tuning?

Sidney Ralph Penton · From: Moberly, Missouri, USA

ok when you tune a psg say #1 string is a F#. now you can tune it to 440 and really any place between 430 and 450 megs. i have heard that a string should never be tuned to 440. then again i heard that all should be 440 what are your oppinion on this tuning thing. doc
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zum SD10 peavy session 400 peavy XR600G
if its not a zum steel it isn't real
just trying to steel for the Lord>

richard burton · From: Britain

Time to go......

basilh · From: United Kingdom

Megs ?

Allan Thompson · From: Scotland.

OOPS, time to get in to the suit of armour !!!!!!!!

Morton Kellas · From: Chazy, NY, USA 1

Come on! Sidney is asking for help. Let's not knit pick him because of terminology. I can't help him on this one or else I would. Thank's

Roger Kelly · From: Bristol,Tennessee

Here's some info that may help you.
http://www.jeffran.com/tuning.php

Larry Strawn · From: Golden Valley, Arizona, R.I.P.

I gotta go dig a hole to hide in! Very Happy

Larry
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John Coffman · From: Wharton,Texas USA

Sidney, Bud you opened a can of worms here. I have been having the same problems with what is the correct tuning? My teacher of steel suggest that Jeff Newman's tuning is the closest to the correct. Hamonics is a funny thing and does react weirdly. I can just tell you what I have learned.

Every steel is different, special and has it's own tone. Use the tuning chart as a guideline or a starting point. Then tweek the tuning depending on what you are performing with. I have been looking for the one tuning that fits all conditions sadly I have failed. I feel that time will help me find the sweet spot that has the notes hitting at the right frequencies, pleasing to the ears and in tune with others. Best of luck looking for the proper tuning. Hope you find yours.
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basilh · From: United Kingdom

Morton, if I was "being Picky" I'd have pointed out that a simple search of the forum would turn up a wealth of Accurate relevant info. A search for 'tuning' found 360 matches.
That's 360 subject posts not individual answers.

Don't you think it's been covered adequately ?
"Groundhog Day" isn't my favourite movie.

Kevin Hatton · From: Buffalo, N.Y.

Ah, sorry, its my lunch time. I gotta go.

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

There are several different ways players tune the F# strings:

1. Straight up on a tuner with the pedals up.

2. Straight up with a tuner with the pedals down.

3. Tuning by ear with harmonics to the 5th string and spliting the difference between the open B note and the A pedal down C# note. (basicly the Newman chart will do this)

4. Tuning by ear just as in #3 only using a compensator to make it so the F# strings slightly adjust themselves along with the A pedal.

I used method # 2 for years and because of a suggestion from Buddy Charleton and I am now trying method #4.

Whatever works for you is fine. I would think that if tou tune everything straight up then you should the F# strings the same way. If you have been doing that and it sounds wrong to your ears then try the Newman chart and see if that works any better.

The forum can be a goofy place. There really is no controversy in the world of working steel players over the tuning issue. Out among working players you can play and make it sound good or you can't. The guys that make it sound better work more. If you think it sounds off you ask another player what they do and you experiment a bit. If you find something that works for you then stick to it and get on with the more important part of learning how to play in tune.
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Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

Mike Winter · From: Portland, OR

Where's Eric? Very Happy

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

SRS.

I explained it to a guy at the gig last night.

The "Dissonance" you hear in your thirds and LOTS of other intervals, is something that literally drives people nuts.

If you are playing with instruments that have not been designed to "tune out" the natural cycling on a fixed twelve note scale, such as GUITAR, or KEYBOARD, you are best off tuning the same way.

If you want to flatten out the cycles, by detuning some of your strings and changes the PSG is capable of doing it in most of the instances of chords you will be commonly using. Single notes, or accidentals, you stand the chance of being more dissonant, and the chance is greater than 50 percent. Most people have come to "expect" pedal steels to be out of tune, and your ear can usually adjust the bar automatically for the worst of it.

"Tweaked" chords played against "non tweaked" instruments can easily enough be "averaged" by the same mainframe thats between your ears.

Don't BS yourself into thinking or telling people you are "more in tune" that don't alter their tunings though. All they have to do is ask you for a note, and then ask you why it's 13 cents flat. You're sunk.

If you tune "straight up" for a number of YEARS, Not Days, Weeks, or Months, your ear probably will demand that you hear the thirds in the "keyboard" or "guitar" fixed twelve note system.

Also, even with distortion, these "straight up" intervals, when played with a full compliment of chord notes, seem to lose the "beating quality". Especially with wide voicings.

Myself, when I play at home, I don't use a tuner, and probably in the earlier part of my thirty years of playing live with instruments that (mostly) tuned that way, I might have been more likely to use one of the many fine systems to tune cycles out of commonly played chords. Even if they are severely lacking in accidental, or single note work, most of it which is done too fast to tell. Slow down the "top recording artists'" stuff and see for yourself.

