Jeff Newman - F# Strings

Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

I know that lots of you Forumites knew Jeff Newman personally. Perhaps you could shed some light on this.

After developing his "sweetened" tuning methods, did he ever use compensating pulls on his F# strings; or, did he maybe depend on "cabinet drop" to keep the F#s in tune with what he was playing?

Or, was he a talented picker with great ears who knew right where to place that bar?

~Lee

Bobby D. Jones · From: West Virginia, USA

Newman's 12U tuning has string 1-7 F# +6 cents. He never showed any compensating on the 1-7 string in any of his teaching videos I have seen.

Tucker Jackson · From: Portland, Oregon, USA

I agree with Bobby. Don't think he had compensators.

But one reason may be because the Newman tuning system cleverly cuts the "Two F#s Problem" (as B0b called it) in half.

For those that are unfamiliar, if you tune a steel by ear to pure, beatless JI, the target pitch you want for F# ends up being 22 cents higher in the open position (ringing against the B strings) than it is ringing against the pedals-down C# note. That's... obviously a problem, since you can't tune the F#s to be both target pitches at once. Enter compensators.

But most guitars don't have compensators, so one compromise you can make is to change the way you tune the 5th intervals.

The Newman system is variation on JI. One thing it does is tune the 5ths two cents flat of the root. Meanwhile, maximum sweetness in JI is 2 cents sharp of the root. Every decision in a tempered tuning involves a trade-off, and Newman's was to have almost every chord slightly less sweet than it could be -- but doing that at least moved the two F# targets far closer together: 10 cents apart (instead of 22). That makes the Two F#'s Problem far more manageable. Not so manageable that I would personally skip spending $75 and getting a couple more bellcranks and pullrods and having them act as compensators on those F# strings. But it is workable with 10-cent bar-slants, and it's especially easy on the 1st string. Lee, I imagine that's what Jeff did, along with a whole host of legendary steel players who tuned by ear to JI.

Rick Kornacker · From: Dixon Springs, Tennessee, USA

Hey all! Having had the late and great Jeff Newman as my father-in-law I would agree with the above comments. To the best of my knowledge "compensators" were not included in any of the many guitars he played(meticulously). I inherited one of them, a single neck Carter, pretty stock set-up. So, relax...and just play good! Regards,RK😉

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"think MORE...play LESS"

J D Sauser · From: Wellington, Florida

One of the "eyebrow-raisers" was that JN came out with his slightly raised E's. Some of that had to do with counteracting cabinet drop, but what most don't discuss is that if narrows the interval between the E-chord's root and it's JI-cumberson Maj.3rd (pesky G#) and he thus did not have to be 11 cents below the rest of the world on that G#.

Likewise I somewhat fix (take the beat harshness off to an acceptable vibrato) my beats on C6th's CMaj.-chord by raising the C's half way to "sweet" (about 5 cents) and leave my E's spot on "+/-0" and can keep that E with other changes which don't use E as a Maj.3rd (and on C6th there are a lot of those "deals" happening).

By the way, tuning JI (aka. "sweet") is NOT temperament, it's the contrary of temperament - the absence of temperament. Evidently, this can't be fully achieved as soon as we include 4 note chords (like 7ths or any TriTone situation).

Rather anything away from JI, is "temperament" and perfect mathematical ET would be the ultimate extreme temperament.

Physics creates JI by natural occurrence (Physics is the science of "what IS" (someone please tell that Pres. Bill Clinton Laughing

)) in the over-tones (harmonics). If you pinch a "chime"/harmonic at the 4th fret (Maj.3rd) of a perfectly tuned string, the resulting chime will be about 11 cents flat... actually, one will find that that Ma.3rd chime will only ring out well, pinched a little left of the 4th fret, which evidences the clinch between a perfect equal interval fretboard and the fact that strings sine in fractions instead. Perfect 12 semi-tone intervals don't match with the rule of fractions.

"It depends on what the definition of IS is!"... J-D.
_________________
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Was it JFK who said: Ask Not What TAB Can Do For You - Rather Ask Yourself "What Would B.B. King Do?"

A Little Mental Health Warning:

Tablature KILLS SKILLS.
The uses of Tablature is addictive and has been linked to reduced musical fertility.
Those who produce Tablature did never use it.

