Calling all guitarists

[BKK-OZ]

Let's talk tuners.
Please.

I have a very nice ST-122A True Strobe Tuner, but I like to have that plugged into my normal pedal-chain set-up, and when I want to just have a quick or lazy bash at a guitar, I don't want to have to fire up that whole chain just to check tuning...

So, I thought I might get a StroboClip™ from Peterson, but alas, no one locally stocks them, so I don't really know how good the display is. Any ideas? (This, or another?)

[bayswater]

I usually use a 440 tuning fork. But have you tried PolyTune from tcelectronic? Free on an iPhone.

Just about every guitar tuner tuner I've tried does a worse and slower job than the tuning fork and my ear, but this one is surprisingly useful, in part because it shows you the tuning for all 6 strings at once. It's also a lot less erratic than others I've tried.

[BKK-OZ]

I haven't tried it, but yes, the poly is probably second on my list right now - the form factor of the ST-122A is the same as the poly, which made me think maybe the Peterson would be better for the quick stuff.

Yes, I do tune by ear too all the time, its just that I have the luxury of having a few too many guitars strung up and ready to play now, and though I use harmonics and my ear, I find doing a quick check with the tuner at the beginning and the end just saves me some time chasing that string or two that might be off a tad. I used to think tuners were for wimps. I admit to wimping out sometimes.

Riddle me this. Why is the B always out of tune (standard tuning) on three of my guitars? No matter what, the B drifts.

[mhschmieder]

I've been through four or five Peterson tuners by now. I had the rack for awhile but its display was too easily washed out in typical dark indoor settings as well as bright mid-day summer outdoor gigs. Now I have the latest version of the Strobo-Stomp and it's the best yet, as it uses the old Conn strobe style (concentric circles vs. vertical or horizontal lines), which are easier for the eye to follow. It also has a display that cuts through every lighting condition. I don't think it has a built-in mic for acoustic instruments though, so you might also look at the new one just announced at NAMM, which also includes their special body beat metronome features.

[daniel.sneed]

In case this may be of interest:
http://www.planetwaves.com/pwProductDet ... tock_Tuner
This one has proved to be very reliable and accurate to me.
I own three of them, for acoustic, electric and mandolin.

[Shooshie]

Not sure if iPad tuners count for this thread, but my Peterson "iStrobosoft-HD" is the last word in tuners, as far as I'm concerned. Best tuner I've ever used or owned. There's not a close second.

My piano sounds amazing since I tuned it with that.

Shooshie

[Gravity Jim]

Not sure if iPad tuners count for this thread, but my Peterson "iStrobosoft-HD" is the last word in tuners, as far as I'm concerned. Best tuner I've ever used or owned. There's not a close second.

My piano sounds amazing since I tuned it with that.

Shooshie

Agreed. Strobosoft is the bee's knees, and the iDevice version has made intonating my guitars way more convenient and accurate, too. And it's cheap!

[BKK-OZ]

Methinks I have to lash out on an iPad - the one I have been using a little actually belongs to my employer, part of a trial thing. I have found that using the iPad as a controller has been really liberating, plus all the other stuff, inc. a tuner. Hmmm.

Maybe I should just listen to Frank and play more, buy less.
Nah, I think I'll get an iPad...
then a football team.

In all seriousness, I can justify a tuner to myself because I have started exploring alternative tunings lately. I have found it particularly liberating to use the tuner to set up the guitar quickly, almost automatically. That way, when I start to play and improvise, I find that the same old chord shapes don't work, and I need to try new things, and that just throws up new combinations I wouldn't have got to otherwise. The tuner kind of allows me to 'forget' the details a bit, so I find I concentrate more on the sounds, rather than just sticking with licks and patterns I am familiar with. Of course, it makes me sound like a newbie most of the time, which is humbling, which is also good.

Anybody got a theory on my 'B' strings always going a bit sharp?
Maybe it is just me.
or localized radiation or something...

[bayswater]

Anybody got a theory on my 'B' strings always going a bit sharp?

