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Topic: Change the root note on a peterson tuner |
Bill McCloskey
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Posted 15 Jul 2024 10:31 am |
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I have decided to go all in on the D13 tuning. I'd like to change the root note of my E9 peterson settings from E to D.
Anyone know how to do this? |
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Tucker Jackson
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA
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Posted 15 Jul 2024 11:26 am
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I'm guessing you are currently using what Peterson calls a 'sweetened' tuning -- which in their usage means anything that's not Equal Temperment (ET). If so, somebody wrote that tuning system and saved it under a three-letter name that will appear in the corner of the screen. But if it says 'EQU,' you've been using Equal Temperement all along and if you've liked it, no change is necessary; it works the same regardless of the tuning you're using.
If you're using a sweetner, some come pre-loaded on the tuner, but people write their own and post them to the trading post on the Peterson website so other people can use them too:
https://www.petersontuners.com/sweeteners/shared/
Click on the "Steel Guitar" section to see 73 sweetners shared by others.
If you look in the middle column, you'll see one called 'DMT by Bob Lee.' If you click the information button next to that (the little 'i' icon), you can see a brief description of what the tuning is about. Bob wrote:
Info: Approximate 1/6 comma meantone for pedal steel tunings in the key of D. Works well with D6th, D9th, D13th, etc.
You'll need to connect your tuner to your computer with a USB cable for the data transfer (and that will power it up too). Next to the DMT entry on the website, click the "+" button to "add to my tuner now." That's it.
To use that sweetner, you'll need to use buttons on the tuner to scroll to "DMT."
Or... if you know someone who plays D13 and they've already written a custom tuning, you can ask them to share it to the trading post. And you can always design your own using the tool on the Peterson website, but it's clunky and takes a while -- and assumes you know what you want your tuning offsets to be. |
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Bill McCloskey
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Posted 15 Jul 2024 12:12 pm
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Thanks Tucker for the very detailed response. I do have sweeteners for D13. I just was trying to get them to work on my Peterson. Here are my D13 Sweetners that seem to work well.
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Tucker Jackson
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA
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Posted 15 Jul 2024 1:03 pm
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Do you know who created that chart? If so, maybe you can contact them and see if they -- or anyone reading this -- has done the programming.
I started to explain how to program it yourself but then noticed that this chart has, what... 4 different verisons of the D note? In the Peterson world, that means you would have 4 different sweetners, one to be used with the open strings, one for most pedals/knees, then specialized ones for particular notes on pedals and knee levers that are different from the main pedal/knee sweetner.
Totally do-able, but kind of a hassle to be manually toggling around on the tuner to pull up the sweetner you need. I have 3 sweetners for my version of E9 (open tuning, pedals/knees, and then compensated notes), but given the complexity of your chart, you'll have 4 or more. If you're interested in how to set up a sweetner on the Peterson website, I can lay it on you. Be a nice little afternoon project. |
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Bill McCloskey
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Posted 16 Jul 2024 1:27 pm
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Looks like it is a mute point. Peterson Connect seems incompatible with a mac. At least I can't get it to recognize my tuner via firewire. Seems like it is a known issue for mac users. the guy who created the chart is Heinz Plaumann, who set up the guitar. But his was for his D13 tuning which is differs from the Johnny cox D13, so I adapted what I could but there were some missing notes I was trying to fill in.
Peterson Connnect also won't allow me to create my own sweeteners because it doesn't recognize any the device. |
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John Norris
From:
Peterson Strobe Tuners, Illinois, USA
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Posted 17 Jul 2024 1:52 am
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| Bill McCloskey wrote: |
I have decided to go all in on the D13 tuning. I'd like to change the root note of my E9 peterson settings from E to D.
Anyone know how to do this? |
If you have a Peterson V-SAM, StroboPLUS HD or a StroboPLUS HDC, here's how to change the root:
On the Peterson StroboPLUS HDC:
Select the desired temperament or Sweetener.
Then, while the temperament or Sweetener is still flashing, press and hold the the button marked with three faders (the fourth button from the left in the semicircle of buttons) while you rotate the dial to shift the root, then release.
Now rotate the dial to select the root and press the top of the dial to confirm.
The Sweetener and root will display alternately to alert you to the current status.
The root reverts to "Home" (C) when the tuner is switched off.
On the Peterson StroboPLUS HD:
1. Select the temperament
2. Hold the selector dial in and rotate it until the Note indicator says C - which is the default root.
3. Release the selector knob and rotate it to the root note you desire.
The temperament/Sweetener name will now flash alternating between the root selection and temperament.
The root will be set back to C whenever you change the Temperament/Sweetener or restart the StroboPlus, it is not saved to memory.
On the Peterson V-SAM:
The ROOT setting is accessed under the TMPR menu item by pressing the CHOOSE button built into the VALUE knob.
