'reference pitch' on my tuner

[mbengs1]

what is the reference pitch on a tuner? i use the tuner of my boss br-800 digital recorder. it has a pitch parameter that goes from 435hz to 445hz. the standard pitch is 440hz. what is the purpose of this 'reference pitch' control and when is it supposed to be used? i'm guessing it is used when you switch string guages from light to heavy and the intonation of the string changes.

[Grant Harding]

Think you might have nailed it.

[WRGKMC]

You're a musician that doesn't know what concert pitch is?

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

I'm not sure I understand the question... are you asking why they give you the ability to adjust the reference pitch from 435 to 445 Hz?

 

Suppose you have a piano that's tuned a bit flat, and instead of the usual A=440, it's at A=435. You could re-calibrate the tuner to that same reference pitch, then use it to tune your guitar or bass, and they'd then be in tune with the piano.

 

 

[1001gear]

FWIW 443 works for most recorded pop music. It's on the bright side which is consistent with catchier/snappier sound and typical cheap industry tricks.

[Freeman Keller]

The agreed on definition of "A4" has changed over the years from 415 hz during the baroque period to 430.6 during Lloyd Loar's day (1920) to 440 today. If you happened to be playing a Bach piece with a harpsichord you might want to temper your tuning to match the period instrument.

 

Somehow I rather doubt you'd ever be playing a Bach piece....

[Freeman Keller]

I'll add one little note - one day at my local music store we took a bunch of electronic tuners and compared them to an A440 tuning fork. Many of them were up to 5 cents off. So think of all those people staring at their fancy little electronic gizmo putting their guitars perfectly out of tune.

 

Have you checked yours?

 

(next this discussion will segue into tempered tuning and all that imperfection stuff)

[Freeman Keller]

You could also just tune to the piano like we did in the olden days. The Keller's used to have a baby grand which I referred to as a very expensive tuning fork.

 

In fact, it sorta makes sense that if you play in a band you tune to the other instruments instead of that Snarky thing clamped to your headstock.

[WRGKMC]

It is notable that The US and England adopted 440Hz quite awhile ago, but not all other countries use it. Many European countries vary their pitch from 440 Hz and 444 Hz and many older period pieces could even be a semitone low.

 

For example as baroque pitch of 415 Hz was used and special church music (Chorton pitch) at 466 and classical pitch at 430 Hz

 

You also have certain period pieces played on period instruments where they used non standard tunings and non standard intonations. http://www.guyguitars.com/eng/handbo...mperament.html

 

In the west we mainly deal with Equal Temperament

 

Equal temperament is the ultimate compromise. Tonal purity is sacrificed for freedom of modulation. Depending on your viewpoint, equal temperament either a) makes every key equally in tune, or b) makes every key equally out of tune... The idea is to make it possible to play all intervals and chords, in all keys, with the same relative accuracy. Although every key is very slightly out of tune, every key is also useable. No key sounds worse than any other key. The same applies to all chords.

 

Older technologies added to the problem. When bands recorded they might be lucky to have an old strobe scope that was also in calibration to tune to. A pitch pipe was the best many musicians could afford when I was growing up. Of course my ears were in allot better condition back then too.

 

I dealt with the problem for decades playing along to LP. Not only did the Turntables run at various speeds but the music recorded on them may have been sped up or slowed down as a recording technique/special effect or to fit the recording onto the LP's limited number of grooves that could be cut.

 

Two things that really began to make concert pitch more standard were technology related. First, technology improved and turntables were built with strobe disks and variable speed controls so you could get the spin of the record correct.

 

The second, even more important were inexpensive guitar tuners. This gave players a standard to aim at instead of one guy tuning to another guy who may or may not have been tuned to concert pitch.

[garthman]

I'll add one little note - one day at my local music store we took a bunch of electronic tuners and compared them to an A440 tuning fork. Many of them were up to 5 cents off. So think of all those people staring at their fancy little electronic gizmo putting their guitars perfectly out of tune.

 

Have you checked yours?

 

(next this discussion will segue into tempered tuning and all that imperfection stuff)

 

Yes I have checked mine - it was 5% out just like you say.

 

Here is a link to an online tuning fork. Like Freeman says it's worth checking whatever tuners you have.

 

http://www.onlinetuningfork.com/

 

And this is where the adjustable reference pitch comes in handy - just alter the pitch until the tuner corresponds to the tuning fork.

[WRGKMC]

I probably wouldn't trust the cheesy little mics built into many tuners. They probably wont detect the full resonance of a tuning fork. I'd use a contact mic on the fork and pick up the direct vibration.

 

One thought does come to mind however.

 

Is a chromatic guitar tuners calibrated to a Keyboard which uses stretch tuning and becomes gradually becomes sharper with each octave or is it calibrated to a fret board which has notes that are slightly out of tune to make the instrument play relatively in tune as a whole?

 

I always tweak my guitars by ear to produce the best harmonics possible at the 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 17th, 19th frets in relation to the fretted notes.

I only use the tuner roughing things out and as a basic reference.

 

I do much better using an actual pitch to fine tweak guitars because many of the fretted notes will not read properly on a tuner.

You can have the 12th fret octave set but depending on string height and relief, you can have a higher number of frets above or below the 12th fret noticeably out of tune. Hearing a pure tones helps you gauge how much string beating there is and you can micro tweak things in where it sounds right, not just center up on a meter.

[onelife]

did you check Chordite's link in post #4 ?