beats. I've recently started to tweak the changer nuts for the RKL (which raises my 1st and 2nd strings and lowers my 6th) to get those to match the open 3rd 4th and 7th strings.

I have been paying more attention to accurate tuning recently, which is why I'm noticing the 6th string cabinet drop more than in the past. This afternoon I tried tuning the open 6th string a little sharp to compensate for the drop when I use the A pedal - that seemed to work OK. Is that what you mean by "tuning around it"? I also slant the bar sometimes to compensate for the drop.

[Tucker Jackson]

This afternoon I tried tuning the open 6th string a little sharp to compensate for the drop when I use the A pedal - that seemed to work OK. Is that what you mean by "tuning around it"?

Exactly.

Why don't you try tuning strings 3 and 6 to +2 cents? You'll need a tuner that measures cents to do this, or the ability to reprogram your own copy of that SE9 sweetner using the Peterson website. FYI, for the sweetner you're using, going to +2 represents a pitch 6 cents sharper than you've been using for those strings. When you got to the A+F position, cabinet drop will take string 6 down from +2 to land on -11.

That's still 3 cents flatter than your 'ideal' of -8 for this position in this system, but it's better.

After retuning those open strings, of course, the B-pedal notes will now be too sharp, so retune the B-pedal to the same thing you've been using with the SP9 so that your pedals-down world remains the same.

Also, when Newman created this chart originally, he said the offset numbers for the pedals were targets you would end up with when both AB pedals, or BC pedals were down. Therefore, to get those intended targets when you play both pedals down, you should tune (or check the tuning) with both pedals down.

For example, to tune the A-pedal, you would hold down A and B. Same thing for tuning the B-pedal. And when tuning the C-pedal, hold down the B along with it. You want the full measure of cabinet drop present when you tune so that you'll actually end up with the exact target pitches built into the chart when you play.

If you have not been doing this deal of holding down both pedals when you tune them... if you start doing it, you'll pick up several cents 'to the good' for that A+F position that is causing you grief. It might bring you in for a perfect landing.

Good luck!