How many use Jeff Newman's tuning chart?

Terry Sneed · From: Arkansas,

I don't want to start another thread about which way is best to tune, I'd just like to know who has used Jeff's chart, and have you compared it to straight up 440? Which is best for you?

Terry

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Mullen RP D10 /8x5 / Nashville 112 x 2 / American Tele and Fender
Hotrod Deville 2x12's
Thank God for music.

Michael Douchette · From: Gallatin, TN (deceased)

Basically "440" for me. It's how every other instrument I work with is tuned, so I sound like them. I do allow a bit (just a bit) for the cab drop. I do not use anything similar to Jeff's chart.

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Mikey D...

Calvin Walley · From: colorado city colorado, USA

Jeff's chart is the only one i have ever used

Kevin Hatton · From: Buffalo, N.Y.

You cannot use one chart for every steel guitar. A steel guitar has to be tuned to itself. Cabinet drop on the E's and 6th string being a factor.

Jack Francis · From: Queen Creek, Arizona, USA

I always have used Jeff's for sure!
(Might as well, I even use one of his old guitars.)

Brendan Mitchell · From: Melbourne Australia

I used it and pretty well , knew it off by heart but when I changed tuner I could not relate to the chart any more so now I tune to 440 and touch up by ear . I don't worry about the other instruments , if mine sounds out of tune it throws me right off .

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

I use Jeff's original chart, with the E's at "zero", with modifications for my guitar. But basically it's Jeff's original chart.

I've used it for years. I used to tune everything at zero when I first got an old Korg WT-12 tuner and everyone told me I was out of tune. Once I started using Jeff's chart no one ever told me I was out of tune. That was good enough for me.

Michael Douchette · From: Gallatin, TN (deceased)

"Once I started using Jeff's chart no one ever told me I was out of tune."

Now this is the perfect example of how what works for one doesn't work for another. I tried it once, on one show, years ago, when I was with Tammy Wynette. Everybody in the band afterward asked me what happened. Our guitar player said (I will NEVER forget his line), "You sounded flatter than a day old plate of pi$$!"

After I went back to 440, we did some shows with one of our fellow forum members. He sat down to my guitar at a soundcheck, messed with it, and came up to me and said, "Mike, I don't understand it. That's the most out of tune steel I've ever sat down to in my life... but when YOU play it, it is dead on the money. How does that work?" I explained it to him...

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Mikey D...

Frank Parish · From: Nashville,Tn. USA

I tried that 440 method too because one of the local steelers told me that BE tuned that way. After a while I think you get used to anything. He told me it sounded out and you could hear the waves but when you played with the band it was fine. I think the band drowned out the waves. I tune the E's to 440 pedals down and the rest pretty much by ear and it sounds sweeter to me than it ever did with the 440 method. I'm somewhere around the Newman method but mostly I tune the guitar to be in tune with itself. If I can hear the waves then it's out. The band may drown the waves out but they're still there. I could never go back to the straight up 440 method.

Michael Douchette · From: Gallatin, TN (deceased)

Frank, the band didn't "drown out" the waves; you didn't hear them because they matched everyone else's waves. There are supposed to be waves. Hit a third on a piano; you'll hear plenty of waves. The notion of tuning the waves out is something other instruments just can't do. Fiddle players have a choice; they can lay their fingers where they want and have no waves (better for personal enjoyment) or sharpen the thirds where they should be (better for ensemble playing).

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Mikey D...

Ernie Pollock · From: Mt Savage, Md USA

I have tuned straight up to my Korg tuner for about 7 years now, I have never been accused of being out of tune & it sounds so good with tracks & keyboards. I tune all notes & pedal changes to 440, that goes for E9th & C6th. I am however, not trying to convert anyone who wants to tune flat.

Sign me

never been happier

Ernie

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Frank Parish · From: Nashville,Tn. USA

Mike
Ever watch a piano tuner tune a grand piano? He may have a middle C tuned to 440 but the rest of the notes are all over the place. I think 440 is just a reference point. I don't believe there is supposed to be waves or beats in there either. I read where the pedal steel guitar is a temper tuned instrument meaning not all the notes are tuned the same or to 440. I will say that tuning everything to 440 kind of gives it an edgy feel. I don't know if that's good or bad but probably more of an opinion than anything. I was tuning it all up to 440 and one night I needed a sub on short notice so he came in and played my guitar. When I got back it was all retuned to something around the Newman method and it sounded so much better to me that I wouldn't go back to that 440 way ever. I haven't been accused of being out of tune with either method but prefer the one I have now. I never heard of everyones waves matching.

Gary Preston · From: Columbus, Ohio, USA

And the ''Beat ''goes on ! I suppose i'm confused about all this . It's hard for me to believe that we all can be in tune with the band when we have different tunings . I don't see how any steel can be in tune straight up at 440 . Maybe if we all tune to the same settings it would be close or all in tune or out of tune ! I do know that all guitars don't have the same ''cabinet drop '' . Also it's hard to understand how any quality steel could have so much drop that you have to tune the ''E's'' to 442.5 . Thats not good ! I have tried most of these tunings and i have to use the ''E's'' at 440 and temper tune the rest to my ear ,maybe thats not the best either but it's the best i have . Best regards , Gary .

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

I tune to Jeff's old chart with the E's at 440.

