Tuner for Upright Bass

Sammy Camden · #1 07-08-2006, 03:43 PM

OK, not sure if this is proper place for this thread, but couldn't figure out where else to put it.

I'm real new to URB playing, just started a few weeks ago. Had my 3rd lesson this morning. I'm working real hard with the bow and the fingering in the half-position.

I hooked my "Intellitouch" tuner to the bridge, thinking that it would be a great indicator showing me whether I was flat or sharp in my fingering. However, the tuner doesn't work very well. Most of the time, it doesn't even recognize the notes, especially with the bow. It does a slightly better job piz. When it does register the note, it will often stay stuck on the note for a while even though I go to another note. It works wonderfully on my acoustic guitar, my electric guitars, and my electric basses. Not worth a pop on my URB.

So, my question to you all is, what do you recommend that I use for this purpose, and what do you all use as tuners for your basses.

My teacher recommended that I buy a "chromatic" tuner that has an auto mode so that it would recognize the notes and indicate sharp/flat (thought I had that in the Intellitouch). Sounds like a good idea. But I need one that will be easy to see when I'm practicing and trying to read the music in my lesson book. Or maybe, just maybe, the bridge isn't the best place for the tuner. I tried the tail-piece and it was worse. This bridge is an adjustable one, so maybe that has an effect.

I'm open to suggestions, so bring 'em on.

Thanks!!!

fcleff · #2 07-08-2006, 03:49 PM

I have a 'KORG Chromatic Tuner CA-30'. It has an LED face that tells you if you are sharp or flat. It also has a red light/green light indicator. I only use it to tune in certain situations and don't know how quickly it will respond if you are playing an actual piece. I would work fine with slow scales, I suppose.

PIZZAcato · #3 07-08-2006, 04:14 PM

This Clip-On Tuner looks probably is more accurate than a chromatic tuner and i trust Korg more, but I've never tried one so ymmv. Best of Luck.

Just some guy · #4 07-08-2006, 05:03 PM

Try using the KORG CA-30 chromatic tuner. It works better than the old AT-12 and is about the size of a thick credit card. Also the pricetag is hard to beat at about $19.95. Sometimes getting a good reading on these machines is up to you and the consistancy of your sound. Your bow arm can mess up the readings as much as your left hand. Also, I'd recommend practicing against a drone or "fixed pitch" and using your ears instead of trusting a machine and your eyes. The drone will give you quicker feedback as a constant refrence point and will also help your ears improve. I know many great orchestra bassists who work with a drone like this every day.

GL

fish slapper · #5 07-08-2006, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fcleff

I have a 'KORG Chromatic Tuner CA-30'. It has an LED face that tells you if you are sharp or flat. It also has a red light/green light indicator. I only use it to tune in certain situations and don't know how quickly it will respond if you are playing an actual piece. I would work fine with slow scales, I suppose.

My teach turned me on to this one. At $20 almost everywhere, worth twice the price. Be sure and get the "30" chromatic model, not the more popular "20" guitar tuner.

Andy Allen · #6 07-08-2006, 09:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fcleff

I have a 'KORG Chromatic Tuner CA-30'. It has an LED face that tells you if you are sharp or flat. It also has a red light/green light indicator. I only use it to tune in certain situations and don't know how quickly it will respond if you are playing an actual piece. I would work fine with slow scales, I suppose.

A big +1 on this one also - you can get it from Concord music for only $13.95 (see here and scroll down the page). I have found it to be the most useful/useable tuner out there, either with the inbuilt mic or the cable input jack.

I have an Intellitouch tuner and it works fine as long as there's not too much noise in the room. If there is I use the Korg with a cable.

The Korg (even using it's microphone input) is way better than the intellitouch for use as an intonation training tool - the indication and damping is much better suited to this use.

My only complaint is that the CA-30 does not have a back-lit display for use in those dark jazz bars

Andy

D McCartney · #7 07-08-2006, 10:23 PM

Have you tried putting the intellitouch on the head? Also, make sure the battery is fresh.

Andy Allen · #8 07-08-2006, 10:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by D McCartney

Have you tried putting the intellitouch on the headstock? Also, make sure the battery is fresh.

