-
Hey, Im curious how I tune my guitar to perfection. Do I want the guitar in tune right after I pluck the string? Or do I want it in tune when it rings out.
And where on the guitar do you guys pluck the string?
Also im curious to know about tuning standards. How many cents off do you guys consider not in tune anymore, and what's perfect?
-
09-30-2023 07:43 PM
-
There's no perfect ....
-
I don't pick hard enough for the pitch during the attack to raise, but I would figure you should pick where you play. The most important thing to know about tuning is that you want the guitar to be in tune when you are playing it - which means warmed-up strings.
If you tune your guitar cold before you play it, as they warm with play the strings will lengthen slightly and go a little flat. The habit to develop is to tune the guitar at the end of playing it. When you do that, the next time you play it will be cold and the strings a little sharp, but as you warm them with play they will settle down into warm correct tuning. If you are performing or recording you can warm the string by rubbing your hand up and down the strings, but it really takes a few minutes of playing to include the neck, which may have a slight effect.
If you can't resist adjusting the tuning of a cold guitar, it will be OK for a little while and then the strings will warm, go flat, and you'll need to tune again. If you only always tune the guitar when the strings are warm at the end of playing (if necessary) that may be all you need to do.
As far as cents and perfection, their are some psycho-acoustical effects that cause some non-linearity in what we hear vs frequency of pitch. If you use frequency doubling for octaves the result will cause the lower notes to sound sharp and the higher notes to sound flat. This is overcome on the piano by what is called German tuning, which flattens the lows and sharpens the highs; the same thing on the guitar is called Sweetened tuning. Many tuners these days either have a preset for cent adjustments to Sweetened tuning, or have the ability for you to tune your guitar "perfect" and save those frequencies so you can re-tune to it anytime.
If you want to understand about the deviation between the octave frequencies and the pitches that we actually hear as octaves, play with this online tone generator.
tone generator
Enter 400 as the frequency
Press Play
Adjust volume
While it is playing, enter 800
Press play and you may notice it sounds a little flat
While it is playing, enter 1600
Press Play and you will definitely hear that it is about a semi-tone flat
try 250 - 500 - 1000- 2000 - 4000 you'll hear what's going on and why the corrections are needed
-
I agree with pingu, There is no perfect. If you need perfect tuning pick another instrument.
-
I usually let it ring a little.
Originally Posted by jazzpazz
I have no idea how many cents out it has to be for me to notice. If it sounds out of tune to me, I tune it. It’s in tune when the little indicator on my tuner says it is. Originally Posted by jazzpazz
I mostly pick above the neck pickup or a little further back, but I move around.
-
Synths are perfectly in tune. In principle, stringed instruments are not. There are vids on YT of archtops with wooden bridges that sound amazingly in tune all around the neck. It can be done. Guitars players are expected to play with synths. And to be in tune. There’s a story going around that session cats in Nashville are expected to use PRS guitars because they sound noticeably more in tune. I play PRS solidbodies and I agree. They do. Anyway, I’m convinced you can get a guitar in tune to the extent that the deviation is unnoticeable and irrelevant. I’m also convinced this requires adaptations from the player, such as conscious adaptations in finger pressure when playing certain chords in certain positions. Whole chunks of the internet are devoted to the subtle but effective tuning offsets that Eddie van Halen apparently did use, which are in the realm of sweetened tunings. Then there are compensated nuts and things like the Buzz Feiten tuning system. Long story short: this is one heck of a deep topic.
Briefly: make sure the guitar is set up well and intonated well. Then tune on the rise (when you pluck it) and if it sounds OK to you, then count your blessings and play on. Ignorance really can be bliss. I sure wish it would sound OK to me, but I’m very sensitive to tuning and have to take several more steps to make it sound bearable (as well as pay close attention to things like finger pressure).
-
Nothing in equal temperament can be said to be perfectly in tune. The major third for instance is quite sharp and you can hear the beats quite clearly (fifths and fourths tend to be better intonated which is one reason why powerchords are a thing.)
Otoh guitars are somewhat approximate to even that….
‘Offset tunings’ I’m guessing involve things like flattening the E string slightly to sweeten up D and C grips. You can improve intonation for one chord at the expense of others. This is not something I’ve spent much time exploring but for music in open keys that doesn’t change key I can imagine it being very effective….
bring back moveable frets haha
-
Tbh I have great trouble tuning to ET by ear.
I mean I can tune 30 guitars in 5m for a class and get them sounding decent, no problem.
I mean, if it’s me in a practice room I always sounds wrong and I end up trying to tune to just intonation. Which is impossible. I spend ages trying and failing to get it sweeter. Also amplified sound sounds different.
So I just use a clip on or a pedal. The machine tells me it’s fine. Ok let’s go!
The only reliable way to tune a guitar to ET by ear is to tune to unisons and octaves. But even then the guitar has its vagaries.
-
Does every guitar tune well?
There are many important factors that influence whether a guitar tunes correctly.
-
"Guitarists spend half their life tuning and the other half playing out of tune". (Anon)
-
If you think guitar’s bad, try lute Originally Posted by frabarmus
"Guitarists spend half their life tuning and the other half playing out of tune". (Anon)
-
tbf I do play Gibsons, which is probably where I’m going wrong with the tuning thing haha Originally Posted by kris
Could start by getting those A E S T H E T I C tuning keys off my boomer boxes and installing some locking tuners, like Herrington has …
-
I had trouble tuning my Gibson Chet Atkins/nylon strings/. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
I sold the guitar and have no problem.
