Tuning your guitar

[mbengs1]

I tune my guitar using the tuner in my boss digital recorder. It works fine but after tuning, i flat the g string slightly so its perfectly in tune. this renders my tuner ineffective since i have to change something after tuning to the tuner. is this a common problem?

[onelife]

It sounds like you may have an intonation problem. Does it happen with all of your guitars?

[1001gear]

For about the billionth time, melodic intonation and harmonic intonation are different. Look it up. You'll get far better answers than a bunch of anonymoids who can't explain it properly.

 

Unless you get lucky and WRGKMC happens to notice your thread.

[mbengs1]

It sounds like you may have an intonation problem. Does it happen with all of your guitars?

 

It happens to my ibanez RG and S. the two guitars i play most often. exactly the same for both.

 

 

[onelife]

It happens to my ibanez RG and S. the two guitars i play most often. exactly the same for both.

 

do you know how to set the intonation using the 12th fret 'harmonic'?

[Les Paul Lover]

I reckon that's the issue.

[mbengs1]

 

do you know how to set the intonation using the 12th fret 'harmonic'?

 

yeah. but i don't really think it's a problem. i've been recording with the two guitars for the past 6 months and i never really sounded out of tune much...

 

[mbengs1]

the problem is, i have a tuner but it doesn't do the job for me. i have to tune the strings with the fine tuners to get the tuning exactly to my liking. especially the G and B strings. those two really are a bitch for the music i play.

[WRGKMC]

Tuners built into effects pedals are for stage use. They aren't highly accurate for doing intonation work, they are designed to give you a quick pitch lock when playing live. Its expected your instrument is already properly intonated and simply get the strings in pitch.

 

If you want to get the best accuracy check the specs on the tuners available. A Polytune can give you +/- 0.02 cent accuracy in strobe mode. Peterson strobe tuners are well noted for being highly accurate. I have a Planet waves strobe tuner that's good to .1 cents.

 

One of my favorites is my Sabine Rack tuner. The LED mode is a simple 3 LED which change states. It can be seen from across the stage.

 

The cool thing about it is its got built in 3 octave audio pitches so you can tune by ear. Guitars are tempered instruments. An electronic tuner can only read frequencies. They cant read string tension or the tone of the string. When you set intonation you're also equalizing the tension shared by all 6 strings. The goal is to get not only accurate intonation but to also give then shared tension each having 1/6 of the total tension on the neck. This tension is a critical factor in playability and feel when playing. Its most noticeable when you bend strings.

 

Its very easy when using a tuner only to have a single string or two intonated but not sharing the same tension as the other strings especially when using a basic tuner that isn't overly accurate. When you tune to an actual audio pitch you can hear the string beating between the steady pitch and the string. When the string is plucked it may twang sharp then come into a steady pitch. When intonating by ear you can minimize that from happening more accurately then you can with a tuner only because a tuner will simply jump around for a second before it locks.

 

Tuning by ear is a lost art. Back when I first started playing it was the only way you could tune because the only electronic tuners available were the old motor driven strobe tuners which were too expensive for most to own. Once pocket tuners were available musicians abandoned what they were hearing and started trusting what a meter was telling them.

 

Guitars aren't keyboards that have fixed pitches. They are tempered, under constant stress. The pitch of a single string being held down can be different then multiple strings so its a matter of give and take to get them all to play reasonably in tune. I'm not saying you should abandon using a tuner. They are a godsend in many ways, but when it comes to fine tuning, don't abandon what your ears are telling you. Every ones string touch/pressure can be different and they're guitars can have different setups/faults/preferences making the string tensions different.

 

A tuner isn't smart enough to compensate for those small differences. You often have to find the sweet spots between pitch and tone on every string. The poorer the setup and need for maintenance, the more compromise between what a tuner reads and what you're actually hearing is usually needed. Everything else comes down to experience tweaking the setup to get the best from the instrument.

 

MBengs1, the B and E strings are tuned down 1/2 a pitch compared to the other strings. When you gain an instrument up you will always notice string beating between the B and G open strings. The G and D strings shouldn't beat if they are properly tuned. My guess is you're trying to bring the G tension down to minimizing beating between the G and B. I'd check to see of your problem is either the G string being too high at the nut or the B string being too low. Also try playing an open chords and compare then to the same chords played above the 12th fret.

 

Use the same open strings when playing an Open E/A D/G chord but play the fingered notes an octave up and see if the same strings sound sharp and octave up. If they sound normal an octave up but sharp in the root position, then either your nuts too high, lower frets worn flat, string choice too stiff, relief too great, Height too low, or your intonation is set too long. You'll have to decipher which one or combination of these may be causing your problem. Having to down tune to minimize sharp notes is a symptom. The exact solution can only be found with the instrument in hand.

[Freeman Keller]

Here is a very good explanation of why your equally tempered guitar sounds out of tune, particularly with notes that are a third apart.

