Recommendations for a tuner to help me practice fretless intonation?

MontzterMash · #1 10-07-2011, 05:51 PM

I've got a fretless bass (yay!) and was thinking that if I had a good quick tuner it could help me practice my ear and intonation.

Perhaps one that:

- I can use while plugged into my amp and practicing normally
- is fast, so I can get immediate feedback
- easy to read at a glance
- will work anywhere on the scale (unlike my current tuner which just recognizes EADG)

So, if I'm hitting a C, a bit sharp, I wanna see that nice quick and easy without squinting, waiting, or fiddling.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Phalex · #2 10-07-2011, 06:54 PM

I love my turbo tuner, and it's uber fast.

I would suggest rather than relying on the tuner idea, you play along with songs in a known key. The cool thing about fretless is close is often good enough. You should be able to tell if you're way off, but don't get all tweaky about it.

Vibrato can help cover for intonation issues too. If you never stop moving, you really didn't hit that bad note did you?

Fretless is a lot of fun!

Solboy · #3 10-07-2011, 07:07 PM

I just bought one of those tuners that you clip on the headstock its pretty fast, buuut its still better to practice. I read an article by one of those frettless pros & even they hit the wrong notes, so......

Just have fun with it

germ_77 · #4 10-10-2011, 09:51 PM

I tried all of the ones I could find for the same idea to use with my upright, most of them had pretty slow response time, the dtr2000 rack tuner was probably the fastest one I found but still not really fast enough to use for normal playing speed.

Ubersheist · #5 10-10-2011, 11:47 PM

Look up the concept of "Justonic Tuning" or "Just Intonation." You'll quickly realize that what you play on a fretted bass can never be "in tune" with the natural vibration of the strings ever unless you're playing a root note. The standard spacing that fretted basses (and guitars and the notes on pianos and the notes on pretty much any instrument that isn't specifically built for Justontic Tuning) utilizes "Equal Temperment" tuning. It's a good approximation for what "in tune" is supposed to sound like, but by the very nature of the fret intervals and "Equal Temperment," it'll never be truly "in tune."

Every note on a fretted instrument other then a root note is out of tune. As such, it's possible to hit notes "in tune" that aren't even possible to play on a fretted bass without bending strings.

Once you've heard some justonically tuned instruments, you really start to hear how out of tune everything is. That's not really a bad thing. I love the way a guitar gets just enough dissonance with a major third to give it a good, dirty sound. It works in a whole lot of music.

If you have a good ear for what's "in tune," then that's more valuable then any tuner. Just make it sound in tune, then it is.

MontzterMash · #6 10-11-2011, 01:47 PM

Very good point regarding tempering. Thanks!

Fretless1! · #7 10-11-2011, 06:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ubersheist

Once you've heard some justonically tuned instruments, you really start to hear how out of tune everything is. That's not really a bad thing. I love the way a guitar gets just enough dissonance with a major third to give it a good, dirty sound. It works in a whole lot of music.

If you have a good ear for what's "in tune," then that's more valuable then any tuner. Just make it sound in tune, then it is.

Also, once you've played fretless long enough, going back to a fretted will drive you nuts because you'll hear it being ever so slightly out of tune.

Ubersheist · #8 10-11-2011, 11:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fretless1!

Also, once you've played fretless long enough, going back to a fretted will drive you nuts because you'll hear it being ever so slightly out of tune.

I don't even have a fretless anymore. I keep thinking I'll pick one up for certain gigs or songs, but they never seem to pop up. Maybe that's because I don't have a fretless that I don't get those gigs? I dunno.

I used to have a girlfriend who was way into middle eastern music and classical music. She's the one one who turned me onto Justly Tuned instruments. It took some getting used to. All Western music (jazz, most everything on the radio, etc.) is equal temperament, which I grew up listening to. My ears (and probably everyone reading this with only a few exceptions) got trained to hear Equal Temperament intervals as "in tune." So, it took some retraining and time to hear the differences. It's strange, but makes me really want to write simpler and simpler songs and bass lines.

A more recent philosophy for music for me after finding all this out is: The fewer notes are being played at any given time or are the center of attention in any given point of a song, the less chances of that song sounding out of tune!