Perfect tuning

Steve Sycamore · From: Sweden

This is the result of a project that has been quite a few years in the making. I had heartily recognized the value of Jeff Newman's original tuning chart. It does sound good and is representative of how pedal steel guitars have sounded in the last 40 years. But yet I found that it always required quite a few additional changes to make both E9 and C6 necks sound really in tune.

The most important point is that for pedal steel guitar, the Just Intonation or Just Temperment is the best practically realizable tuning for an instrument that plays as a pedal steel guitar does.

That said and hopefully agreed upon, we should note that the Newman tuning chart has almost no relation to Just Temperment at all. The E9 and C6 charts have no relationship between them. They do not even use the same temperment.

I will submit the technical evidence and rationale behind all of this. But here are the charts that show what I believe are the optimized tuning values. If you feel that there is room for improvement in how a pedal steel guitar sounds I highly encourage you to try this tuning out with an open mind. You may find that it is a very significant improvement that brings more sweetness, clarity and power to the sound of a pedal steel guitar.

DG Whitley · Posted 9 Feb 2017 12:25 pm

Thank you Steve for all your time and effort on this project. I will give this a try and get back with you on my thoughts.

Again, thank you for your efforts.

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Steve - I can see how much work has gone into this - all those numbers! I agree entirely that just intonation gives the best sonority to a steel guitar, but the question I have to ask is: if this represents natural intervals, instead of going to all the trouble of programming a tuner why not simply tune (more accurately) by ear?

[I would avoid the term "just temperament" as contradictory]
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Ivan Posa · From: Hamilton, New Zealand

Just for something different, try tuning with A at 432Hz.See what you think.

Jeff Metz Jr. · From: York, Pennsylvania, USA

Tom Gorr · From: Three Hills, Alberta

I will admit that I haven't spent a lot of time engaging in tuning issues.... has always seemed to be a bit of an endless rope...

My early years had me tune every change straight up... which I still do in C6... and now I tune 'pedals down' in E9 to help manage cabinet drop a little.

Certainly not very sophisticated.

I used to tune my six string with harmonics. .. 30 years ago. But everyone nowadays tunes everything straight up. .. bluegrass rock country.

I am somewhat enamored by the promise of tempered tunings but wonder just how well it will sit in a band mix with everyone else tuned straight up.

Michael Hummel · From: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

I'm sure you are going to get a thousand replies, just as any other tuning thread...

I am no expert (and I haven't tried your tuning) but we all have different requirements for our tuning. Often we need to find one that works with a given band setting or recording requirement. Or one that works well when we're just practicing alone.

I'm curious to examine the technical details you promise to post. In the meantime, the Jeff Newman tuning works well enough with my current band Smile

BR,
Mike

P.S. I believe the correct word is "temperament"
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Brint Hannay · From: Maryland, USA

I believe Ian's point is: There is "Just Intonation", based on the natural overtone series, and anything else is "tempered", hence a "temperament". Only JI is un-"tempered".

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Guitars and their players can be somewhat different, and that's an inherent problem with all "offset" or tempering charts. While they might work fine for a certain guitar or player, or in a certain situation (read: combination of instruments), they can just as well not sound good for other guitars, players, and situations, and that can sometimes cause considerable consternation. Any change in the tuning equation, such as scale length, type of strings (nickel vs. stainless, or round vs. ground wound), string gauges, or even player/bar pressure, can cause the offsets to change. This is why one player can have a guitar that sounds perfectly in tune, and yet when another player sits down and plays the same guitar, he'll have to change or touch-up the tuning. (I've seen this a hundred times, even with top-level pros playing each others' guitars.)

Steve's chart shows considerable effort, and we all should thank him for it. However, it should be kept in mind that is just one of many different charts or tuning methods out there, and none of them is the "be-all, end-all" solution for pedal steel. Each player should find the chart or method that suits him best, and that makes him sound best, and adopt it (that is - until something changes).

Karlis Abolins · From: (near) Seattle, WA, USA

Steve, I find your calculations very interesting. For the most part, I use the same values except that I set E to 0 instead of A. The top chart below is your chart with only the cents included and the bottom is mine

Steve Sycamore · From: Sweden

Thanks for the feedback so far. I agree, tuning by ear has a lot of merit and that's what initiated this investigation. But there are a lot of dependencies between the notes so it's not always easy pull everything together. I find too that the top 3 "chromatic" strings are a little harder to consistently "peg" and be confident that you've done so.

These charts are most definitely tempered. One thing to realize is that you must choose a root note to base your JI relationships on. I believe the Peterson strobe tuner chooses C. We want to start with E.

The other main thing to deal with is that a perfect or at least better tuning system needs to adapt to the key or chord that is currently being played. Skilled musicians in string or horn sections and choruses do this spontaneously without even thinking about it.

The chart below shows JI with root E on the right. JI with root A is on the left. Values are in cents. Since we want to use A 440 Hz as the absolute reference, the values in the right hand column are shifted to be synchronized with the values on the left hand column.

Green colored values match in both columns. Those are the undisputed "correct" JI values that work whenever you are playing anything based on either an A chord or an E chord according to JI theory.

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Tom Gorr · From: Three Hills, Alberta

Somewhere in my past casual reading on this forum, I recall a convert who moved from JI to ET saying that while tones may have been sweeter and smoother under JI... they were richer and more complex under ET.

I think I learned the hard way that humans are malleable as to what sounds in tune. I ran into a setup problem on my six string that threw my intonation out of whack. Playing it unfixed over a year then threw my ear out.

