-
Tuning issues
This might be a dumb question…
I use a headstock clip tuner, and tune every day right before playing. Lately, or rather, nearly forever, I have noticed it’s very hard to get “right on the money” when tuning. It will start out low or high, depending on the humidity, then as I pluck the string and slowly crank the screw (what do you call those knobs??), it will read correct, then fall off as the string loses vibration. At what point in the tuning process do I call it correct? I can keep tuning till it shows green right away at the pluck, but then it will change as the vibration wears off. Do I concern myself with fall-off? It would make sense that as the vibration starts to slow the pitch will drop, but sometimes it goes up…I did put a new battery in it.
-
9 Replies
-
Tuners can be finicky devices. I’ve been very lucky with my Fender tuner, it seems to give me a clear reading in a stable manner. I have another one that came with one of my guitars, sometimes I’ll hook them both on the neck to sort of calibrate. That one is not as stable in it’s reading, flickers the green (lock indicator) a lot more but when I’m nicely tuned they agree with each other.
I will usually tune with a pick rather than a bare finger, I think it’s more reliable in producing a steady vibration in the string. I would imagine that it’s best to pick near the 12th fret (middle of the string) for optimum energy transfer, although I don’t do this, it just occurred to me that strings might vibrate slightly irregular. Speaking of irregular energy transfer: have you ever seen video of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsing?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NpsDLes2bWM-
Yes I have seen that video! Some serious harmonics going on there! And my brother lives not far from there, in Puyallup, WA…
Anyway, I usually use my fingernail over the sound hole, never thought about using the middle of the string at the 12th fret, makes sense. The tuner I use came with my guitar (Zager); I had another el cheapo I got from Amazon that I sold with my dreadnought.
-
-
Hi Barbara, I had this same question. I kinda still do…? The solution I came up with: I listen carefully and knowledgably. I had to learn to listen to the vibrational waves as they align or seperate. When I tune a string using another string as the gauge for pitch when the tones start to get close there is a harmonic vibration that starts. It is a fast wah wah sound in the harmonic the two strings make. It is not the intitial sound the string makes when plucked but rather it is the sound of the wood of the guitar vibrating. As the two strings get close to aligned pitch the Wah Wah gets slower and slower until it just turns into Wahhhhhhh. The second pulse is lost when to two tones align. Here is when it gets fun….using the tuner and tuning two strings at the same time using the tuner as the guage. This is where I can mess around with the vibrational alignment and really hear the oscillations go from Wah wah wah wah to Wahhhhh wahhhhh wahhhhh, to Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I love playing with this stuff and I think it is because it elluded my sensory comprehension for so long. I can tune for 15 minutes messing around with different sets of strings and I don’t even realize the 15minutes has passed. I may be in the rabbit hole too deep. Good thing I have a flash light : )
-
ROFL!!! 🙂
-
OK, I tried it, the “old” way of tuning starting with the low E string… I had just previously tuned it with my headstock tuner, plucking the 12th fret as previously mentioned. Every string was totally in tune with the previous, no “wah-wah” just “wahhhhh”! So the accuracy of the tuner is good. I could totally get into guitar nerddom, though I still have trouble with some of Fretboard Wizard. My tinnitus prevents me from being able to guess the key of a song.
-
My Tinnitus rings between C# and D sometimes B. I suspect it is all three and depends on my focus at any given moment on which I hear most prominently. Sound is such a funny thing.
-
-
-
The things we nerd out on just makes me smile. I would laugh out loud but then I read the whole thread with intrigue so I too think the production of sound by vibrating strings is a marvelous thing.
-
If you have 15 minutes of fun while tuning your guitar then you have met one of the non-exclusive bars for guitar geekdom. Funny and cool. The trick is getting your audience to have fun too. I am trying to remember: I think Neil Young was one of those who could tell a story while tuning for 15min and nobody seemed to mind. : ) Me?, I get my dogs howling when I start playing with those wave oscillations.
-
-
When I first got my guitar in the mid 80’s, I used a tuning fork and then tuned to the 5th fret. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t do that any more !
Log in to reply.