Ronald Bear · From: Newark, Ohio, USA

Straight up tuners. Lets see if i have this right. All i need to tune Van Cliburns piano is tuner & a cresent wrench. Tune them all straight up. HUH. I have never played with a in tune keyboard. Compared to a in tune piano they are at best TOYS. Ron

Bill Moore · From: Manchester, Michigan

I was just looking at one of Jeff's courses, "An E9th Chord Dictionary", on the last couple pages, he shows his tuning chart. He says: "You don'r have to know why it works, it just does". I agree, I've always used it. It sounds good to me.

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Bill Moore...
my steel guitar web page

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

I tuned my guitar by ear and measured it with a tuner to make my own tuning chart. I used to be a real stickler for fine tuning, down to fractions of a cent. I just don't care about it so much any more. I tune to the tick marks on the tuner.

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Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
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Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

I'm avoiding these "tuning threads" if I can Terry. I think it's a bigger waste of time than I want to include in my full schedule..

Tuning anything "flat or sharp" except for strange things like playing with an out of tune piano, never made any sense to me. I was playing twenty years full time, steadily and as successfully as I wanted to until I found out people actually tuned differently. At first I laughed, seeing how many years I have been aware of the difficulties of an arbitrary, mathematical stretched "equally divided" scale, and then after reading miles of incoherent horsehocky, I began to get concerned that new players were liable to get hopelessly confused by this nonsense.

The last "Tuning" thread from a new player was a perfect example.

I think the basic problems I've had with some of the systems here are that in explaining them, people seem to get either too wordy, or insulting.

Then there's a famous guy, inarguably the most famous guy of all that tunes his guitar "straight up". No bones about it, and "a cent or two on the G#, STRICTLY for temperature changes".

Astoundingly, all the insults (and wordy "theorums") seem to vanish.

Except behind his back I suppose..

I think the other Absolute "Top Guy" I have talked to has only one simple "Theorum", and one worn old chromatic pitchpipe. He says, and I quote: "Just tune the %*<#ing thing, and play it."

It can be as complicated as you want it.

Should you run out of reasons to get out there and play live with other musicians, "tuning issues" will do just fine.

Or reasons to argue with them.

To answer your original post header, I tried it for the heck of it, but there were too many things it put out of whack for me, like accidentals in single note runs, and pedal/kl combos I like to use.

Major chords with partially minored thirds hae always sounded bland and lifeless to me.

Certainly nothing wrong with doing anything but sitting home from my point of view, but then that's just me.. Others must, from physical or mental different/ableness, or just plain "do their best work there".

EJL

(PS To Terry.

I know you're a guitar player. Try this.

Fuzz out your amp.

Play an unflattened major third interval.

Listen to the beats. I think it's six per second or so.

Then play the same interval with a Fifth and another octave of the root. Same distortion.

No "beats". Not if you add another root note at an octave.

I guess, then, a person could say that if the "root" of a chord is so imprinted in a persons' mind from playing and listening for 50 years, you might just "supply" it in your mind's ear.

Even when in actually it's a note that "no longer exists"..

I loved that one...(b0b)

Now go out and PLAY.)

Perry Keeter · From: Hemet, CA, USA

I use Jeff's chart. Just about got it memorized. It sounds good every time.

John Bechtel · From: Nashville, Tennessee, R.I.P.

I only use a Tuner for my Basic~Pitch on each neck. The E-Neck = (E)–Straight~up at 440Hz. and the C-Neck = (C)–Straight~up at 440Hz. Then I tune each neck to itself! I've always done it this way and was never accused of being out of tune! As long as the neck is in-tune with itself, there's no problem adjusting (compensating) with the bar, which is actually what you're doing for every note you ever play using the bar! Think about it! The Magic~Word is: “[{(COMPENSATE)}]”

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“Big John”
a.k.a. {Keoni Nui}
Current Equipment

Gene Jones · From: Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)

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[This message was edited by Gene Jones on 17 September 2006 at 03:10 AM.]

KENNY KRUPNICK · From: Columbus, Ohio

I drop the everything 2.0 hertz. Instead of 442.5,I go 440.5. That allows any minimal body drop,and tune the 2 F# strings, to 440 instead of 439.5.

I forgot to add,I drop 2.0 hertz on the C6th also.440.5 on the C strings,and temper everything else accordingly. The 10th string isnt at 440.5 though.

[This message was edited by KENNY KRUPNICK on 17 September 2006 at 05:00 PM.]

Billy Henderson · From: Portland, AR, USA

Terry have you tried the Peterson Tuner?

Paul Redmond · From: Illinois, USA

Kevin, you nailed it!! I have to "shade" all my guitars a bit due to drop except the Whitney's which don't drop. They are tuned straight 440. Each guitar IS different, so a one-size-fits-all chart will only guarantee that your guitar has been tuned very precisely out of tune.
PRR

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

As I mentioned earlier, I use the Jeff Newman - referenced at 440 - but it's modified so that my guitar is in tune with itself.

That's why the Peterson pre-programmed settings don't work for everyone - They are the Jeff Newman settings. That was the main point I tried to get across to the Peterson rep at St Louis last year. He knows a lot about tuning but not about the individualized tuning that needs to be done for each steel guitar. "One size doesn't fit all" when it comes to tuning.

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