It's kind of like learning to live on a planet where there are twelve arbitrary months, and thirteen lunar cycles.

It takes a lot of time, which in the first place, you might not have, and if you want to order your life to these lunar cycles instead of months, to try and avoid headaches, you are welcome to it. (Good luck with the banker and employer though, unless you deal only with Wiccans.)

Plenty of people do it.

With mixed results.

YMMV

Smile

EJL

Intonation help (0:><:0)

Sidney Ralph Penton · From: Moberly, Missouri, USA

ok i started out on a carter starter with a jeff newman tape. I tuned it according to jeff newman. then i got a book from scotty's in st louis. it shows a different way of tuning in the book. i found that most songs work with the way it shows in the book rather than jeff newmans style. i never had a real teacher cause thats 150 miles one way. but i have a friend of mine that helps me a little bit and he tunes streight at 440. i now paly a zum ( the best) and i usually paly by myself when i do play usually at churches etc. if i would have had any idea how difficult this thing was to leard i would not have tried to tackle it. but after you spend all that money your hooked. then the sound of it. it is so soothing and relaxing and refreshing at the same time. this is deffinatly habit forming with no relief. i just love it.
_________________
zum SD10 peavy session 400 peavy XR600G
if its not a zum steel it isn't real
just trying to steel for the Lord>

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

Eric and Jim advise tuning to equal temperament (the center line of the tuner). If pedal steels were perfect machines, this would be good advice. But they aren't, so it isn't.

As an example, when you step on the pedals the E string goes slightly flat. This makes the interval C#-E narrower than it should be. That interval sounds pure when it's 15 cents wider than equal temperament. The cabinet drop effect is pushing it in the wrong direction. There are many other examples I could cite.

The net effect is that a beginner has no chance of playing in tune if he tunes all of the strings and changes to 440. The imperfections in the machine itself push the strings further away from pure harmonies. Some people's ears, like Eric's and my Aunt Thelma's, aren't bothered by this, but most people hear anything tempered beyond ET as "out of tune".
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Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

Well SRS, you're hooked..

Between the Newmann tuning method, and others that are out there, you should be able to find something that you can live with.

On a guitar, with fixed frets, fixed tuning has to be reckoned with right off the bat.

On a PSG, you might need to make some adjustments to keep your ear from throwing things "off".

Those tuning charts help you do that.

Good luck.

Wink

EJL

Jerry L Miller · From: Sublette, Kansas, USA

what sounds best to you!....i tune all open to 439
then i retune my 3d and 6th to 436 open
pedals down 5 and 10 to 434
3 and 6 438
e's lower to 434
e's raise to 435

this works for me but i know it would not work every one
jerry Very Happy

Ken Metcalf · From: San Antonio Texas USA

One new guy to another.....
These more experienced folks have very complex answers to your question, and yet still don't have the answer.
Best thing for me in the beginning was a Peterson Steel tuner.
It simply will keep you in the ballpark as you learn to tune.
Tune more to ear in the garage and more towards strait up with a band. Somewhere in between is your answer.
I use a jerry rig switch, flip to tune and check in between songs.
Then you can program the Peterson to remember the tuning as you change and learn.
Good Luck Rolling Eyes

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richard burton · From: Britain

For krissake, tune the fucking thing so it's in tune with the rest of the world, not 20 cents flat here, and 20 cents sharp there.

Dennis Schell · From: Shingletown, Shasta county, Kalifornia

Jamie Lennon · From: Nashville, TN

I would go with the tempered tuning option, Jeff Newman was one of the worlds best teachers. And his charts promte this tuning. I dont understand how steel players can tune everything to 440 and not hear they are outta tune with the rest of the world??? IMHO !

I use the Jeff newman tuning chart then I fine tune everything then, and this makes me in tune with the rest of the world !
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Dennis Schell · From: Shingletown, Shasta county, Kalifornia

Nice website Jamie! (And that "Greene" SB is gorgeous!)

I just thought of an example of "the rest of the world" in the context I was trying to put across....

Decades ago, I played in a "guitar band" that added a keyboard player with a (then) new Yamaha "electric grand" piano, the one with the removable section with short strings on the piano's bass end....(CP-70?) Anyway, we had always all tuned to an electronic tuner and were all happily in tune together in the days before that @#$%%@ Yamaha. Turned out that (apparently) due to the extreme shortness of those bass strings it couldn't ever BE in tune harmonically and the sound on stage would drive us nuts! (We finally ended up lugging around an upright acoustic piano with Helpinstill pickups in it. THEN all we had to worry about were hernias! LOL) That Yamaha sounded BEAUTIFUL alone but not with the band....

FWIW,

Dennis
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