New Straight up E peterson preset

Mitch Adelman · From: Pennsylvania, USA

I've been using the Peterson VSII e9 preset since it came out with my band. Now I see the strobo flip has another straight up E preset too. Does that mean the original E9 preset isn't "the right one"? I'm confused. I've been told by my bandmates that my mullen is sometimes sharp to them on stage. I made my own preset on my VSII and kept the E's straight up like the new stroboflip just to have it and will try it this weekend with the band. Will I now sound flat? Which preset is better for playing with a band? I've used the newman chart for years but now this new preset available is making me cast doubt and maybe I should switch? What do you pros think about the reason why Peterson added a new straight up E E9 preset and if its an improvement over the original preset? Thanks for your valuable opinion!!
Mitch A

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

The reason that Peterson has any of the presets is that these are some of the tuning systems that are being used by players in the field. There is no worser or better except in that there are worser & better players. The good players have their systems and they play them in tune. Peterson is just trying to serve as many people with as many systems as possible with the tools they need. Only you can answer the question as to which system works best for you. If you have a whole lot of time you can do a forum search and see what a lot of people have to say about the various options.

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

The "new" E9th program in the Stroboflip is still the Jeff Newman E9th chart, just referened to E's at 0 instead of E's at +10 cents like is on the VS-II. Actually the new Strobofilp has both Newman E9th programs.

Gordy Rex · From: Southport, NC

Mitch,
Turn on your Tuner....dial down to
-10 cents.....Then.. mode change to the E9 and C6 pre sets....This will use the pre sets but you will be much closer to standard...I work with midi and keyboards and the out of the box pre sets are to sharp for my ear...

Gordy

[This message was edited by Gordy Rex on 29 July 2006 at 06:10 AM.]

Michael Douchette · From: Gallatin, TN (deceased)

I just wish someone would make a "real" strobe in a portable package like that, instead of the "virtual" strobe... I like being able to compare pitches in that orange lit up wheel...

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Mikey D...

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

Gordy, he doesn't have to do that with the new Stobofilp as it has the Newman E9th tuning referenced at "0" already programmed in.

However, the preprogrammed C6th is with the C's referenced at +9.8 cents, just like the VS-II.

I got mine Thursday from Musician's Friend and programmed my own E9th and C6th into the user memories. I use the Jeff Newman settings referenced to "0" for both C6th and E9th but with some slight changes so my Franklin guitar will be in tune with itself.

Mitch Adelman · From: Pennsylvania, USA

Thanks for your help everyone. I know bringing up temperments and all that opens up a big can of worms. I searched and read many old posts about it and now I understand the problems and complexities of steel tunings.The fact that I read that orchestra players tune by ears for centuries and today made me realize just how subjective tuning can be.
I still can't figure out though why peterson would make a new preset just like the original except straight up E's on the newman. Wouldn't that throw some of the derived interval off a bit after Jeff spent so much time working his chrat out?It seems to me that it would have been more versatile for Peterson to have a "Emmons" preset (found on his site) which has straight up E, B and D's and other differences. I put that one in P2 of my VSII and it seems to be better with my band. If only the guitarists would stay in perfect tune all night! When you play in your sound zone surrounded by steel sounds sometimes you seem in tune with yourself but don't quite match up to the rest of the band with lousy monitors etc. I think all is great till someone says I'm out of tune! I guess it'll take another decade of practice or so!Thanks.
Mitch

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

It's NOT a straight up tuning. The original Jeff Newman tuning chart used the the "E"'s (on E9th)set at "0" (referenced to 440) and all others compensated with some negative amount, e.g. the G#'s tuned to -3.5Hz or -14 cents. When Peterson set up the VS-II they used the later Jeff Newman chart with the E9th E's tuned to +2.5 Hz or +9.8 cents and all the other strings compensated with some negative number, e.g. the G#'s at -4 cents, etc. The two Jeff Newman charts both have the same offsets - neither is a "straight up" tuning.

On the new Stobe 0 Flip, they have both the Jeff Newman E9th with the E's referenced at +9.8 cents and in another program with the E's reference to "0". NEITHER is a "straight up" tuning.

