Forgot my tuner

[Shardik]

Originally Posted by skychief

my only tuner is a tuning fork. No joke.

No fussing with batteries, no pleading with the keyboard player for an "A". No worries about electronics drift. It rings a true 440 no matter what. Wether its 55 degrees or 95 degrees. rain or shine.

Its a great invention.

The pitch of a tuning fork can vary slightly with weathering and temperature. A decrease in frequency of one vibration in 21,000 for each °F change is typical for a steel tuning fork.[5] The standard temperature is now 68 °F (20 °C) but 59 °F (15 °C) is an older standard.

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuning_fork

[seanm]

Originally Posted by skychief

my only tuner is a tuning fork. No joke.

No fussing with batteries, no pleading with the keyboard player for an "A". No worries about electronics drift. It rings a true 440 no matter what. Wether its 55 degrees or 95 degrees. rain or shine.

Its a great invention.

There are two reasons I gave up on the tuning fork:

1. You can't tune silently since you have to hear your note.
2. I swear the guitar player practices louder when you try to tune

[walterw]

"excuse me! excuuuse me! would everybody in the front row please be quiet? you there, stop hitting on that chick for a second, and hey could you guys kill the marguerita machine back there? i'm trying to tune!"

[Deathblade Eric]

On occasion I've used mains hum as a quick 'n' dirty tuner. In the UK we're on 50Hz, so that's 1Hz sharp of low G - close enough for rock 'n' roll.

Slightly trickier for you guys on 60Hz... Bb is about 1.75Hz flat, & B is nigh on 1.75Hz sharp.

[F-Clef-Jef]

You had me for a second there Jimmy! My first thought was "no way..."

I use my son to tune, he has perfect pitch... he walked by the other night when I was learning a song that was recorded about a 1/4 step flat, and said "dad, why are you tuned so flat?" And the kid doesnt even play...

I can't imagine not being able to tune by ear, to me that is one of the very most basic skills any musician should have. In fact the other night, our guitar player actually retuned his guitar while playing a solo. It was pretty cool.

[So Low Bass]

Originally Posted by Groove Master

I guess a lot of people never attempt to symphony orchestra concert?

Close to 100 musicians get tuned onstage within a minute from a single note from one of them!

100% correct.

Originally Posted by 4001

Unfortunately, lots of bass players skip that and go for learning solos and 'chops'.

Are they selling road worn tuners yet??

[Biggbass]

"give me an A" works every time.

so does a tuning app...

[brianerwin]

Originally Posted by brianerwin

If you take your tuner and by gently plucking the string tune the strings so they are in pitch, then strike the note with some force, you will see that the string that you just played is now sharp or higher than the tuned pitch.

then will settle down to playing in tune.

Using this analogy, that you tune it so that the strings are just up to pitch when you strike with force as you say, then you are actually going to be playing flat all of the time and lower than the pitch that you tuned to by striking with force.

If the band tunes to your pitch than I can't really see a huge problem but if the bands tunes to their own tuners, than there is an issue.

Originally Posted by JimmyM

Done it for decades. Always works fine. And while in theory, you are correct about the string amplitude, it's not all that critical in real life.

I will agree with you. Simply because it is very hard for the human ear to actually hear the variance in the tones.

The tuner doesn't lie but, I guess I am just being anal about it.

[Floyd Eye]

Originally Posted by brianerwin

If you take your tuner and by gently plucking the string tune the strings so they are in pitch, then strike the note with some force, you will see that the string that you just played is now sharp or higher than the tuned pitch.

then will settle down to playing in tune.

Using this analogy, that you tune it so that the strings are just up to pitch when you strike with force as you say, then you are actually going to be playing flat all of the time and lower than the pitch that you tuned to by striking with force.

If the band tunes to your pitch than I can't really see a huge problem but if the bands tunes to their own tuners, than there is an issue.

I don't gently pluck the strings when I play.

My guitarist and I are always in tune.



As to a few of the other comments: I learned to tune by ear before I was 10 years old and my ear is as good as anyone else's. Anyone who thinks their ear is more accurate than a tuner though, is dead wrong. I was in a band once where I had a couple of guitarists, both of whom were" I don't need a tuner" guys. What a mess that was. If you don't tune your instrument with a tuner before we play, I ain't playing with you. Period.

And Tony Levin's advice that you should default to your ear might be the most irresponsible piece of advice I have ever heard a professional musician hand out.

[JimmyM]

Originally Posted by brianerwin

I will agree with you. Simply because it is very hard for the human ear to actually hear the variance in the tones.

The tuner doesn't lie but, I guess I am just being anal about it.

Ya...



But seriously...if I were in the studio, that would likely be a different story and I'd be a little more critical about tuning and use a common tuner or tune to the piano. On a gig, maybe not so much...

[brianerwin]

There is a difference between studio and live gig.
So is playing in a concert band vs. playing in a marching field show band.
The director in my high school band was probably the most anal about playing in
tune. In our daily lessons he would pull out the tuner and have us play both together
and individually checking intonation on each and every note. I hated that
but when I got out of school that drive for perfect intonation, got me into some pretty
high paying orchestra gigs and sumer band gigs.
So I guess being anal about it isn't that bad, but enter the real world and things change
a bit.... That was when I played saxophone in school and now that I am playing bass
it really is different.

