Wilderness guide for Peterson tuner?

Nathan Eikelberg · From: Boise, Idaho, USA

Whenever the topic of tuners comes up (particularly when involving a Peterson tuner) the responses generally fall into one of a few buckets: (a) love my Peterson and the sweetened tunings! (B) I have a BOSS Tu-2, never saw the need to waste my money on a Peterson. (C) I tune by ear. (which is invariably followed by an extended thread about how you are out of tune and aren't perceptive enough to know it until someone chimes in about how all the old greats tuned by ear and "sound fine to me"). All great opinions and I fear I'm opening up the same can of worms here!

One thing that I've read over and over again is that the Peterson presets are useless because they don't take into account the particular characteristics of your guitar with the—only somewhat useful—recommendation to "just tune the beats out and make your own preset!" This sounds like a great idea – if only I knew how to do that. That leaves me with two questions (and keep in mind I'm new to pedal steel): (1) There can sometimes be an over-exaggeration of one's perceived perceptibility (I've noticed a similar effect in the worlds of coffee, wine, etc. in which a prized collection of wine is found to be a fraud): Should I just use the MA9 preset and move on with life? (2) If indeed there is a measurable advantage to making your own preset, has anyone put together a comprehensive walkthrough on how to do that (similar to the Wilderness Guide by John Lacey)?
_________________
1980 Emmons SD10 push-pull

Tucker Jackson · From: Portland, Oregon, USA

Hi, Nathan. I may be one of those people you referred to when you said you've read people say the "Peterson presets are useless" because I tend to comment on tuning threads.

Actually, I've never read a statement that strong on the forum by anyone. Just that one can sometimes get a little better sound by customizing their tuning for each steel guitar they have.

As one-size-fits-all tuning charts go, the Peterson sweetner based on Jeff Newman's chart is pretty darn good (I'm not sure if it's MA9 or what it's called in Peterson-speak, but some of those users will chime in here).

My advice: if you are new to steel and tuning by ear is challenging, try a Peterson sweetener if you have that tuner. Or just use the Newman chart (just need a tuner that has a hertz or cents reading for that one). For many people, this works just fine.

The Newman chart is what I started it out and was happy with it. After several years, my ear developed and could hear a couple of outages that I hadn't paid attention to before, so learned how to adjust for those (without screwing up something else within the tuning). We're talking very small differences in pitch here... and to further "right-size" this entire tuning issue, the tuning system you end up using is 10% of it, while skilled bar placement accounts for 90% of the sweet, in-tune sound that comes out of your amp. As a newbie, grab any reasonable tuning system and start working on making it sound in tune with bar placement. Later, you can nit-pick and refine your tuning system - and I'll probably be here to help you with that project. Smile

Jeremy King · From: Rochelle, GA, USA

I’m a big fan of the Sid Hudson tuning preset. But there are multiple good options on the Peterson tuners from the factory and on the user trading post.

I tried a bunch of presets and eventually settled on the SH9. It sounded the most in tune to me on my particular steel. From that point I stopped thinking about the sweeteners and really began focusing on playing in tune with that sweetener. Over time, you learn to compensate/adjust for those occasions where the sweetened tuning doesn’t agree with your particular steel. My ear has developed enough (nowhere close to where I’d like it to be) to notice when things are not in tune. So yeah my advice would be find a preset and stick with it and learn to play in tune with that sweetener. Your ear will develop overtime and you can eventually make adjustments where you see fit. There are guys on here that are way more knowledgeable about these kind of things than I am. Just a few years ago I was in the same boat as you learning about these tunings and wanted to share some things that helped me.

Also, Travis Toy has a good video on his tutorials site about tuning by ear if you want to go that route. I think he shows you how to program your settings too.

Bengt Erlandsen · From: Brekstad, NORWAY

I use neither of those 3 options. I have a Peterson VS-II that I use manually as it shows how many cents I am away ET. I find that a lot easier than to use a preset. I do know how much I want any of the notes to be offset from ET tho.

