Let's Talk About Tuning..

  • Thread starter Thread starter MontiCristo
  • Start date Start date
This is a complicated topic... As you play and the guitar gets warmer, the tuning will change. I'm hoping you realize with a floating bridge, anything you change the guitar's axis, gravity will pull on the bridge causing tuning issues. The lists of things goes on and on. If you look at eddies striped guitar, the high E was falling off the fretboard, so it's likely he was tuning to compensate for him pushing and holding the high E string onto the fret board.

To answer your question, tune it until you like what you hear when playing chords. Being out of tune is a big reason why I prefer to play chords closer to the nut.
 
MontiCristo said:
perhaps it would help if you clarified your position from the start. You have 5 different tuning options above and each are for specific van halen songs. I don't need assistance in getting certain songs in tune. What I am asking for / about is a "happy medium" tuning that would be the best option for all general playing.

I really don't think what I'm inquiring about is that difficult to understand.
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You gotta be able to make the guitar talk. As Ed did, often you’ll need to bend a string into tune. Can’t tune during a song if it goes out, you’ll have to deal with it. There really is no happy medium. The grass is never greener.
 
You're gonna need some squiggly frets if you want everything in tune everywhere.
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I actually reached out to Peterson tuners and spoke at length with their rep and yes this is an issue. They have allowed algorithms in their tuners that adjust the instrument tuning to get as close as possible.
 
psychodave said:
This is a complicated topic... As you play and the guitar gets warmer, the tuning will change. I'm hoping you realize with a floating bridge, anything you change the guitar's axis, gravity will pull on the bridge causing tuning issues. The lists of things goes on and on. If you look at eddies striped guitar, the high E was falling off the fretboard, so it's likely he was tuning to compensate for him pushing and holding the high E string onto the fret board.

To answer your question, tune it until you like what you hear when playing chords. Being out of tune is a big reason why I prefer to play chords closer to the nut.
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I understand your post, but again, I am not inquiring about, nor am I interested in "tuning stability". My guitars stay in tune just fine.
The Original post / inquisition was with regard to the fact that it is impossible to get a guitar 100% in tune. Regardless of what anyone here says, it is not possible. Particular pitch changes can be noticed between minor and major chords for example as well as many others.
In light of this, I was curious what "work arounds" anyone had found, and or had success with. After a very long discussion with the fine folks at Peterson Tuners, not only have they confirmed my position, but again pointed me towards "sweeteners" they have preloaded in their tuners to help balance this out.
 
I'm not even sure I completely understand the question tbh but I use a Turbo Tuner ST300, tune it as close as possible then play the guitar and use the finer tuners and my ears to get it perfect.

Playing control/velocity has a lot to do with how in tune you will sound in my opinion.
 
I think what you're looking for is a true temperament guitar

Edit: I now see this was mentioned a few posts up
 
Ben Waylin said:
I think OP is looking for a hug.

Anyways, I used the Van Halen tunings I gave him on this here track..

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I use standard for the Sammy years and 1/2step down for the DLR years. Problem solved.
 
MontiCristo said:
After a very long discussion with the fine folks at Peterson Tuners, not only have they confirmed my position, but again pointed me towards "sweeteners" they have preloaded in their tuners to help balance this out.
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The user TimTam over at TGP has written a bunch on sweetners 'n stuff from the perspective of (apparently) a research scientist knowledgeable about the guitar-related scientific literature, if I recall. I think he expressed suspicion about sweetners reducing out-of-tuneness, and not just pushing it elsewhere, but I could be misremembering. At any rate, worth a stroll through his posts as there is a lot of info packed into them usually.

Edit: double-checked, and his main gripe seems to be that there is often no clear explanations for why you'd try a certain sweetened tuning. Claims about what they'll do, yes, but not often explanations of the physical phenomena you're compensating for (Equal Temperment? Too-high nuts? etc...)
 
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7704A said:
suspicion about sweetners reducing out-of-tuneness, and not just pushing it elsewhere,
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This is my experience. Those VH tuning posted above sound great on those particular songs but sound worse than standard tuning on other songs.

I had a Buzz Feiten guitar and that guitar sounded great for certain more complex chords but at the expense of sweet sounding 5ths so power chords didn’t sound as sweet. Probably good for jazz but not so much for rock.

Guitarists over the years just learned to avoid those bad intervals (or tune to sweeten a particular interval or chord that occurs a ton in a song). Often changing where and which strings you play can make a sour interval much sweeter.
 
SpiderWars said:
This is my experience. Those VH tuning posted above sound great on those particular songs but sound worse than standard tuning on other songs.

I had a Buzz Feiten guitar and that guitar sounded great for certain more complex chords but at the expense of sweet sounding 5ths so power chords didn’t sound as sweet. Probably good for jazz but not so much for rock.

Guitarists over the years just learned to avoid those bad intervals (or tune to sweeten a particular interval or chord that occurs a ton in a song). Often changing where and which strings you play can make a sour interval much sweeter.
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That's true for all but one of them.

One of them is teh magic tuning that put's all chords in tune across the entire neck.

:cool:
 
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