[Russell L]

Hell, I forgot my damn bass last night and had to go back (I was half-way across town by then). For real!

Haven't read all the replies. Say, Jimmy, do you use harmonics to tune adjacent strings (ya know, listening to the "beats" until they come together and get still)? That's what I do, after I get a note from someone.

Didn't have a tuner myownself until around 1990, or so. Now, I'm hooked on my Snark.

[JimmyM]

Originally Posted by Russell L

Hell, I forgot my damn bass last night and had to go back (I was half-way across town by then). For real!

Haven't read all the replies. Say, Jimmy, do you use harmonics to tune adjacent strings (ya know, listening to the "beats" until they come together and get still)? That's what I do, after I get a note from someone.

I'll do both harmonics and comparing open strings with fretted strings. The harmonics are easier for me to hear the beats, so I usually do that, but I'll do both.

[Geroi Asfalta]

I have bad habit of losing small things.....picks and tuners mostly. I always tune to my piano for I leave home. At the studio I check tuning as soon as everything gets set up, and between breaks. I can generally tell when a string is out of tune, and have had to fix it mid song once or twice.

I'm uber anal about my intonation. When I change my strings, I check 12 and 19 fret harmonic and single and double octave. Since my tuner has been missing for quite a while, I normally check intonation to the harmonics first, 7/12 and 12/17 fret next, then if I need to, I'll plug the bass into the computer while playing sine wave until the two match up.

My ear is still being trained. I can find F# without a problem, but my group plays in E standard. Been getting better at finding A though. I've also learned to feel the vibrations. Since I cant bring an amp to work with me, I had to learn other ways to tune up. I use a light touch, and without an amp it's very tough to hear the strings (especially considering I mostly use flats). I pluck the harmonics and tune until the pulses smooth out.

[Russell L]

I love my Snark tuner, and really don't notice the difference in acuracy between it and my "better" TU12H. Snarks are everywhere in these here parts.

[Shardik]

Just a brief comment: you can not verify intonation with harmonics. As long as you are not pushing the string down to touch the fret, you are working on the open string.

When I work on intonation, I always use an electronic tuner, and I then check both the open string vs 12th fret and 1st fret vs 13th fret. This is to eliminate inaccuracies in the nut slotting affecting the whole fretboard.

[HereIGoAgain]

Originally Posted by Russell L

I love my Snark tuner, and really don't notice the difference in acuracy between it and my "better" TU12H. Snarks are everywhere in these here parts.

I found that my snark tunes my bass acceptably, but it won't tune my guitar worth anything. My guitar, with good strings and a pro setup, when tuned with my snark still goes "wawawawawawawawawawawawawawa" with most chords. Snark doesn't publish specs, but I'm guessing it's "+/-what do you expect from a piece of plastic that goes for ten bucks on ebay."

When I use my Korg Pitchback+ set to focus mode, my guitar's a lot better in tune. On bass, my bass has never sounded so in tune (when playing barre root-fifth-octave combos) as when tuned with the Pitchblack+.

Yes, I can tune by ear as long as I have a reference for at least one string. However, I don't always have 20 minutes to jack around trying to get in tune.

[JimmyM]

Originally Posted by Shardik

Just a brief comment: you can not verify intonation with harmonics. As long as you are not pushing the string down to touch the fret, you are working on the open string.

When I work on intonation, I always use an electronic tuner, and I then check both the open string vs 12th fret and 1st fret vs 13th fret. This is to eliminate inaccuracies in the nut slotting affecting the whole fretboard.

Second paragraph is a good tip. First paragraph, though...I've been taught for a very long time that the way to set intonation is to verify the fretted 12th fret note with the 12th fret harmonic. This method has worked fine for me for years, and my basses are all well intonated and play in tune. But you're not the first person I've heard say this. When did this all change?

[jeffbonny]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

Second paragraph is a good tip. First paragraph, though...I've been taught for a very long time that the way to set intonation is to verify the fretted 12th fret note with the 12th fret harmonic. This method has worked fine for me for years, and my basses are all well intonated and play in tune. But you're not the first person I've heard say this. When did this all change?

It hasn't. Since we're dealing with a tempered scale it's physically impossible for a fretted instrument to play perfectly in tune over its whole range and at some point you have to say "good enough". Since there will ALWAYS be a compromise in setting intonation for most of us 12th harmonic against fretted 12th note is still the best compromise.

Setting intonation is quite doable by ear too. I've done it this way for years only using a tuner to check my work. I'm always close enough that if I change the string height or type of strings (or both) on an instrument without a tuner handy I can adjust the intonation by ear accurately enough to make it quite playable. Most of the time I'm bang on.

[Shardik]

We do not disagree. I just intepreted one of the intonation advice as verifying using harmonics (i.e. unfretted) only.

Of course, comparing 12th fret harmonics with fretted note at 12th fret is good advice. The problem with open string verification is if the nut is a bit off compared to the rest of the fret scale. Hence also checking 1st fret.