When "ROOT" is displayed on the MENU ITEM line, rotating the VALUE knob will then alter the root tone of the selected temperament.
Since C is the default root of all Sweeteners/temperaments, in order to go from E9 to D9, change the root from C to B flat (two semitones down).
| Tucker Jackson wrote: |
4 different verisons of the D note? In the Peterson world, that means you would have 4 different sweetners, one to be used with the open strings, one for most pedals/knees, then specialized ones for particular notes on pedals and knee levers that are different from the main pedal/knee sweetner.
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That's incorrect, you can have as many instances of any note as you like in a single Sweetener, it doesn't even matter if it's multiple instances of the same note in the same octave.
They can all have separate cent offsets.
We sometimes recommend programming a second Sweetener only if two identical notes are very close together.
| Bill McCloskey wrote: |
Looks like it is a mute point. Peterson Connect seems incompatible with a mac. At least I can't get it to recognize my tuner via firewire. Seems like it is a known issue for mac users.
Peterson Connnect also won't allow me to create my own sweeteners because it doesn't recognize any the device. |
Peterson Connect is compatible with Mac OS, Windows PC and even Linux.
If you're having difficulty with connecting your computer to the tuner, come on over to our Helpdesk and we'll get you set up:
https://www.petersontuners.com/support/newTicket/
_________________
John Norris
Peterson Strobe Tuners
- Celebrating over 75 Years of Tuning Products in 2024! |
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Bill McCloskey
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Posted 17 Jul 2024 5:27 am
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| Thanks for the detailed reply John. Unfortunately, the supplied cable is not compatible with a macbook pro with a thunderbolt USB. I have just ordered a new cable with a mini usb / thunderbolt adapter and hopefully that will work. |
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Tucker Jackson
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA
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Posted 17 Jul 2024 8:52 am
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Good general information, John, thanks. It's great we get this kind of proactive support from Peterson! Unfortunately, if I'm understanding the situation, Bill doesn't already have a sweetner in the tuner on which he can execute the described root-change operation.
Be nice if he did... but it seems he'll need to either find somebody else's similar sweetner to adapt, or enter the numbers from scratch.
| John Norris wrote: |
That's incorrect, you can have as many instances of any note as you like in a single Sweetener, it doesn't even matter if it's multiple instances of the same note in the same octave.
They can all have separate cent offsets.
We sometimes recommend programming a second Sweetener only if two identical notes are very close together.
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Actually, we're saying the same thing. I'm aware that you can have multiple versions of a note in a sweetner (my personal sweetner does) -- but it gets dicey if they are close together within the same octave, which is Bill's situation I was commenting on there. Sorry, in my prior post, I should have been more precise and said "close together in the same octave." You can technically set up the sweetner to recognize countless versions of an almost-identical pitch, but actually using the tuner becomes a nightmare.
And I thought that's where we were here in Bill's example, with 4 versions of a note, same octave, but a few cents apart from one another. But I now realize I misread his chart(!), and it's not going to require 4 sweetners -- probably just 2.
One example:
Open string B = -12 cents
P1's B = -16 cents
I would go to a second sweetner for pitches that close together since they will be the same octave -- but maybe others would try to see if it was useable within one sweetner. It seems rife for having the tuner locking in the wrong version of the note, and the user not knowing, but I suppose with practice one could learn how to recognize which is which by dancing the pitch around in that range and watching how the display reacts.
Bill, you can get started any time creating the sweetner on the Peterson website. I don't think you have to connect your tuner to just create a sweetner, but you do have to be logged into your account on the website. Everything you create is saved real-time under your account, and it's not necessarily tied to one specific tuner (I have created sweetners and then downloaded them on one Peterson -- but not on my other unit, etc.). Later, when you get the right cable, you can physically attached the tuner and download your work with one click.
https://www.petersontuners.com/sweeteners/custom/
First, you will need to convert your chart from Hz to cents because that's what Peterson uses. For this operation, we consider 440 = +0 cents.
In the part of the spectrum we're in, an offset of 1Hz from 440 is about 4 cents.
So, if 440 is the standard at +0 cents, 441 would be +4 cents. And 439 would be -4 cents, etc.
There a two ways you can go here on the multiple-sweetner thing. You can either try to put all of the open strings and as many of the pedal/knee changes into the first sweetner -- and then put the few stragglers that are very close to an existing note (like your P1 B-note) in a second sweetner. That's convenient, but you have to remember to switch the tuner over to the other sweetner for certain pedal/knee stragglers. If you forget, it won't be immediately obvious while tuning. It will just sound bad when you play.  Looking at the chart, I think you luckily have few enough stragglers to go this route.
Or.... you can do the KISS method and put the open strings in one sweetner and all pedals/knees in the other. The only advantage here is mental: you don't have to keep up with which knees are in which sweetner. It's "all or none." The serious disadvantage is that, when tuning a pedal/knee, you have to be regularly manually switching back to the 'open' sweetner to make sure that note is still on target too. Not cool.
