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Thanks for all the replies, everyone. Very helpful and useful information and tips. Much appreciated!
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01-18-2024 01:19 PM
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Likewise. I'm glad to have stumbled across this forum. I'm not a guitarist, nor much of a jazz fan.. but folks here have been helpful on several points, and I really appreciate the generally positive vibe and lack of weird attitudes found here.
Originally Posted by D'Aquisto Fan
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Lack of weird attitudes? Speak for yourself!
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In this case, by weird I mean unhelpful, pointless 'tude.. adolescent keyboard warrior crap. Originally Posted by sgosnell
Lack of weird attitudes? Speak for yourself!
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I did a little non-scientific testing of one of the Aroma AT-01A tuners mentioned earlier in the thread. The results are surprising, at least to me.
My test setup is a free (with ads) tone generator app for Android, output to a cheap BT speaker. The tuner is leaned up against the speaker and set for chromatic mode.
Across the frequency band of the common 6-string with standard tuning (81-330Hz) the tuner was accurate to within ~0.35% at worst, with an accuracy of ~0.2% at 440Hz.
At most all test frequencies, the tuner could discriminate changes of 1Hz or less. Efficiency of the speaker falls of sharply below 90Hz or so, with 80Hz being a practical low limit.
My hunch is that with a better test amp & speaker (or other accurate, low-THD tone source), the tester is capable of better accuracy than I was able to demonstrate.
Is this in line with what others might expect?
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Personally, yes. Determining the frequency of a sound wave isn't rocket science; not anymore at least, and powerful DSP circuits have become readily available (= cheap). It gets trickier when the wave form goes further and further away of something with a nicely repetitive well-defined shape (as visible in the output from the tuner's ADC circuit) but your tone generator probably doesn't generate anything of the more different kind. And your BT speaker probably does well enough reproducing it at least for the higher frequencies that you tested; the lower limit you found could well be related to the speaker's size - or to the mic in your tuner. Originally Posted by WimWalther
We all know that the difficulty with tuners is getting a sufficiently strong and constant signal into them that also doesn't have too much harmonic content. I'm convinced this is one reason why harmonics work so well: they're more likely to resemble sine waves.
EDIT: in my experience the bigger problems with cheap tuners are usually related to insufficient displays and sound sensors. I also suppose that most will use 16bit processing at best but that should be sufficient unless you want reliable tuning feedback while you're playing. Last time I looked only d'Addario offer a tuner with 64bit processing (like just about every tuner app uses these days).
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The lower limit I found is definitely due to the speaker. While the speaker cuts off around 80Hz, the tuner is good for at least another octave below - no trouble reading low E (41hz) on a bass (at least when mounted to the headstock).
I'd like to hear any suggestions for Android apps to try. There are so many of them, and IME, most are just conduits for adverts first, and tools second. Any truly good free ones?
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Peterson used to offer iStroboSoft, an Android tuner app, which was excellent. They seem to only offer it for Apple now, which is a bummer. I've been using one called Strobe Tuner, from AKwok. I think it supposedly has ads, but I've never seen one. It seems accurate, and can show the frequency and error in decimal cents. It's not perfect, but it's free and good enough, I think. My only quibble is that it seems to lock the frequency, and I have to play the note again, because it won't follow along as the pitch is changed slightly. It's not a deal-breaker for me, especially at the price point of $00.00. There may be others, I just haven't bothered to look because I don't use my phone to tune all that often.
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Definitely Airyware. IIRC the paying version only adds support for more (and/or custom) temperaments. Originally Posted by WimWalther
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This seems to be a fairly common behavior. My guess is that many such apps are built on a common shared DSP library, likely f/oss, and this is a result of how the lib behaves.. Originally Posted by sgosnell
Then again, it could be a "feature".
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Could be. Dunno. I would prefer not to have that feature, but as I said, I can't complain too much when I consider the price. There may be other, better, apps out there. I just don't have enough incentive to look.