I say it humorously, but I mean it.

Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

Did Jeff factor in "cabinet drop" to lower the F#s a bit, which would help them be closer in tune with the C#s?

I recently acquired a Peterson Stomp Classic and have been trying out both of the Newman E9 tunings. I believe my eyes prefer the original (lower) tuning system.

(Yes, my eyes. They are used to aiming at a particular target over the frets. With Newman's later, sharper, tuning the targets moved.)

My Williams keyless Single 10 has very negligible "cabinet drop", therefore the F#s drop in pitch very little with the "pedals down". The F#s are horribly out of tune with the C#s. They sound sweet with the Bs, though.

The tuning system I've been using prior to the acquisition of the Peterson tuner called for the F#s to be tuned slightly sharp with the C#s and slightly flat with the Bs. I thought the Newman tuning system was also designed to split tbe difference like that. Maybe his tuning system assumed more cabinet drop than my Williams guitar exhibits.
_________________
Lee, from South Texas - Down On The Rio Grande

There are only two options as I see it.
Either I'm right, or there is a sinister conspiracy to conceal the fact that I'm right.

Williams Keyless S-10, BMI S-10, Evans FET-500LV, Fender Steel King, 2 Roland Cube 80XL's,
Sarno FreeLoader, Goodrich Passive Volume Pedals, Vintage ACE Pack-A-Seat

J D Sauser · From: Wellington, Florida

I think we also -for any silent readers here- should mention that E9th and C6th are not only very different "animals" musically and in playing approach, but also as to tuning. The F# discussed here on E9th, is with the E's down engaged, a C6th's not so sexy G-sting in the middle because is in C6th too, a problematic string.
E9th has a "system" which was meant mainly to move V-I or as most in Country perceive it I->IV (which yes, is the same). and back. As long as there are not too many "stacked" changes ("stacked" as for an example's sake; altering the E-lever down or the A&B pedals down chord with other changes to make it a DIFFERENT chord, meaning swapping the chord's degrees), a basic E9th can quite efficiently be tuned JI with only minor "glitches" like the pesky E->F lever in combination with the flattened JI'ed A-pedal string then becoming a noticeably flat root asking for a further flattened Maj.3rd.
C6th and therefore Bb6 (referring to E9th universal, since we're talking about Jeff who became one of the proponents of that system) has a LOT of stacked changes which makes, some changing chords to a 3rd and 4th level, which makes JI throughout near impossible.
Again, that F# comes into play as with all the chords B6th (E9th E's down half) generates as the 5th of C (B in Universal), the 9th of F (E in Universal), the b7th of Am (G#m in Universal) and the 4th of F's (of E in Universal) relative minor Dm9th (C#m9th in Universal) which FMaj (E in Universal). can be viewed as (no root or consider the top D as root) just like C is Am.

JI considerations are mostly concentrated around Maj.3rd, and secondly to a lesser degree min.3rd intervals. The the more degree-positions a particular fixed note can assume, the higher the risk that in one circumstance it may be a Maj.3rd higher than another string and then become a root or min.3rd which all would call for a very different tuning.

Al Petty who might have had the most changes on a PSG, came to the conclusion that a tuning which has "some" beats, more resembling a vibrato was more attainable and would also fit better against an ET environment to which most polyphonic adhere nowadays.
This was mentioned on here about a year or two and after trying the approach I found it the most viable, and I think it comes along the line of what Buddy Emmons shocked us all in his later years blessing us with his presence here on the Forum when he submitted that he had moved to "pretty much" ET or as many called it back the "straight" or "440"... but then also admitted that after tuning all "straight up" he'd tone down some of the harsher Maj.3rd to where they were bearable to him, but NOT JI.

The matter of fact remains, we never heard JN, BE or LG green play or sound out of tune. Some -even a few pros.- with odd tunings with a lot of changes did, at times (for not offending, I won't mention their names), but as some changed their approach to tuning -BE being a prime example- we never perceived a change in sound or intonation.