Regardless of which way you go, assuming you have a tuner model that can do different colors, I recommend setting a different display-color for each sweetner to make it obvious which one you're currently using, and this can be easily set on the website, or the tuner itself. |
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John Norris
From:
Peterson Strobe Tuners, Illinois, USA
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Posted 17 Jul 2024 11:08 am
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Hi Tucker,
You're pretty well versed in our tuners, thanks for helping out  !
| Tucker Jackson wrote: |
| if I'm understanding the situation, Bill doesn't already have a sweetner in the tuner on which he can execute the described root-change operation. |
There's an E13 factory preset in the StroboPLUS HDC which could be used, at least to try it out.
| Tucker Jackson wrote: |
| I would go to a second sweetner for pitches that close together since they will be the same octave -- but maybe others would try to see if it was useable within one sweetner. It seems rife for having the tuner locking in the wrong version of the note, and the user not knowing, but I suppose with practice one could learn how to recognize which is which by dancing the pitch around in that range and watching how the display reacts. |
You can avoid that when you're programming the Sweetener by re-naming one or both as (for example) Bp and BL (pedal or lever) instead of two B3 (or whatever) note names.
_________________
John Norris
Peterson Strobe Tuners
- Celebrating over 75 Years of Tuning Products in 2024! |
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Tucker Jackson
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA
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Posted 17 Jul 2024 11:27 am
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| John Norris wrote: |
You can avoid that when you're programming the Sweetener by re-naming one or both as (for example) Bp and BL (pedal or lever) instead of two B3 (or whatever) note names. |
Eggs-cellent! But I'm not seeing how to rename the note. I can add the string number... how do you rename it to, say, Bp? |
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John Norris
From:
Peterson Strobe Tuners, Illinois, USA
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Posted 17 Jul 2024 11:42 am
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| Tucker Jackson wrote: |
| John Norris wrote: |
You can avoid that when you're programming the Sweetener by re-naming one or both as (for example) Bp and BL (pedal or lever) instead of two B3 (or whatever) note names. |
Eggs-cellent! But I'm not seeing how to name the note. I can add the string number... how do you rename it to, say, Bp? |
After you've created the Sweetener on the Sweetener Designer page, click on a note name you would like to re-name.
Clicking the circle that contains the name of the note, below the slider, will allow you to specify a ‘Custom Note Name’ for that offset note. Click on the note name, accidental or octave number to replace one or all of them to a choice of alternatives from the drop-down list.
Specifying a custom note name, however, changes your Sweetener into a mode that will ONLY detect the notes you have listed (notes not listed will be ignored).
This feature allows for listing two or more instances of the same note in the same octave but with different offsets.
You can have F# in the 4th octave with an offset of -7.6 cents and another F# in the same 4th octave with an offset of +9.8 cents. You can give a custom note name to one or both in order to tell them apart.
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John Norris
Peterson Strobe Tuners
- Celebrating over 75 Years of Tuning Products in 2024! |
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Tucker Jackson
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA
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Posted 17 Jul 2024 12:53 pm
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| John Norris wrote: |
| Clicking the circle that contains the name of the note, below the slider, will allow you to specify a ‘Custom Note Name’ for that offset note. Click on the note name, accidental or octave number to replace one or all of them to a choice of alternatives from the drop-down list. |
Thanks for following up. When I click the circle with the note-name, I only see a pop-up option to select a string-number. Nothing else in that drop-down but string numbers. What am I missing?
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John Norris
From:
Peterson Strobe Tuners, Illinois, USA
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Posted 17 Jul 2024 1:05 pm
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You've already chosen string numbers, so there's no note name to re-name.
If you choose notes instead of numbers, you'll see this window:
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John Norris
Peterson Strobe Tuners
- Celebrating over 75 Years of Tuning Products in 2024! |
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Tucker Jackson
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA
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Posted 17 Jul 2024 1:57 pm
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OK, thanks! And to add one more piece of info for future use:
Even before posting earlier, I had tried deleting a string number to see if that would get the desired menu, but it didn't change anything. Also, the menu didn't come up for strings I had never attached a number to (which is most strings, in my setup).
But with this new info that it's definitely string-number related, I poked around and found that all string numbers anywhere within the sweetner have to be deleted, not just the one you're working on. Once that's done, all good. The correct menu pops up.
Very cool feature, probably created just for pedal steel players, given the 'P' and 'L' naming! I'm going to look at my muliple-sweetner setup to see if I can consolidate three into one.
Thanks for your help, John. |
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Jim Palenscar
From:
Oceanside, Calif, USA
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Posted 19 Jul 2024 7:06 am
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| Just know that the sweetened tunings are accurate at the open position only- do not try to use them at other positions as the notes will not be displayed correctly. If you want to check your bar position at other places use EQU. |
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