Some argue you need to have the B a little flat relative to the others to get it sound right when playing. Something to do with the relative amount of stretching, odd overtones, etc.

[Shooshie]

Anybody got a theory on my 'B' strings always going a bit sharp?

Not being there, I have to guess, but it's a pretty educated guess. B is the 3rd of a very common chord: G major. Thirds, by nature, have a specific relationship with their tonic in which they sound "perfect." But if you tune that note to sound good as a third, it will be VERY out of tune for any other interval, except a 6th. Thus we have equal temperament, in which each note is tuned to a mathematic ideal, such that every note is equidistant from its neighbors. This makes any 3rd sound a bit sharp. Your B string, the only natural 3rd in the 6 guitar strings, is thus raised a little so that it will remain in tune with everything. You mainly would notice this when playing a G chord.

Shooshie

[BKK-OZ]

Anybody got a theory on my 'B' strings always going a bit sharp?

Not being there, I have to guess, but it's a pretty educated guess. B is the 3rd of a very common chord: G major. Thirds, by nature, have a specific relationship with their tonic in which they sound "perfect." But if you tune that note to sound good as a third, it will be VERY out of tune for any other interval, except a 6th. Thus we have equal temperament, in which each note is tuned to a mathematic ideal, such that every note is equidistant from its neighbors. This makes any 3rd sound a bit sharp. Your B string, the only natural 3rd in the 6 guitar strings, is thus raised a little so that it will remain in tune with everything. You mainly would notice this when playing a G chord.

Shooshie

Absolutely. Your lucid explanation makes perfect sense. No offense, but it is the tempered scale that makes me hate the sound of pianos. (Well, not hate, that is a bit extreme, but unless I want things to sound out of tune (which I quite often do!) I avoid the piano, just can't stand it. I know that makes me a tad unusual, but there you go. Not that I only listen to perfect sine waves and even harmonic series or anything, it is just that I don't like the flat flat flat flatty and sharp sharp messiness of the tempered scale. I had never thought of applying that to the B. Duh. Thanx.

[Shooshie]

The tempered scale gives us the ability to range out in distant keys. Were we using Pythagorean scales, everything would start sounding off the tracks by the time we ventured as far as a secondary dominant. I greatly prefer the slightly out-of-tune equal temperament, where you're free to let your imagination run wild and follow every whim

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I wonder what direction music would have taken if we didn't have tempered scales? More cowbell?

[bayswater]

I wonder what direction music would have taken if we didn't have tempered scales? More cowbell?

Endless tuning sessions and no funny notes.

[Shooshie]

I wonder what direction music would have taken if we didn't have tempered scales? More cowbell?

Actually, I've thought about that periodically, and the answer always seems to come back to pentatonic scales and music like that which we hear from most native cultures around the world.

The dominant 7th opened up western music to chord progressions that sounded like they had purpose. It also opened it up to modulation, but intonation quickly shut down that option. Equal temperament opened it up again. So, instead of western music sounding like Clementi, we got Mozart, then Beethoven, and the ball just kept on rolling. Our music could go anywhere, tonally, and even atonal music was unshackled from some root position. All this is possible because we adjusted the scale.

The Greeks ascribed certain emotions to the various modes. Later, composers would talk about keys in much the same way. When I was young, I wondered why that was the case. "Major" sounded the same, no matter what key you started on. But once I was able to attempt playing in Just Temperament, or Pythagorean, it dawned on me immediately that each key WOULD sound different, much like the modes did to the Greeks.

It seemed like we had lost something subtle and beautiful even while gaining the ability to create music unlike any the world had heard before. So, I tried playing in the old temperaments and even seeing what I could do compositionally with it. The truth is that soon it got boring to me, and I really tired of hearing the tonality going more and more wack, the closer I got to the extreme other side: the key of F# major. Some people get off on the various Werkmeister tunings, or others, but I've gone full circle and just prefer equal temperament, as did one of my heroes: JS Bach.

Shooshie