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Right, thus the scare quotes. Originally Posted by sgosnell
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If s/o uses FOSS [sic] it must be noted on his/her/their website. Originally Posted by WimWalther
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Depends on the terms of the specific license, and there are several. Originally Posted by Bop Head
Not to mention that there's really no mechanism for enforcement, particularly if the author isn't in a country that respects intellectual property laws
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Umm... No. There is no requirement for even having a website, and many developers don't. Originally Posted by Bop Head
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It really is an odd claim. I wonder where he got that idea? Originally Posted by sgosnell
The various licenses have different requirements of the licensee, but "having a website" isn't among them.
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Out of pure curiosity, how did a non-guitarist who’s not a jazz fan find a forum called Jazz Guitar Online? Originally Posted by WimWalther
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I initially came here seeking information & advice on purchasing a first guitar for my wife. As to picking this specific forum, well.. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
My perception was that the highly popular guitar forums were going to be overpopulated with highly opinionated (even combative) adolescent and twentysomething males. I wanted to spend my efforts somewhere with a somewhat older, more experienced and thoughtful membership..
And that's pretty much what I found. Then someone here, can't recall who, suggested the Hoffman guitar forums for a project I was looking at, and that turned out to be a really excellent resource.
In short, I'm happy with my decision. It's turned out as well as I could hope.
Btw, I do like some jazz.. but mostly just the really square, white stuff like Brubeck, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, etc. I'm no connoisseur.
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Welcome!! Do NOT sell Brubeck, Evans, Getz etc short and don't sell yourself short for liking them. Many of us learned to play from their recordings and grew up listening to them. I still have and listen to every LP I ever bought (starting in 1957), and the collection includes many by those guys and their contemporaries. My first jazz album was Brubeck's Newport '58 and I still love every note. Originally Posted by WimWalther
The only true "square" is someone who won't accept any but his or her own preferences as valid. Enjoy what you like - you're welcome here even if it's Lawrence Welk
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Right on, I get you. I have pretty broad tastes in music, you could call my LP collection 'diverse' - or that's one nice way of putting it. I've never really gotten stuff like Miles Davis, and I say that as someone who holds early Zappa and Captain Beefheart in very high regard. Trout Mask is straight up genius, imho.
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I have a first generation Peterson Strobostomp and a Korg Pitch Black.
The Korg is pretty accurate. The Peterson is very very accurate. Too accurate. You spend a lot of time to get the virtual spinning wheels to stop turning.
But regardless, once I tune, if I grab a chord too hard, that .1 cents accuracy is meaningless. I use the Korg 99% of the time.
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Peterson app for iPad will get you as close as possible to real strobe, if you get the $20 enhanced harmonic upgrade. Then it behaves like the real thing. The rings have meaning in the harmonic mode. There is a similar app called linotune or something like that, that also operates like a strobe. It’s highly customizable and costs quite a bit more than the Peterson app. I have a couple friends that use that app to tune steel drums because they need to be able to see all those overtones at once. They also use real strobes.
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This issue has been in the back of my mind since early on in this thread. What good is an extremely accurate tuning if the instrument can't reliably hold it to such fine a degree? Even the best of them are subject to environmental factors that would seem to render PPT precision meaningless over a matter of hours or even minutes. Originally Posted by DRS
I guess there's something to be said for giving it the best start possible, though.. so it's not as if there's one simple, easy answer.
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That's true, but I keep a high quality Peterson desktop tuner around for intonation duties. Also, when you are recording it is a good idea to keep updating the tuning, or you will end up with the perfect take- slightly out of tune! Originally Posted by WimWalther
For live playing it probably doesn't matter as much. I saw Julian Lage last weekend, he picked up his guitar and started playing. I was wondering when he would notice that he was out of tune, it was after two songs. He was just rarin' to go, and I'm sure no one but me noticed.
BTW I didn't see a tuner, I think he tunes by ear, the old school way- very few pros that I see do that.
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Nylon Strung Ken Parker - could interest some
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