I find that the best place to put the Intellitouch is on the 'G' wing of the bridge. It hasn't worked reliably for me on the headstock or on the 'E' side of the bridge. I'm sure that with different basses you'd have to locate that 'sweet-spot.'

Andy

D McCartney · #9 07-08-2006, 10:31 PM

Indeed, I tried all over the bass with it until I found a spot.

brooklynbassed · #10 07-09-2006, 12:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sammy Camden

OK, not sure if this is proper place for this thread, but couldn't figure out where else to put it.

I'm real new to URB playing, just started a few weeks ago. Had my 3rd lesson this morning. I'm working real hard with the bow and the fingering in the half-position.

I hooked my "Intellitouch" tuner to the bridge, thinking that it would be a great indicator showing me whether I was flat or sharp in my fingering. However, the tuner doesn't work very well. Most of the time, it doesn't even recognize the notes, especially with the bow. It does a slightly better job piz. When it does register the note, it will often stay stuck on the note for a while even though I go to another note. It works wonderfully on my acoustic guitar, my electric guitars, and my electric basses. Not worth a pop on my URB.

So, my question to you all is, what do you recommend that I use for this purpose, and what do you all use as tuners for your basses.

My teacher recommended that I buy a "chromatic" tuner that has an auto mode so that it would recognize the notes and indicate sharp/flat (thought I had that in the Intellitouch). Sounds like a good idea. But I need one that will be easy to see when I'm practicing and trying to read the music in my lesson book. Or maybe, just maybe, the bridge isn't the best place for the tuner. I tried the tail-piece and it was worse. This bridge is an adjustable one, so maybe that has an effect.

I'm open to suggestions, so bring 'em on.

Thanks!!!

Tuners are wonderful inventions, some more accurate than others. I find them good for electric instruments and sometimes for acoustic instruments, where the signal or the vibration is clear. Chromatic tuners with line input and/or a good microphone are more accurate and more expensive than, say an "Intellitouch" (which I also have and which picks up the string vibration of a plucked string much better than a bowed string). Strobe tuners are supposedly the most accurate of these devices.

Our ears, if in relatively good health for a musician, are our best apparati for hearing intonation, considering that the double bass is essentially an instrument strung from end to end without fixed pitch postitions.

I was always taught to tune using the harmonics of the open string and to check my tuning while playing (whether practicing or playing for pay). Listening to the fifth an octve above the first fingered fifth of the open string, and even using the tonic and the fifth at the break of the instrument is good practice.

A tuner can help us to determine intonation at the beginning, but training our ears is our constant challenge, and one that I welcome each time I play this instrument.

I still have an A440 tuning fork in my bag that I use for obtaining relative pitch to tune the upright, and I wouldn't be surprised if Ron Carter has one in one of his pockets in his Intellitouch ad.

Talk to your teacher about all this, and no need to "fret" over the "intonation thing"

Best,

Everett Boyd

charmicarmicat · #11 07-09-2006, 12:52 AM

Here's something i posted a few weeks back
Electronic Tuner

5stringDNA · #12 07-09-2006, 01:59 AM

Stay awak from Qwiktune stuff- it's garbage. Seiko and Korg make the best chromatic tuners under $30 that I have found. My Seiko is the best chromatic I have used to date, and that includes other band member's tuners and such. I usually just set my tuner on teh bridge when I'm tuning for best results. If you have a pickup, than you can plug it in and it is super easy- I've started doing this ever since I got a pickup installed.

Cory Palmer · #13 07-09-2006, 03:21 AM

I use the Korg CA-20. It sounds like it might be the same thing as the CA-30. I've had it for many years and it has been great. It always registers quickly and accurately.

Practicing with a tuner on all the time is not the best way to improve your intonation. You need to train your ears instead of just watching a screen to tell if you are in tune. You can become dependant on that tuner for your intonation and when it is not there it can throw you off. I suggest getting a tuner that can play drones. I use the BOSS TU-80. The tuner isn't very good but it can produce good drones. Korg also has a more expensive tuner that will play a wide range of pitches and is a very good tuner. I think it goes for around $90.