Ken Metcalf · From: San Antonio Texas USA

I use the pre set E9th and then chime in the Bs. Works good for me.
Many / Some people tune Es with A-B pedals down to 440. This is worth a try depending on if you play more with your pedals up or down. The pre set E9th is Close to a pedals down 440. but you tune to the Peterson with pedals up to get this effect.
Steel players should study up on the tuning theory in order to find what works for them.
No one can tell you absolutely what will work for you, because what works for them will invariably not sound right to you.
The Peterson is a great tool for comparing, Writing Down and saving your findings. Bottem Line.. 4ths and 3rds are not perfectly compatible. Good Luck Ken

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

At the risk of grabbing a passing dog by the ears I believe a top shelf player announced that there is "Straight Up Just Intonation", although he tempers it. Yet another claim that he tunes his "by ear" tuning to a tenth of a hz, which for those watching the clock is one beat every six seconds.

Watching Tempered Just Intonation arguments is like watching an anarchist congress in legislative session.

Some of the collected quotes I've found are priceless..

Fourths and Thirds don't match?

Do seconds and fifths, fifths and fourths?

How about the one semitone intervals so common when one instrument is playing a sus4 either against another instruments third, or one that like b0b put it, "no longer exists" or one instrument playing "blue notes" against a major third in a bass line..

Howard Palmer · From: Colorado, USA

Here's something interesting that I found recently that complicates things even a bit more. I recently rebuilt an old Sho-Bud Pro1 that had been refinished terribly by a previous owner and ordered a new fretboard from John Coop who makes very accurate reproductions of the originals by Sho-Bud. When I compared it side by side to a Mullen fretboard on my other guitar there was a siginificant difference in the fret spacing as you got farther away from the 12th fret. It seems that Mullen was compensating for parallax in your viewing angle from the normal head position. But I found that I could play more in tune on the Sho-Bud version that was divided mathematically accurate. Just one more bit of randomness in the pedal steel universe that makes it hard to understand how to tune. By the way, I tuned JI for many years and always struggled trying to stay in tune with the band's average center. I've started tuning ET and am finding it much easier to hit the sweet spot.

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

I found the same thing with fretboards. If they're not mathematically perfect, though they're nothing more than "reference suggestions", they are inaccurate suggestions.

I'm sure Mr Coops' boards are mathematically perfect, as were the stock Sho~Bud 3d plastic ones I got from Rayline, NOS.

Most other brands that are imperfect can always seem to come up with "reasons" why they are, or that they don't make any difference. I'm sure there are some that I haven't heard yet.

Difficulties sounding In tune with other instruments that don't detune their thirds, sixths, etc. I wouldn't know. In 27 or so years and three thousand or so paid live gigs, I've never tried detuning to sound more in tune...

YMMV

(the faint buzz of hornets rising steadily...)

EJL

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

Looks like this thread on the Peterson tuner has been hijacked.

David Doggett · Posted 30 Jul 2006 9:33 pm

If you tune everything straight up, why would you need a Peterson with presets? Any chromatic tuner can be used to tune everything straight up.

While a few pros tune straight up, most of the commercial recordings you hear are not straight up. Many studio producers wont allow it. Not even all the regular guitars in studios are tuned straight up. It is not necessary to tune straight up, even if other instruments you play with are. If tuning straight up works better for someone, then fine. That's an option. But that is not the only option, not the most common option, and not necessarily the preferred option. Everyone should feel free to try different tuning systems to see what works best for them. The idea that straight up is "in tune" and anything else is out of tune is incorrect. In Western music, Just Intonation has always been considered "in tune." Mean temper, well temper, and equal temper (straight up) are all compromises that are intentionally out of tune (tempered) by definition. They are necessary for some fixed pitch instruments. Steel guitar is not one of them.

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Student of the Steel: Zum uni, Fender tube amps, squareneck and roundneck resos, tenor sax, keyboards

Mitch Adelman · From: Pennsylvania, USA

Thanks for the input but what I was aking isn't about tuning all notes straight up. I was just wondering why peterson decided to add another prest that is the same as the newman except the E is "straight up". Why did they bother to do that unless users suggested it? I know the emmons guitar company tempered tuning is different than the original Newman preset by more than the E. Maybe they should have included that one as the new "preset" . At any rate I have learned to make my own presets on the VSII so the only advantage I see for the stroboflip is size and "flippability" (Now theres a new word!) Thanks all
Mitch

