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Buy a friggen tuner!

#22
I remember when I was ~12, seeing a band play a song out of key, tune it afterwords... he couldn't tune it, so he got his backup... which was also out of tune.... So annoying. The worst part was that he would think he was in and start and it would sound horrible, and he'd stop and tune again. Tell your guitarist to get a locking nut, floyd rose or no. If you're gigging in the middle of the day, keep your guitar outside for about 3 hours before hand. And if it's at night, put the guitar in the shade for about 3 hours. Because the instrument will expand up on ye. The metal gets bigger, the wood gets bigger to a much lesser extent...
 
#23
Theonestarchild said:
..........Tell your guitarist to get a locking nut, floyd rose or no...........
Click to expand...

If the guitar doesn't have fine tuners, then a locking nut can make things go out of tune worse. The act of locking down the strings puts pressure on the strings at the nut, thus affecting their tuning. That's why guitars with locking nuts have fine tuners, ala Floyd Rose.

Try telling a guitar player with a vintage Gibson that he needs to install a locking nut.......
 
#26
IanStephenson said:
Throwing technology at it doesn't help. Tuners are a handy gaget, but unless they can tune quickly by ear they're gonna take hours (and snap a lot of strings!) using the tuner.

Ian
Click to expand...

Actually, in this case, throwing technology at it DOES help. Tuning out loud on stage is obnixous, difficult and innacurate. Using a "modern" tuner allows for quick, quiet and more frequent tuning. I CAN tune by ear, but I chose not to.
 
#28
Supergroup said:
I will add to that by saying that nothing says WE SUCK louder than tuning out loud on stage... during the show. I hate that.
Click to expand...


so does that mean all orchestra's, marching bands, jazz ensembles, bluegrass, and folk music sucks (or are unprofessional as another tb'er put it)? i guess that the bassist on the other side of the forum are equally sucky/unprofessional?

i think there needs to be some qualification. if it takes you an hour to tune, then yes do it quietly or somewhere else. my guitar player tunes to a tuner silently, then gives me an 'A'...5 to 30m seconds later im done. if he doesnt have a tuner, then i whip mine out, and hand it to him. i dont care if we are perfectly 440, as long as we are close and harmonically in-phase with each other.

then again, my band is a cross between the dwarves and gg allin so what the heck do i know. we prolly sound better out of tune.
 
#29
fwiw, not all tuners are created equally. nor are the ways in which ppl interpret what is being diplayed by the tuner. try it sometime with different instruments/different ppl/ and different tuners. then compare them sonically...they don't always match up.

ymmv...i havent done enough tests to verify what % of the time it is off or not.
 
#31
pierce said:
so does that mean all orchestra's, marching bands, jazz ensembles, bluegrass, and folk music sucks (or are unprofessional as another tb'er put it)? i guess that the bassist on the other side of the forum are equally sucky/unprofessional?

i think there needs to be some qualification. if it takes you an hour to tune, then yes do it quietly or somewhere else. my guitar player tunes to a tuner silently, then gives me an 'A'...5 to 30m seconds later im done. if he doesnt have a tuner, then i whip mine out, and hand it to him. i dont care if we are perfectly 440, as long as we are close and harmonically in-phase with each other.

then again, my band is a cross between the dwarves and gg allin so what the heck do i know. we prolly sound better out of tune.
Click to expand...

That's different. You can't "tune" a woodwind or brass instrument, can you? In that case the "tunable" instruments have no choice but to tune out loud to their fixed tune brothers.

I recently saw a bluegrass band, and they all had tuners. Again, most of us probably CAN tune by ear, but chose not to do so.
 
#32
pierce said:
fwiw, not all tuners are created equally. nor are the ways in which ppl interpret what is being diplayed by the tuner. try it sometime with different instruments/different ppl/ and different tuners. then compare them sonically...they don't always match up.

ymmv...i havent done enough tests to verify what % of the time it is off or not.
Click to expand...

My band has three stringed instruments and three different brands of tuner. They all match up perfectly.
 
#33
guy n. cognito said:
That's different. You can't "tune" a woodwind or brass instrument, can you?
Click to expand...

Yes, you can tune a brass instrument. There are fittings that will let you adjust pitch.

You can also tune a woodwind as well, but it's much more difficult. By changing the centers of the toneholes, you can "tune" the instrument. Actually it's more like adjusting intonation.

Either way, Brass and Woodwinds are a different animal since the player can adjust tuning and intonation with their embouchre.
 
#34
I can tune by ear and have so for a long, long time. I believe you should be able to do so and it helps in knowing when you fall out of tune.

But why spend the time at gigs and rehearsals saying "gimme an A" and then all trying to hit it when in mere seconds, silently and accurately, you can all be in tune? And if in doubt between songs, you can check quickly and silently.

Buy a tuner. Tune by ear on your own time.
 
#36
Spencer! said:
Even if you can tune all the strings relative to each other, you still need a reference pitch to tune from.

Unless you have perfect pitch, which only 1 in 10,000 people in the USA have.
Click to expand...

Back in the 60s I first carried a crappy pitch pipe and later an A440 tuning fork which I still keep around. I also have a Korg chromatic tuner which would probably save my a** if I were trying to tune in a noisey bar. Sometimes at home for some acoustic instruments it is just as easy to grab the tuning fork but I use the Korg a lot.

And yes Jive, when people play fully voiced chords with some types
of guitar distortion it can terrible - OK as an effect for one tune or part of a tune but when a band makes that part of their sound and plays that way for a whole set, I am usually outside chatting with the smokers.

Peace,
S
 
#37
I use a tuner, then double check with harmonics.

I've learned to tune by feel with harmonics. You can feel the beat freqs in the neck.

Really freaks out guitar players. They're plinking away for 5 minutes and can't get in tune. I turn the bass off, if I find 2 adjacent strings in tune, they're almost certainly ok, tune the rest to those. Turn the bass on, and its in tune. Drives them wild. :D

I prefer to tune to a tuner first to guarantee its at 440. But sometimes if I want to mess with the guitarplayer I'll risk it as long as I find 2 or more strings already in tune with each other. Odds of them all drifting out of tune, but staying in sync with each other is virtually nil. They are still in tune from the last time.

Randy
 
#39
my guitar player refuses to geta tuner. he waits till im all set up and ready to play, then he comes and uses mine so i have to wait till hes done. its so annoying. its like $5 for a little pocket tuner...how do you not have a tuner? thats like the first thing you need
 
#40
"..If you play a stringed instrument, you can't be in my band without an electronic tuner. Audiences hate listening to tuning, and nothing says "WE SUCK" louder than playing out of tune. Email a link to this thread to your buddies. Once they see I have almost 12,000 posts, they'll come around..."

Our church bought a new baby grand two years ago. Apparently the strings are still "settling"
on it. A $14,000 instrument that is a good 1/4 if not 1/2 step flat all the time.

After several visits from the piano tuner, the song remains the same: rather flat below
'standard" pitch of 440hz 'A' above Middle 'C'.

The lead guitarist continues to use his electronic tuner to get his pitch.. Well you can see
what the issue is.. he is noticibly sharp in relation to the piano which is the melody keeper
for the whole praise band.. the guitarist has no idea how to sit at the bench and
tune to the piano.. "whats Middle C"?.. A lost cause.. :crying:
 

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