Also, a note can have a slightly different pitch in different keys. You might be hearing something that is in tune but your tuner would tell you that it slightly out.

Paul Warburton · #14 07-09-2006, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by D McCartney

Have you tried putting the intellitouch on the headstock? Also, make sure the battery is fresh.

DB's don't have headstocks...........

Bruce Lindfield · #15 07-09-2006, 11:01 AM

Obviously lots of good advice here about how to play with good intonation, but another mention for the Korg CA-30 - I just put it on a table or stand in front of me and it recognises notes from my DB very easily and tells you whether the strings are sharp or flat.

I'm not advocating it as an "intonation-checker" - but I found it very useful recently, when I installed Animas on my bass and the tuning kept slipping every few minutes - to differnet degrees on each string - having the CA-30 enabled me to quickly get the strings back to where they should be and carry on practicing - otherwise I think I might have given up for a few weeks until the strings settled!!

drurb · #16 07-09-2006, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KSB - Ken Smith

Learn to cancel the vibrations between the A440 of the fork and the Harmonic A on the D-string, 4th finger 3rd position. Then tune with relative harmonics across the strings in 3rd position. When done, do the Fork A440 again and tweek it one more time. This is how Professionals have done it for as long as I can remember.

Indeed, this is how I learned to tune from the time I was a bass "baby." Now, however, I use a Korg CA-30. The best way to use the harmoics is to bow (or if you're good, pizz) across both strings to be compared and then cancel the beats across the harmonics.

Technically speaking, when you use the harmonics to tune, you are slightly off the well-tempered scale because the harmonics across the strings are related by perfect integer multiples. I once calculated the error and I recall it being about a maximum of 2 Hz or so. That is negligible. I mention this in case someone out there uses the "harmonic" method and then happens to check the results with a tuner.

Ken is correct in pointing out that you will be playing multiple fingered notes. Believe me, you are NOT likely to hit any of them consistently within 1-2 Hz!

(Yes, it is cents [which is basically a log scale] and not absolute Hz that matters because it is ratios that matter to the ear when it comes to pitch.)

Note in edit: For those of you who are curious, within the low-frequency region (less than 1500 Hz or so), it takes roughly a 0.2-0.3% change to be detected by humans under laboratory conditions. For example, with a 1 kHz tone, people require a change of about 2-3 Hz.

fcleff · #17 07-09-2006, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cory Palmer

Practicing with a tuner on all the time is not the best way to improve your intonation. You need to train your ears instead of just watching a screen to tell if you are in tune. You can become dependant on that tuner for your intonation and when it is not there it can throw you off.

I never practice with my tuner on. I like to use my ears and develop that skill. I agree that with drones and tuning forks, like Ken said, you will get a better ear.

For me, I will use my tuner only if I am playing in an ensemble situation. Before the gig I will tune my bass up to 440 on the tuner and then re-tune, by ear, with the group at the gig. That way I know that I will be fairly close to the rest of the group and can get in tune very quickly.

My son is bugging me to put some smilies on the screen so here goes:

robgrow · #18 07-09-2006, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KSB - Ken Smith

...If you want to become a good player than start with the tuning of your Bass. Buy a Tuning fork. Learn to cancel the vibrations between the A440 of the fork and the Harmonic A on the D-string, 4th finger 3rd position. Then tune with relative harmonics across the strings in 3rd position. When done, do the Fork A440 again and tweek it one more time...

+1.

Although I almost always tune a BG with a Korg tuner, I find that, after getting a reference pitch from the piano for example, tuning the double bass to itself works much better for me than using an electronic tuner.

Jake deVilliers · #19 07-10-2006, 12:36 AM

Ears work great, but when you need an absolute in a noisy room, I really like the Meisel Clip-on Tuner that Bob Gollihur sells. Its small, it likes the bass, its backlit!

Jake

TheSuzie · #20 07-10-2006, 01:08 AM

I own a korg that I do use for tuning but the first teacher I consulted suggested that I grab an old casio - heck people are glad to get rid of them or maybe you have one in the closet that you forgot about - plus a brick to hold a key down, also free. In my case it saved me from having to spend a single cent on something to generate tones for intonation and ear training. Heck most computers can do that for you too.

Peace,
S