David Doggett · Posted 31 Jul 2006 7:44 am

Right, Mitch, I wasn't responding to your concern. The two reasons I know of to tune the Es to a reference other than 440 are cabinet drop and stretch tuning. Some people prefer to have their pedals-down As tuned straight up to 440. This means the Es will go a little sharp when the pedals are up - say a reference of 441-442 (4-8 cents). If you program the preset to give whatever the Es are, then you can just tune the Es to that, and the As will end up 440 when the pedals are down. I prefer to split the cabinet-drop difference between the As with the pedals down, and the Es with the pedals up. So if my cabinet drop is 2 Hz (8 cents), I would tune my Es with the pedals up to a reference of 441, and my As with the pedals down would come out at 439. That way I am only 1 Hz (4 cents) off with the pedals either up or down. Most people don't notice anything less than 5 cents. I much prefer that to being off by 8 cents in one of the modes, which to me and most people is noticeable. It should also be understood that cabinet drop only affects playing open at the nut. Over the frets, your bar and ear and vibrato should easily compensate for that 8 cents (or 4 cents if you split the difference). That goes for the open pedal chord and AB pedal chord. When using other pedal and lever combinations cabinet drop can have complicated effects even over the frets.

The other reason to tune to a higher reference than 440 is "stretch" tuning. Octaves above middle C tend to get progressively sharper if tuned by ear. And octaves below get progressively flatter. One technical explanation for this among piano tuners has to do with string inflexibility. However, I have read that horn players and singers also intonate with stretch. If true, that would seem to implicate our ears and brains rather than technical problems with strings.

At any rate, some steelers advocate tuning about 1 hz (4 cents) sharp, because that supposedly matches the stretch in the octaves steel plays in. I'm not so sure about that. If I am not mistaken, the highest note on E9 is G# above middle C (A with the pedals down). There is no stretch in the octaves to either side of middle C. Of course, we play very little at the open nut, and so usually are using the bar up the neck somewhere, which would place the high strings one or two octaves above middle C. There is about 1 Hz (4 cents) stretch there. But that is easily compensated by the bar and the ear, and so I am not so sure we need to stretch the open tuning for that. Parallax (viewing the bar from the side so it doesn't look like it is directly over the fret) causes much worse problems than that, but we easily compensate for parallax. So I'm not sure it makes sense to tune the open strings sharp for stretch. This gives uneeded stretch up the neck, but unwanted stretch open at the nut. And the lower strings, especially on C6 or uni, are below middle C, and do not need to be stretched sharp.

There is a third reason to tune everything slightly sharp. After playing for awhile, the strings are more likely to wander flat than sharp, especially if they are new. And many people think it sounds better to be slightly sharp than slightly flat. So to anticipate this, one can tune slightly sharp.

So all the above explain why one might want to tune the Es to a reference of say 441 or 442, rather than straight up 440. But, if one had no cabinet drop, didn't want to stretch tune, and had faith in a stable set of strings, then one might want to tune the Es straight up to a 440 reference. That might explain why some people would want such a preset in the Peterson.

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Student of the Steel: Zum uni, Fender tube amps, squareneck and roundneck resos, tenor sax, keyboards

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 31 July 2006 at 02:59 PM.]

Gene H. Brown · From: Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada

I've got an idea, just tune both necks to "500" and play flat! Man, this topic has been beaten to death and then some. You can tune all day long and be perfectly in tune and one thing's for sure, if you don't play in tune, guess what, YOU'RE OUT OF TUNE!!!! Sorry, I got a little carried away fellows.

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If You Keep Pickin That Thing, It'll Never Heal!
;)

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

Mitch,

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

There is NO "straight up" everything tuned to "0" in the Peterson Strobe O flip. I don't know why everyone keeps referring to the Jeff Newman tuning with the E's at "0" as a "straight up" tuning????? Nothing else is at 0, just the E's - all other strings are tuned to something less than "0".

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

Re: stretch tuning:
It's my understanding that the ears tend to hear upper notes as flat (and the lower notes as sharp) on a piano that is tuned relative to 440 over its entire compass, and thus is a psycho-acoustic thing.
Thus the stretch is built into the temperament octave, which is wide (from F to F) by a few cents, creating a curve in the upper octaves whereby each F (or C or A) is slightly sharper than the lower one.

I've experimented with a wide octave on PSG, but I think David is right that the ear does it naturally as you play up on the neck.

John Norris · From: Peterson Strobe Tuners, Illinois, USA

Hi Guys,

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

John, thanks for jumping in and clarifying.
My comment about "no straight up" referred to the E9th pre-programmed settings.

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