We've debated the mechanical aspects like body drop, even changer shaft-"flex" (the later being closer to conspiracy theory than anything we've heard the last 2 weeks in politics" Smile

). Season and temperature changes have been discussed and rehashed for now decades and as long PSGs will be built in relatively similar way, we will continue to suffer these issues and try to find ways to counteract them. On E9th, raising the E's and tuning A&B-down to a "bodydropped" E, which could be near "on the money" then, still seems a smart idea.

I just watched JN and LG play "Just The Two Of Us" on youtube during breakfast. I don't watch much steel anymore, and when I do, it's rarely E9th, but I must say that on the tuning the two are still my preferred alongside BE of course. They both are NEVER annoying, and have such TASTE.
I know, I might have said this before, but Jeff, because he became known to most of us as a teacher, which he was formidable at, because not only could he play his heart out, but also had impecable speech and could explain things in a logical and straight forward clear and concise manner, was in my opinion often overlooked as one of the BEST steel guitarists I have ever heard, seen and sadly only had the privilege to get to know very briefly.
And he was one of the fewest real entertainers, a natural showman.

I remember one large convention (I am not sure if St-Louis or Dallas) when he had been playing the main stage in a suit (as he often did) but had spray-dyed his hair pink-purple. Right after the concert I ran into him coming out of the men's room as he must just have washed out that dye and I said "oh, you dyed your hair gray, Sir? I dunno, but I liked your natural you better!" He had a great sense of humor, and funny thing is, a year or so later we saw each other at such an event again and he just past me and murmured pointing to the top of his head "I dyed it down to more white now, do like it better?"... so, he had a pretty good memory of people too.

... J-D
_________________
__________________________________________________________

Was it JFK who said: Ask Not What TAB Can Do For You - Rather Ask Yourself "What Would B.B. King Do?"

A Little Mental Health Warning:

Tablature KILLS SKILLS.
The uses of Tablature is addictive and has been linked to reduced musical fertility.
Those who produce Tablature did never use it.

I say it humorously, but I mean it.

Bobby D. Jones · From: West Virginia, USA

Mr. Newman's tuning does have some strange Plus and Minus settings, But they sound good together. I played E9th with Mr. Newman's Tuning, Since about 1970. In Dec. 2017 I went to a GFI S12 with Mr. Newman's 12s Universal Tuning.

I use the frets as close, I let my ears position the bar. Never had any complaints about not fitting in the mix.

Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

Tucker Jackson · From: Portland, Oregon, USA

Jerry Overstreet · From: Louisville Ky

Most of Jeff's charts were for a standard tempered tuning set up. I don't know if he used specific tempered pulls on his F#'s but it was through his teaching material that I became aware of them.

He covered a broad range of things and may not have divulged everything that he did on his personal guitars. I'm guessing he experimented with these things just like most of us do.

Jim Palenscar · From: Oceanside, Calif, USA

I've been around the world and back again regarding tuning having spent the majority of my 50+ years playing the pedal steel tuning the beats out(usually the F note being about 25 cents flat) meticulously recording the offsets and then programming them into my Peterson tuner. Having said that - I never liked the way I sounded when recorded- always sounded a bit sour. Rick Schmidt told me that he tunes straight up so I tried it- sounded like crap to my ears when playing alone but in the band situation finally sounded fine. Kinda makes sense in that the rest of the band tunes straight up. I suppose I never really learned how to play w a band using the sweetened tuning- a contrite admission after all this time. To make my job easier at the shop I've programmed the tuning offsets of frequent customers and friends such as JayDee Maness, Greg Leisz, Doug Livingstone, Frank Carter, Dean Parks, etc and they are all wildly different but yet they all sound great when recorded. I suppose the moral of all this is to find a tuning you're comfortable with and learn how to play it in tune. One of the caveats of this is, if you are using a Peterson tuner and using something other than Equal Temperament, you cannot accurately check yourself up the neck as the sweetened tunings will only display accurately at the open position.

Jimmy Lewis · From: Harrisonburg, Louisiana, USA

I use temperament compentesatots to lower the F#'s with A and B pedals down because if there links you want to use involving these strings and they're a little out of tune you are going to shy away from using these links or chords. In my opinion it's best to take advantage of the innovations we have without them we would still be struggling with these things. When things evolve for the better take advantage of them. Necessity is the mother of invention.

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