B.Erlandsen
Zumsteel S12extE9 7+7

Benjamin Poilve · From: France

As a new players as well, MA9 is a life saver.

One thing to take into account is that tuning a pedal steel "by hear" is not as simple as tuning the beats out. If you do that, you will sound great by yourself but will be out of tune with the band. You have to make compromise between just and temperate tuning. Were "the great" able to make such compromise by hear and sound good? Yeah! Can I, especially in a noisy environment? No.

So MA9 it is, it consistently sounds good. Only slight disagreement would be the first string, much too sharp for my ear.

If you want a procedure for "tuning the beats out" it is described in the annex of Winnie Winston's book. I can give you a copy in the DM.

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

I use the Newman Sweetened (SE9 for E9th opens). Actually I have my own "JE9" which is the SE9 and the pedals/knees combined into one.
Works for me. Years ago I tuned straight up with a tuner and people kept telling me I was out of tune, I got the Newman chart and started tuning with that and no one ever told me I was out of tune.

I've used it on a D-10 Franklin and several GFI's including an Expo S-10, Ultra D-10 and my current Ultra SD-10.

Bill Duncan · From: Lenoir, North Carolina, USA

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

I agree with Jack and Dave. Start with SE9+SP9 (that’s how they’re listed in Strobosoft for iPad - What is MA9?).

No tuning method will work for every guitar, even if you have perfect pitch and can tune by ear. SOMETHING will be out of tune somewhere along the neck.

Likely as not, eventually you will find your own tuning for your own guitar. But you have to have a starting point, and SE9 works well enough on most E9 necks. Just use it and....get on with practicing 😎

Benjamin Poilve · From: France

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

Thanks, Benjamin.

Asa Brosius · Posted 24 Nov 2022 8:58 am

My experience-every guitar will stay in and go out in its own way, pick any tuner with a good display and spend some time with it, definitely learn to tune by ear, practice with a drone, pay a little more attention to the advice given by working professional players than the rest, and if you're playing live get comfortable with a silent visual tuner.

Andrew Frost · From: Toronto, Ontario

You're asking a good question...
Personally I feel that 'all roads lead to Rome' and if you spend enough time with your instrument and working on it, and asking questions like this you'll figure it out.
Everyone has a different way of going about it.
The thing with pedal steel is that we can actually sound more 'in tune' than guitars and pianos, and in my view, that's a big part of our job - to really sweeten the sound of a record or ensemble.
For what its worth, and its just my approach, but I look at tuning in terms of the most common chord voicings that are played, and tweaking the parts of each chord voicing to be pleasant and functional. So on E9, its getting the E triads, the pedals down A6, the B6/B7, the C#/C#7 and the D/D6/Dmaj7 chord groupings to all sound good.
Whether you use a Peterson or not, you should understand why you are altering tuning from straight up/ET.
Your ears will tell you that stuff eventually, and it will generally correspond with the basic principles of Just Intonation, so getting familiar with JI basics, and nuances of sound and harmony, is absolutely time well spent, if not essential if you want to understand what's going on with your instrument.
Its the the same stuff that applies to string, horn and vocal sections...
Personally, I have my own offsets programmed into a strobe tuner that's usually on a pedal board, but sometimes I just use a hand held Korg tuner and adjust the hz reading for each change. The Strobe tuner is a definite time saver though, and that's why I use it.
I agree with your implication that making music is the priority, and that we can get caught in the weeds with tuning technicalities. However, I'd recommend spending a bit of time getting basically acquainted with how Just Intonation works, (google/wiki etc) as it will save you time down the road in figuring out pitchy issues and problems and it will also deepen your understanding of your instrument and music in general.
Good luck!

Nathan Eikelberg · From: Boise, Idaho, USA

Thanks to everyone who took the time to chime in. I definitely appreciate the comments.

Andrew Frost · From: Toronto, Ontario

Forum Index > Pedal Steel		Next oldest topic :: Next newest topic