 

[video=youtube_share;ERF1Kk5kcR8]

 

Mbengs1, please take the time to watch this and then comment on what you've learned. If you really want to understand the physics behind it and what can be done to help, watch David's second vid - its a bit longer and far more complex, but again, you won't find a better explanation

 

[video=youtube_share;NEjekEOMWmg]

[badpenguin]

I find the majority of time with Ibanez guitars with a Floyd, is that 1) it's out of intonation, or 2) the nut is a bit high. since it effects your 2 guitars, have the intonation set. If it still happens, then check the locking nut.

[hellion_213]

I can see the point in checking with the 12th pos harmonic, but never the point of setting intonation by it. The second harmonic is always located at the midpoint of the string, usually directly over the 12th, and really has no bearing on a fretted note in the same position. Comparing the fretted octave I get. But the midpoint is always going to be the harmonic regardless of the length of the scale or position of the saddle.

[onelife]

Here is a very good explanation of why your equally tempered guitar sounds out of tune, particularly with notes that are a third apart.

 

 

 

Mbengs1, please take the time to watch this and then comment on what you've learned. If you really want to understand the physics behind it and what can be done to help, watch David's second vid - its a bit longer and far more complex, but again, you won't find a better explanation

 

 

Excellent explanations. Thanks so much for posting.

 

I've worked with a couple of singer songwriters with great pitch who spent a great deal of time tuning their guitars for different keys.

 

Perhaps mbegs has perfect pitch and finds equal temperament difficult to accept.

[Grant Harding]

Guitar tuning is a compromise. There's no way to get a normal guitar to be perfectly in tune for every note.

[Freeman Keller]

There are actually at least four things going on here. First, there is a reasonable chance that Mbeng's tuner is out of calibration. We once did a little experiment at my local music store - we took all the tuners out of the display case and compared them to an A440 tuning fork. At least a third were at least 3 cents off. If you play by yourself this shouldn't matter but if you play with others and everyone is tuning to HIS tuner there is a good chance you'll be "out of tune" (most tuners have a calibrate adjustment)

 

Two, as strings are stretched they play sharp - this is what "intonation" is all about. It is simply fudging the string length to make it play more in tune with itself at a certain point (the mid point).

 

Three, "inharmonicity" is the characteristic of a real string (as opposed to an "ideal" one that we like to do the math with) that takes into consideration that a real string has some stiffness. The stiffness happens to be proportional to the diameter of the core, not the overall gauge of the string. Inharmonicity has two effects - it contributes to the intonation issues in point Two and it makes partials of the note you are playing all a little sharp. That means the when you pick an open A2 (110 hz) the first harmonic which is included in the makeup of frequencies is slightly higher than 220 hz and it gets worse as you go up in frequency. If you play a string that is tuned to 220 hz it will be very slightly flat of the open A string - your chords will sound slightly wonky.

 

Four, the big problem, and the one Mbeng describes is what David Collins talks about in the vid - we choose the location of the frets on a guitar based on a mathmatical relationship (the 12th root of 2 since there are 12 semi tones in our scale) but the real relationship between notes of our Western music system is based on ratios - 2:1, 3:2, etc, which don't fall on the same frequencies. We can fudge that for one key, say the key of C major, but it gets worse for others, such as B flat or F sharp. If you only play in C then go ahead and futz with the fret locations (and temper your tuning) but plan to sound really bad in Bb.

 

Two more quick comments, audiologists tell us that most people can't hear 5 cents difference between two notes. Second, research has indicated that most of the differences occur at the first fret and above 12/13. The part of the fretboard where most of us play is relatively unaffected.

 

[Grant Harding]

The buzz feiten system seems to be less of a compromise to me.

Another issue, especially on electrics with tall frets, is people squeezing the third string sharp when playing an open D chord. You need a really light, but precise fretting hand for that one.

[Freeman Keller]

http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=49137

[1001gear]

Interesting premise. Unfortunately the article requires a subscription. I might add that this thread has absolved my guilt in using the tuning pegs.

[hellion_213]

 

 

Pretty cool video with an alternative to try.

[Freeman Keller]

Here is the article, I posted it under another thread

 

http://www.luth.org/images/web_extras/al116/MagliariFretComp.pdf

[gardo]

It look's like he got lucky

[1001gear]

Thanks Freeman. Gotta think about this one.

[1001gear]

Oh man what are the odds?!1!!?/

[mbengs1]

I have another question. are 10's more in tune than 9's? i have two guitars that have 10's on them and the others have 9's. the one's with 10's to sound more in tune than the guitars with 9's.

[DeepEnd]

I have another question. are 10's more in tune than 9's? i have two guitars that have 10's on them and the others have 9's. the one's with 10's to sound more in tune than the guitars with 9's.

Strictly speaking, no. But it's harder to pull a heavier string sharp so that could be a factor. If you don't have a light touch, heavier strings are better in that regard.