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Ken Metcalf · From: San Antonio Texas USA

Ian
My new MSA U-12 has compensators on both F#s
A pedal lowers strings 1 and 7
E levers "lower Es and raise Es" both raise 6th string G#
I use the Peterson OE9 tuning with pedals up for the Es.
Soon I will have another new MSA and I am pretty sure I will tune it to E.T. for working with Piano dominant gigs.
I have friends that play E.T. and it doesn't take that much to get used to ether tuning in a live situation.
Somehow the ears adjust and get used to 3rds.

Now if I could get the bar in the right place. Cool

Tom Gorr · From: Three Hills, Alberta

Steve Sycamore · From: Sweden

@Karlis Abolins

It seems you chose the E based JI path in resolving the dilemma between keeping an A scale or tonality perfectly in tune or the E scale or tonality. Ian Rae and Ken Metcalf also identify this dilemma. That is, exactly how the open 7th string should be tuned. It took quite a bit of foresight from MSA to resolve this using the guitar itself.

Since I play an E scale at least as often at the 7th fret as the open position I chose to split the difference between the -15.641 and +5.865 cents and tune the open string F# to -5 cents. An E scale run sounds wonderful in either position with the 7 other tones of the scale in perfect harmonic resonance. The open position E scale run requires a +5.865 temperament for the F# while an open A scale run requires a -15.642 temperament to be perfectly in tune. Likewise, the E scale at the 7th fret requires the 7th string note to be tempered to -15.642 cents.

We can next explore the other pedals and levers. Those require us to consider the C# chord and F#m chords with the use of the A pedal plus the F lever (C# chord) and the C and B pedals (F# minor chord). Also the D note from the E lever needs to be considered carefully.

Steve Sycamore · From: Sweden

@Ken Metcalf

Now that I think about it, it seems that MSA's F# solution won't work at all for speed picking. If you're playing an A scale on the open strings, you will play 10th string open, 10th string A pedal, 9th string open, 8th string open, 7th string open, 6th string open, right?

You won't be able to press the B pedal when you pluck the 7th string because it may not be depressed when you pluck the 6th string.

So it seems to be a fact of life that the F# 7th string must be tempered to some sort of compromise between A tonality runs and E tonality runs.

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Either F# sounds fine in a scale, as the ear recognises both intervals 9:8 and 10:9 as a whole tone. It's when you play chords that it matters.
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Tucker Jackson · From: Portland, Oregon, USA

Yes, the F#s on strings 1 and 7 are the problem children that require a compromise. That's why JI is ultimately in the same category of other popular tuning systems. It has some real advantages, but a few disadvantages too. My goal has been to use it as a theoretical ideal, as a base starting point, and then tweak away from it as necessary.

The F# issue is requires serious enough compromise that I don't use pure JI. Single note work is not the issue -- the problem becomes pronounced when you have strings 1 or 7 ringing against other strings. Specifically, they are way too sharp in the BC-pedal minor (or AB-pedal minor7). But they are way too flat in the B chord (with E's lowered). You can get one or the other of those two positions perfect... but not both at the same time.

Like a lot of folks, I've moved from JI to halfway between JI and ET (i.e., the 3rds are about 8 cents flat). That greatly reduces the dissonance caused by the F# problem while retaining most of the sweetness of JI... while also making it easier to blend with the other instruments tuned ET (i.e. 6-strings and keyboards).

As B0b has pointed out elsewhere, this middle ground also puts your 3rd intervals in a fault-tolerant position: they can drift off the mark many cents sharp or flat and the ear will still consider them 'in tune.' Really, anything between the extremes of JI on the flat end and ET on the sharp side keeps you in range. But if you tune JI and a 3rd drifts or you bar it flat, it's not good (or if tuned ET and it drifts sharp... ouch).

And, of course, even if one uses pure JI, if the guitar has any significant cabinet drop (and cabinet raise... few people talk about raise) that will change some of the values, thereby introducing new compromises away from perfect theory. But I realize we're probably talking more about the beauty of JI here... more than how it's applied. Carry on.

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Craig A Davidson · From: Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin USA

For those of us that pull our first string to G# and our second string to E what are those values?

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Same as open 3 & 4
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Ken Metcalf · From: San Antonio Texas USA

My F# compensators are just on the copedant I ordered and not endorsed by MSA also are on the A pedal not the B pedal.
My guitars are 12 string Universals not having the 10th, 9th string configuration and yes this pertains more to sustaining harmonies than speed picking.
One thing I like about compensators is you can back them off if you like and they don't normally cost any extra on a new guitar so why not try them?
Many people develop there style to avoid off notes by just not playing them in that position or finding them in a different position.
For instance many avoid playing the 3rd string with the B&C pedals or in the A&F position.
It is just part of learning to play this contraption.
U-12 has it's own little set of idiosyncrasies created by combining the two necks.
Everyone is a little different due to the many options and choices of ways that a phrase can be played on a PSG.
b0bs middle ground has much merit. IMO

Steve Sycamore · From: Sweden

For some reason my ears are much more sensitive to the melody. I can hear pitch differences in a note that are just a couple of tenths of a cent off, remember the pitch and replay it, even if the notes went by rapidly. The A pedal compensator would probably work well for speed picking.

I switched back to the Newman tuning to hear the difference again. At first it sounded good. But as I played more it sort of felt like the guitar had gone to sleep. It just wasn't inspiring - bland. After switching back to the values above the guitar came back to life. There is no question that the tuning works excellently for me.

I scrutinized the F# pitch and tested a range of modifications. It sounds quite nice at -7.9 to me. The F# minor7 using the A and B pedals sounded at least as in tune as it does in ET but a whole lot sweeter. I'll update the chart at some point.

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