-
I have! Originally Posted by Christian Miller
-
But I must Play Authentic Originally Posted by kris
I had trouble tuning my Gibson Chet Atkins/nylon strings/.
I sold the guitar and have no problem.
Tuning is optional, have Gibbon on the headstock is essential for Toan
-
I definitely tune differently when playing only closed voicings without open strings, using fretted notes around the 5th fret instead of open strings. The absolute worst chord on the guitar, to my ears, is a full C major barre chord at the 8th fret. Shift up to the 12th fret and it actually sounds more in tune, because we intonate to the 12th and (to my ears and according to my Peterson) the largest deviations from pitch occur around the 10th fret. So 12th is perfect, 11th is so-so, 9th and 10th deviate a lot, and below that it gets better and better until you start using open strings. I’m now learning Brian Setzer’s version of Sleepwalk and that C major at the 8th fret is the cornerstone of the tune. Nails on a blackboard, really. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
-
I would guess that a guitar with both True Temperament frets and an Evertune bridge set to essentially eliminate the string attack would be as close as you could get in standard tuning all things being relative. You would still irritate someone with perfect pitch because guitars will never be perfectly in tune - but it would be close enough.
-
Sure. makes sense. Originally Posted by Oscar67
For straightahead jazz ET is fine, but I really notice tuning discrepancies when playing classical stuff….
-
You don’t need perfect pitch to pick up the tuning issues with chords in ET... Listen for the beats in chords for example, how much the chord ‘throbs.’ Originally Posted by SandChannel
You can hear incredibly clearly in this video at 1:15 for example
choirs and classical string ensembles tune their chords better than ET as a matter of course where the music requires it
-
I tune at the 5th fret, which is a compromise (it's all compromise, one just has to decide which compromises to make) because I play in that area more often than at the ends of the fretboard. I rarely play open strings, so I don't tune open strings, or at least seldom do so. If I worried a lot about the full C chord at the 8th fret, I would probably tune to the 7th fret, or maybe the 9th. The strings are going to be out of tune somewhere, and I have to decide where I prefer them to be in tune. 5th fret works for me most of the time. It's certainly not the only way to do it, it's just how I prefer to do it.
-
Tune the guitar perfectly.
Then play the G# harmonic near the fourth fret on the low E string and compare it to the G# note (not harmonic) at the 4th fret on the high E string. That's equal temperament.
That said, the instrument sounded fine when Wes and others played it.
I think tuning at the 5th fret makes good sense, but I don't do it. Partly because I do use open strings but mostly because I can't hear any improvement. Same thing with different electronic tuners. They all seem close enough to me.
That said, I don't always play in good tune. Mostly, I think, it's because of finger pressure. But, also some of it is a bridge problem I haven't fully solved although I shimmed it with tape.
Tuneamatic bridges sit on posts. If you take off the strings, you can lift the bridge right off (at least, on the guitars I've tried it with). That tells you that there's some wiggle room between the post and the bridge -- which I think is enough to hear as poor intonation. Easy enough to test. Wiggle it while a string is vibrating.
-
First to answer the OP’s question: I tune to just after the initial attack has faded a very little. If I was more heavy handed, I would tune to the attack.
I think guitar demands some acceptance on my part.
Sometimes I will adjust the tuning (by ear) to get a C barre chord (10th fret) to sound a little better and then live with the compromise.
Sometimes I will just tune normally, and live with the compromise.
Sometimes I will spend a lot of time dialing in a particular guitar, sometimes I will just tune and go.
Overall, guitar never really sounds in tune.
The funny thing, I noticed watching vids on True Temperment necks, is that for jazz or classical they sound great, but for blues or rock they miss the edge that being a little out of tune creates.
Another thing is that, if I am rolling off some top end or using a dark amp, it helps to lessen the noticeable out of tune-ness. It also helps with some slight sloppy-ness.
I think for the former, there is less harmonic information floating in the air, and for the latter, there is less pick attack.
If I am having a bad day, I will roll off the top. That way my ego stays intact. … I am just joking.. literally, that way I can play what I think, at the speed I Am thinking it, without having to focus more on technique.
When I focus more on technique, it slows me down a little. Which can be a good thing… however, I then loose some of the sense of excitement. People tend to dig the excitement thing, but too much of that can create too much sameness.
I hate it, but so much of life is about balance.
-
If you tune by ear and try to make it as clean as possible you'll fail. The better you tune for a certain key, the worse the other keys will sound.
It is so hopeless
. Jazz goes into so many keys so the pristine by ear clean tuning is out of the question (unless you have perfect pitch). 3 chord folk - by ear 100% always, jazz not so much.
But with a tuner, there are problems.
The open strings lie whatever "factory" it comes from, whoever makes the adjustments is not trustworhy ever.
Your fingers lie - when tuning, you are not using the same strenght as when playing for real. Though heavier strings make this problem less obvious.
There is no way to make the open strings tuned perfectly for your needs unless you go and DIY the bloody bridge 100 times over. And thats just a compromise.
...this is just a technical sadness.
The end result - you got your guitar almost perfect... go play a beautiful solo that happens once in a lifetime, and you hear that some of the notes are slightly off - too much emotions caused your fingers to grip harder.
Um. well, its all hopeless. We are all doomed using a badly tuned piece of crap!
-
I just try to tune close enough for jazz.
-
Yup. Works most of the time. A song like Sleepwalk though… nope. That’s all over the place and has some notorious chords in it. BTW, tuning to the song seems like a good excuse to hoard 27 guitars ;-) Originally Posted by sgosnell
Reply With Quote
Body Dimensions for a 1920s Gibson L5?
Today, 07:47 AM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos