Do “Sweetened” Tunings Really Make You Sound Better?
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- Today I'm taking a look at "sweetened" tunings, which change the relationship between intervals by tuning offsets into the guitar. Have I been tuning wrong all these years?
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I use something called les Paul tuning, basically you put your guitar in tune play for 2 minutes. Then the guitar puts itself in a sweetened tuning
Wow this joke is so original
The G string goes out by a half-step after one bend
@@astr43us You need to string it differently, there's plenty of tutorials on UA-cam. That might solve your issue.
@@WagnerWarner It's a Gibson joke
@Chill Music 4 Study w w is right, 0/10 weak ass boomer joke
I use the standard, "close enough for rock n roll" offsets.
it works for me
Works for me too!
What are these offsets? Your own ears r a standard offset?
I believe the Les Paul Junior epitomizes that sentiment.
440 or a half step lower depending on what YOU prefer to hear. Everything is subjective.
Rhett, in future when discussing alternate tunings, it might be useful and informative to try with a super clean tone as well as the Harmonically richer "Edge of Breakup" tone you're so fond of (and maybe even a full-on Distortion tone for contrast). The extra Harmonics actually change the perception of tuning, by making the Spectra overlap differently against the fundamental, especially depending on how complex the Chords are. Cheers, and another great video! :)
Great point! I hadn’t considered that.
I've found that some significant overdrive greatly improves hearing the "beats" between the reference note and the note you are trying to hit (especially harmonics) when tuning by ear.
Hugely good point!! Tuning for strummy stuff is way different than tuning for heavy stuff.
But then again Brett say’s that he hears the difference and that is what is important. We all hear things a little differently, so super clean to full distortion it’s up to the person playing. I tune as I play because it sounds better, not had many complaints after 50 years of playing. Great vid to get a guitarist thinking.
@@grahamtaylor3093 - Sure, I get that, and agree that in the end the player's choice rules. The bottom line is that his videos explore all this subtlety for the benefit of others though, hence my comment about showing the range of effect. ;)
I've been trying to explain to a friend guitarist why I tune by ear to fretted notes after tuning my b and a strings to pitch. Didn't even know there's a name for what I was (amateurishly) trying to do, much less so many techniques and variations! Thanks for giving me something to show them and giving me so much more to try.
There's nothing wrong with using a tuner, just tune the initial attack and not the decay.
Paul David’s video on this subject where he uses frusciante’s riff as an example is such a great lesson. I always knew that the 12-tone scale was a mathematical “compromise” or “best-fit”, but I had no idea how off certain note-relationships were in specific chords, and the fact that certain de-tunings can make a specific chord sweeter was very eye-opening. You can really use your ear as a scale instead of a chromatic tuner.
Could someone please link Paul's video? Would love to give it a watch.
Why don't you give him a kiss then. And sign up for his course while your at it.
@@dpatt6175 No one likes you.
@@audibletapehiss3764 I like him.
According to the late-great Mitch Hedberg, "sweetened" is a showbiz term which means "add sugar to."
All analog instruments are, by their very nature, imperfect. Befriend a saxophonist. Befriend a player of a non-fretted stringed instrument. They will open your eyes to a whole world of intonation possibilities. In the end, intonation is always the responsibility of the player. Take good care of your instrument. Learn its idiosyncrasies; then learn to do whatever it takes to make it sound in tune. I've never really thought about it, but I guess I go to great lengths to be in tune. I've never really thought about names, or theories, or concepts. I just know that my guitar is either in tune with the other instruments, or it's not; and if it's not, I do whatever it takes to correct it.
Yeah, this is actually the correct way. All these sweetened tuning options in digital tuners and multi FX units are fine, but you aren't relying on your ears, and you're still only getting a tuning that works in specific situations. You have to tune for what you're playing, and that's why the old school players tuned while playing.
Good shit
Violinist. We make micro-corrections to finger position on almost every note to get the intonation as close to perfect as possible. Always bugged me that piano and guitar and whatnot could never play quite in tune. Guitarists could do it too just by ditching the frets and radiusing the fingerboard and string position just a bit. Learning finger position without frets isn’t as hard as one would think.
@@JohnMaxGriffin I agree with you to a point, however a fretless guitar is basically a completely different instrument, with it's own sound and set of strengths and limitations.
@@Patrick-857 Yeah it probably would be a very different sound. Wonder if that could be mitigated.
Van Halen exclusively used a “sweetened” tuning - flattened B string so that it’s a pure Maj 3rd with the G string. Sick sound with distortion
Distortion extremely illuminates how well (and how NOT well) intervals are in tune
Yep. Distortion adds and accentuates harmonics. A "perfectly tuned" guitar can sound terrible with distortion, thanks to a combination of equal temperament being equally out of tune in all keys, and the guitar being a very imperfect instrument that can never be in tune on all frets. Unless you get those squiggly compensated frets.
It used to drive me completely insane until I eventually realized I had to accept that I had to tune by ear for the specific chords I was using at the time and avoid the bad sounding ones. Limitations breed creativity.
I'm all for learning about new tunings. I'm glad to see another installment in this series. The Nashville tuning video really excited me for more
“I’m gonna need as many guitars as I have harmonicas, honey”. “Why is that? You already have ten”, she says. “Because tuning”, I say! 😉😅👍
Yeah, yeah! That's the ticket! lol
She's cheating on you. She really thinks your harmonicas are gay & dorky.
I purchase only burst guitars, that way she never knows when I come home with a new one.
@@trustmetrusty3169 I bought a guitar from someone recently. He said he had a clause in his will telling his wife that she must under no circumstances sell any of his guitars for the price he told her he'd paid.
@@pnomis that’s great😂🤣😂
This issue with sweetened tunings is that it all becomes meaningless once you’re laying with another instrument that is locked into equal temperament. A chamber ensemble will tune on the fly in a piece to make chords sound correct, but if you have a keyboard instrument that can’t move, then you stay locked with that instrument. EVH tuning his B down 13-15 cents for the major 3rd on that string works when it was just him and Michael Anthony, but it doesn’t work as well when you have synth/keyboard going on. Make sure you take your ensemble into consideration when trying these.
Yes, this is very good knowledge that I'm glad you mentioned!
That's why I always thought that sweetened tunings are mainly a guitarist / bassist thing in small bands.
That's certainly possible to mimic with synths, though ;)
I find tuning a guitar with fretted/capoed strings is best when you’ll be playing with a piano.. since fretting adds tension and drives a note a bit sharp (and most notes, at least for the things I usually play, are fretted rather than open strings), getting the guitar “in tune” when fretted/capoed at say the 5th fret is going to make it match the piano better. If playing a lot of cowboy chords/open strings, I’ll try to tune halfway between “open strings in tune” and “fretted strings in tune”… the open strings will register as a tiny bit flat and the fretted notes a tiny bit sharp, but splitting the difference that way comes closest to having all of the guitar notes “match” the piano.
If I just tune the guitar perfectly with open strings, the fretted notes are sharp enough against the piano to drive me crazy.
Why would a synth be locked? I can see what you're saying makes sense for an acoustic piano but a synth can pretty much play any pitch when you press any key (and many if not all of them have ways of bending or altering the pitch)
Thanks, Rhett! I own a Peterson Strobe tuner pedal and have seen sweetened tuning options on it and have always wondered. Thanks for educating us. Great job, sir!
I have the Peterson head clip tuner and use the sweetened GTR and ACU tuning on my electrics and acoustics respectively. I really like it. Seems to be more clear but also harmonically rich.
2:17 Open chords with Standard Tuning
4:30 Open chords with Sweetend Tuning
Great video! I learned a few things today. Love your content.
Line 6 Helix has an ability to adjust individual strings' pitches when using the tuner: you can specify in all the individual pitch values for every string.
I use insane and don’t bother tuning at all
Very informative. Great video! Thanks man
Thank You, Rhett! Very Most Awesome Knowledge🎼🎸
I enjoyed this video thoroughly…as a player for over 50 years, the impreciseness of the guitar has always made any tuning a compromise. Throw in playing with other guitar/bass players, it has always been a challenge to be in tune with yourself let alone with the other players. My main gigging guitars are frankencasters with Warmoth necks having earvana nuts. This gets me as close as I can to be in tune across the fretboard as much as I can. Great explanation of these sweetened tunings…it’s worth exploring more
Cool stuff! Thanks, Rhett. Hello from Chicago.
Very interesting...thanks Rhett
I’ve been doing this for a while. I think the tuning issue can also be helped with a compensated nut. Most guitars are not intonated between the nut and the 12th. Trying this to help open chords on my acoustic. Great video!
Shouldn't the 2nd fret on the D string be used to tune the high E, not low E?
Edit: Regardless if it was done “correctly” or not for that specific method, I appreciate Rhett making videos like this. I learned a lot from this video and will definitely be experimenting with different tuning methods. Thanks Rhett!
NO
@@greg77hot if not, there's nothing controlling the high E pitch using that method. If I were using this method and tuning by ear, it'd be an endless cycle because the low E would need adjusting every time I get back to it
Yeah immediately went to the comments to see if anyone else caught that. sounds like the low E and high E are both out of tune for that segment of the video. oh well!
yep, screws up the whole segment. Sounds bad
You are correct, you should tune the high E with it.
I do those same chord progressions! They make the body resonate so wonderfully. I learned by ear so I don't know what they're called, but you can run those chords all the way up and down the fret board. My mom used to say it sounded like a waterfall. You earned a new sub!
Great episode! I tried the Taylor tuning a few years ago, and I agree with your points on it. Generally for any purpose I will tune where there is the least amount of warble in the resonance depending on what positions, styles and chords I'm using most.
EVH would tweek his B string for different tunes. That's how he got the perfect power chords with a Major 3rd...as in Running With The Devil.
Was waiting for someone to mention this
So you're saying that all those hours, all that tuning, all that intonation, just to be able to play every Van Halen song in key... It was all for nothing??
John Fruscante did this on the RHCP albums too.
Same with Page, whom I believe he got from Bert Jansch and Davey Graham. Kashmir has Double Drop D on 1st & 6th with 5th tuned down to A, or cents close to it. Is this the same concept?
@@Skypie61 I would say most of the old boys tuned by ear, and tuning for the particular song they were playing would have been second nature, very proficient players often tune as they are playing anyway. Digital tuners have brought "perfect" tuning to an imperfect instrument and created a generation of players who struggle to figure out why their instrument refuses to play in tune no matter how they try to perfect it. The Western tempered scale is part of the problem too, because every interval is a tiny bit out of tune in order to allow an instrument to play in every key.
Tuning by ear creates it's own issues because the frets of the instrument are equal temperament, but your ears are telling you to tune to just temperament, and your instrument will never be perfectly intonated unless you're combining Evertune with whatever those squiggly frets are called, then maybe you'll be close.
You're damned if you do and damned if you don't with tuning by ear or by tuner. Either way certain parts of the fingerboard are going to sound like ass, even if your setup is as close to perfect as possible. Imperfect instrument.
There is something to be said for playing simpler music with no keyboards or the like. Solves most of the problem. Jimi Hendrix had him and bass player. He tuned the guitar to itself, probably tuned to sound good for that song, and the bass player likely tuned to him. Big difference in pitch between the one guitar and the bass also hides any pitch discrepancies.
TLDR, the old boys just used their ears and didn't necessarily know exactly what they were doing, and whether intentionally or not, they worked around the inherent tuning issues of fretted instruments.
Also equal temperament is a horrible compromise that sounds awful tbh. Bowed instruments, horns, the human voice ect all stray toward just temperament because that's what sounds good to they person making the sound. Probably why pitch corrected vocals sound so awful too. The human voice wants to stay hovering in and out of just temperament regardless of what the instruments are doing underneath. Perfect tuning isn't perfect. Make it sound good and bugger the rules. Not even classical music is in equal temperament all the time.
Being perfectly in tune is a false god that will send you to a mental institution instead of enjoying playing music.
Very interesting. Glad I tuned in.
Interesting and thought provoking video. I've been messing with adjusted tunings for years. The problem with algorithmically sweetened tunings is obvious; every guitar intonates slightly differently up the neck, and so the tunings have to be adjusted to the guitar, its scale length, string gauge, fret accuracy, intonation. In a recording session, it might make sense to sweeten tuning for specific parts played on certain parts of the neck, but playing live, it's a lot fussing about for minimal payback. There's an old trope that 12-string players spend half their time tuning, and the other half playing out of tune. If we're very critical, I think that's pretty much true for all fretted instruments. There are days I find myself overly obsessive and cannot stand the tuning of ANY of my guitars, and days I just don't care so much. Can you guess which days are the more joy filled and creative ones?
so does this mean the sweetened tuning could mess up recordings cause its slightly off standard?
Good stuff, thanks.
Quick pro tip. When tuning strike the open string then the third fret to find a compromise. This immediately compensates for intonation and equal temperament
Oh that sweet, sweet tone tuning! Cheers Rhett!!
I'd never heard of sweetend tuning. But watching your video, it makes a lot of sense!
My Peterson Stroboclip has just arrived and this episode has helped demystify the sweetening process. Thanks Rhett.🎓🎸
I tune my guitars this way in addition to E A D G harmonics on the 5th & 7th frets and 17th & 19th frets followed by B & E tuning them to the low E 5th & 7th fret harmonics. By the way, those notes and chords delivered by the raw mids of those P90s stand out so beautifully to the ears... great video Rhett!
I do a "smaller" form of this on guitar all the time. I loveLoveLOVE the sounds of open G and C chords when they're in tune, so I often tune the B string by matching the 3rd fret on the A and the 1st fret on the B. And then I tune the high E by playing the E and B open, and tuning the E until it stops being. And then, if I'm going to use the open Low E, I'll tune it to the high E.
This is awesome and so digestible. thank you R!!! Highly recommend the Eric Valentine Guitar Tunning video for additional info!
Awesome video ❤❤
Just tried this and its so nice. Literally my new favorite
Excellent video!
The "James Taylor" sweetened tuning works really well in my opinion (for standard tuning at least).
low E: -12 cents, A: -10 cents, D: -8 cents, G: -4 cents, B: -6 cents, E: -3 cents
Especially if you play a little 'hard' it works well, because when you hit, especially the lower strings, hard they are pitched too high in the attack.
Also, it is really important to be consistent when you tune your guitar across all 6 (or more) strings. Do you tune at the "attack" of your string or do you tune it after is has "rested" a short while!
Edit: Oh, I see at around 10 minutes Rhett tries that particular one :-)
I've found the James Taylor method works for me on some guitars and not on others.
Why that is I can only guess at.
The ways that the nut is cut, the actual accuracy of the nut placement and/or the accuracy of the frets ??
The same with the Kevin Ryan method.
Works on some, not on others.
@@KozmykJ Offset tunings work on any guitar that has been setup correctly and intonated according to standard chromatic pitch first. You can apply any tuning offset to any guitar once this is done and the results will be almost identical on any guitar. A properly cut nut and an average, “non-extreme in either direction” action setup also help.
@@AllenGarberGuitarFun Hmmm no other variables possible eh ? Just 'Perfect' intonation, with straight frets . 🙄
I wouldn't argue the point.
Others might ...
@@KozmykJ You miss my point. No solution is perfect. Physics don’t allow perfect harmony between all notes. My point is that the greatest guitar players of the last 60 plus years have used tuning offsets. They are free and they can be used on any guitar without need for modification. Zig-zag frets and the Buzz Feiten system are as much of a compromise solution that doesn’t yield perfection. Tuning offsets are just the easiest and best solution. I never said any solution was a “perfect” solution.
@@AllenGarberGuitarFun I did certainly misunderstand your first reply.
I mistakenly took you to mean that these offsets could be applied identically to 'perfectly' set up guitars.
As opposed to being applied as methods of mitigation of the various unavoidable imperfections.
Mty bad.
You made some great points for using and for where not ,there was definitely a noticeable change which can be dialed in for many songs ,like you said not all ,good stuff keep up the good work Mr Rhett
OK so I've been doing this using hrtz for yrs but i was a bit off you've helped bring it together Rhett thx !!!
wow, thank you for that. I have been doing this, as I'm sure others have, on my own without knowing why or anything other than the sound lol. Awesome info and demonstration.
Thanks for showin this
I custom made a Strat with a True Temper neck (offset squiggly frets). The tuning is only a few cents high or low per string so you can play with other people and it's not noticeable as out of tune. Having all chords in tune on the neck including high fretted ones with open strings is simply wonderful. Plus, lead isn't that difficult on it either (for a slow hand like me).
I bought a True Temperament neck for my Strat and will never go back! It's consistently sweeter no matter where you are on the neck, as you say, and it's more in tune with any keyboards. Although I had a concern before I swapped the neck that my fingers would have to relearn where to go, in practice I found no problem right from the get-go. And so too for bending strings.
I really want a True Temperament, but it really is just a more accurate Equal Temperament and some people confuse that with Just Intonation for some reason lol
Multiscale Equal Temperament seems fucking crazy tho, I have yet to experience it
@@caixiuying8901 Yes, exactly - it's just making sure that each string as it's fretted, ends up precisely at the equal temperament pitch. But it really works. I'm not sure what more can be gained from multiscaling such a neck too - apart from ergonomic comfort.
Sweetened tunings are the answer that most great guitarists have used for decades and they don’t require squiggly frets or modifications and can be applied to any properly set up and correctly intonated guitar.
I bought a Peterson clip on tuner awhile back and was surprised at the additional tuning options available within a small clip on tuner. Tuning options for violin, mandolin, bass etc… then I read about the sweetener tunings and kinda stunned by it and also questioning the witchcraft of it as well. Definitely a new insight that I hadn’t intended or expected to involve myself in when I bought the tuner. All in all I would recommend the Peterson clip on or any other option they have for tuners. It’s worth the extra that Peterson has established as quality in tuning… lol…
Thank you and good night… lol…
🍃🌴🎼🎙️🎸🎚️📻🔊🫨Super interested Rhett, thanks for so many of these insights man, rock on dude!🎶 I like the GTR as well🎛️🎸
i've never heard of this but it makes sense, makes me want to learn more.
That's a really beautiful sounding guitar. Great tone!
very interesting video - thx
Not sure what happened to them but earvana made a nut that helped immensely with tuning on one of my guitars. A 17 year old Line 6 Variax that's a fine instrument. I was lucky to get one of their first runs from Japan before they moved production to Korea. That earvana nut made a huge difference. I probably wouldn't use it on my vintage Gibsons or Fenders but it was a perfect match for the Variax.
I’ve used the Earvana on a Variax as well. I didn’t notice a problem when playing with an acoustic piano, but sure did when I started playing with an electronic piano where tuning was more precise. Before that I used to tune the B string slightly flat and instinctive bend it into tune when playing an open D major chord.
Fantastic and educational in equal measure 🏆
I recently ran across some Grateful Dead behind the scenes/documentary videos on here, and there’s this funny moment between Phil and Bob while they’re tuning up. To quote the great Phil Lesh, “That’s close enough for rock and roll.”
Great video!! How I missed that they had a strobe tuner for iOS is beyond me! I purchased it before the video even ended lol! Looking forward to using this from now on.
Fascinating video. Thanks for that. I struggle with tuning all the time. When I was young, I figured it was my guitar. But as I accumulated more guitars, I realized it was either my technique or it was an issue with equal temperament. Now when recording, I tune the prominent chords in each song, and I think we all adjust single notes as we play…which is I guess why I don’t quite see the point in using a tuner or app to dial in “sweetened tunings” unless, I suppose, you have a hard time hearing that sort of thing. (Using a sweetened tuning always, like JT, seems to be pretty much the same thing-you’re optimizing for a few chords that you’re likely to use frequently.)
Maybe the app or customized tuner would be helpful live, when you might want to tune by sight rather than by ear. But then, I’m not sure many of us would retune to a specialized tuning for a song or two at a live gig.
Lastly, I would think that sweetened tunings would likely vary slightly from guitar to guitar (especially if they’re not all perfectly fretted and intonated), and player to player.
So, for me, it seems like “sweetened tuning” is a name for what we all kind of do anyway. I don’t think having a preset on a tuner would be all that necessary or helpful.
Amazing stuff. I watched a great video of an English piano tuner who explains this very well. How you MUST tune by ear instead of a tuner on each set of strings.
I often tune my low E string a few cents flat when I play open position stuff featuring lots of G chords. I find it makes the major 3rd on the A string sit better in the chord without being too noticeable when playing most other chords.
I use James Taylor's offset tuning in my Helix all the time! I think it's a great tuning system that solves problems with the lower frets.
1. Tune the D string to a known source
2. Pluck the 12th fret harmonic of the D then tune the G (fretted at the 7th fret) to this harmonic.
3. Pluck the same 12th fret harmonic of the D then tune the B (fretted at the 3rd fret) to this harmonic
4. Pluck the 12th fret harmonic of the G and tune the High E fretted at the 3rd fret to this harmonic
5. Tune the 12th fret harmonic of the A to the G fretted at the 2nd fret (pluck the harmonic first!)
6. Tune the 5th fret harmonic of the Low E to the High E open (pluck the harmonic first!)
When using this method I can actually feel the pulses of the notes against each other on my left hand, as the strings get closer in tune with each other the pulse gets wider until it disappears when they are in tune. Also, if the nut is not cut to the right depth for each string when you fret a note it will throw it wildly out of tune...too shallow of a nut slot will cause the string to bend further and be sharper.
Similar to classical guitar tuning method but that starts on the A string 5th fret harmonic matched to 4th string 7th fret harmonic.
I have used the iStrobo Stomps since they first came out. I still use them on my pedalboards, bench, and iPhone now.
The Sweetened tunings are just that…sweet!
FYI ... Sweetened tunings addons for Peterson app are available on iOS ONLY, they are not available for android. Kinda defeats the purpose of even having a paid app on android
a lot of players use tunings where the higher notes on the neck end up flat so they have some wiggle room underneath the notes (for solos). I love to flatten major thirds while playing by pressing towards the bridge (as like a static classic vibrato for example open A with 11th fret c# on the d string pressed down toward the harmonic). I used a sweetened style tuning for film music once but it was just two major chords shifting on the same strings (tuned the G down a lot and made a fretless basline).
This is an older video, but still very useful. Thanks for making it!
Rhett any chance you've listened to this on UA-cam at 2x speed? The chords sound so different. The difference between regular speed and 2x of the Am at 5:06 is wild.
To reiterate what Rhett said, Adam Neely has some incredible and informative videos on many different topics when it comes to music and the theory associated to it. I can’t recommend them enough.
LOVE YOUR VIDEO.
The Peterson Tuning App and the sweetened tunings are really great! I have been using those for quite some time and there is no way back for me 😎
Been wondering about this very thing after buying the Peterson clip on tuner (amazing and worth it) and the Peterson pedalboard tuber (also worth it). Strobe tuning makes a huge difference. But I’ve always wondered what these “sweet” tunings are. Thanks man!
I almost forgot my clip on. It’s pricey, but great for acoustic gigs!
I've been using Peterson's tuning for about 15 years. I think it makes my guitars more intune compared to what I hear in my head.
I have used the GTR setting on Peterson tuners for years. It sounds more musical to my ear. However, if the other guitarist is tuned with a different tuner….it’s like nails on a chalkboard.
Rhett, I really enjoy your videos!
This is key. It’s more important that everyone in the band be in tune to each other than be perfectly in tune. We always tune to the bass player and it works out just fine.
It’s less of a problem when the guitars aren’t playing in the same part of the neck. As long as I stay off the bottom two strings, nothing I play is going to rub with the bass notes. In my groups, we all independently tune to an electronic tuner and pay a professional to keep the piano in tune. If I had to tune to another instrument, I’d choose the piano. The bass player can adjust to a piano tuned to A=442, but the piano really can’t adjust to anything.
then what good is it in a band situation
I don’t know if you’ve ever done this but I started as a bass/cello player with a heavy hand, when I played guitar, I realized I could get near semi tones by applying more pressure to the fretboard, particularly on the wound strings. If you use your ear and play around with it you can really sweeten up some chords. Definitely a good exercise in musicianship…. Cool video, really dig the more musical and less gear-centric stuff you’ve done!
! I thought (knew!) there was something more to this! Thanks, man!
Great sound.
Great topic. The electronig tuner is a good start point. I like capo 2 with the low E open(drop E) and always temper my pitch to my ear!
I've gotten used to sweetening my tunings by ear. It's an imprecise process, varying from guitar to guitar, but it amounts to flattening the G and B strings slightly to account for string deflection under finger pressure. However, given that I still get annoyed by it occasionally, I think I might give the Peterson a try to get some consistency. Cheers.
Because it has to be a peterson....? there are no other pedal tuners that allow offsets....?
Good video!!
Intro from RHCP's "Scar Tissue" is a famous example in sweetened tuning. If you check with a tuner, one note is 14 (?) cents off, to make the harmony mathematically perfect. The rest of the song is in regular equal tempered tuning.
Was just thinking about it! Sounds so great "out of tune".
This is the example I came to comment about. For the longest time, I wondered why it didn't sound right even though my guitar was in tune!
Great subject and explanation.... One thing that I find important with tuning is to never tune down to pitch but always up into pitch. The reason for this is evident as soon as you bend the string as it will drop in pitch. I believe this is caused by slack in the string is held by the nut binding the string until it is bent or played hard then when it releases, it is below pitch. Getting a guitar in tune is a huge topic and this might help with keeping it in tune. Thanks Rhett...Keep up the good work!
I always thought the same and I noticed while watching James Taylor that he seemed to not do that and would go above the note and then back down to the sweetend tuning, but maybe I just need to watch it again a little closer...
@@joethompson2910 If you go down to pitch, the first time you bend that string, strike it hard, etc, it will go flat. if you tune up into pitch, it keeps the string under tension so it won't slip when you bend, etc...
Thank you sir...very interesting. I have to climb into the Himalayas to comtemplate this.
If you’re hanging out on the cowboy chords (which I tend to do on acoustic) I find tuning each string to the 3rd fret really improves things.
I've had a Peterson Tuner for a couple of years, and never really understood the "Sweetened" thing. Thanks for the explanation and the demo that you did. I've always retuned that janky G string to match the E-string G, now I know why that sounds better.
I use Peterson "GTR" sweetened tuning on my electric guitars, but then I find it sounds much better if I tune both the G string (3rd) and B string (2nd) slightly flat to that setting. I don't know if this is because of my heavier string gauge (11-50 for most), higher action, heavy handedness, or even nut slot height. But it works for me.
It is easy to see how all players can vary in different ways. For those who care to get deep, I feel it is important to take time to explore your own personal offsets. After all, there is only one Rhett Shull, one James Taylor, one Richard Peterson, and one you.
I’ll bet it is those factors you cite. GTR works well for me as in, but I play 10-46.
Awesome. This guitar Kung Fu is interesting, but too advanced for me.
Gotta admit, I marvel at this. Thanks Rhett.
Yes Rhett I will try some of these tuning I also use alternate tuning such as dadgad but how ever the sweetened tuning are very different than alternative tuning .
I like the idea of having the offset for the capo, as I have had difficulty with that, especially with a 12 string. This is definitely something you would have to set up to your style, and the type of chording you tend to use. Interesting topic.
i remember getting my classical guitar (w old strings) intune with and without capo with a piano.. it was horror. i should have worked with these kind of offsets makes total sense
12 strings can not be intonated properly if they only have 6 saddles; the high and low strings in each pair need different intonation points. For example, the "high 5th string" should be intonated at about the same length as the "low 3rd"
The important question here is - like pointed out by others - what sounds best for YOU? Musical context is also a valid argument. I've been using True Temperament fretboard for several years and that does it for me, both in individual and group contexts. For guitars that lack this system, I usually sweeten the tuning by ear.
I have been using that Peterson GTR tuning on the Strobo Stomp pedal . I love it, I trust it.Using it for about 5 years.
When I was a kid, a guitar teacher/music store owner/physics teacher told my buddy in a very aggravated tone "Of course your D chord sounds out-of-tune, it has a major 3rd in it! That dissonance is not out-of-tune, it's the way those intervals sound." --- He was on to something...
I’ve used the James Taylor offsets since I read him talk about it in guitar player magazine about 30 years ago. It suits me because I hit the strings hard on my electric and the bottom E would go sharp otherwise. It also sweetens bar chords up to the twelfth fret.
Luthier friend of mine (now sadly passed) went down this rabbit hole and built several guitars which were "optimised" (fret height, neck profile, string gauge etc) and only really worked with the specific tuning and setup they were built for.
The video of John Fruscante and Anthony playing Under The bridge in Amsterdam on a boat playing an acoustic out of tune but the harmonics are interesting and even pleasing to me especially when he plays and sings the chorus the movement is emotional and powerful
Great video. I feel this topic needs to be talked about more so more minds can think of ideas for different offsets that work for them and share that out. I’ve personally been using the buzz feiten tuning system for the last 15 years and had great success with it. I feel it’s a decent system because there’s intonation offsets to compliment the open note offsets, much like how a piano is tuned. I am now experimenting my with multi scale 8 string using the James Taylor offsets as a starting point, tuning the high E to 0 and going from there. Going from standard guitar notes to the low baritone notes has put me at a 21 cent difference from the high E to low F# and so far works but I’m gonna really spend some time and get it dialed in with intonation offsets to. I tune pianos to bring in some extra money when I can, so I thought why not try applying the same principles to a far lesser degree than a piano. Sorry for rambling on. I could talk about this shit for weeks. Here’s my offsets for my 8 string for anyone interested. Please take it and adjust it to what sounds good to your ear and works on your guitar.
E 0
B -3
G -2
D -5
A -7
E - 9
B - 15
F# -21
Rhett, do you have an opinion on compensated nuts? Such a difference when playing with an electronic keyboard. I’ve put the Earvana nut on my last three guitars and it really helps.
I tried the first tuning you showed, the one where you tune by ear, on my prs se custom semi hollow and my guitar was already tuned like that. Perfectly in tune with the open string as well.
@rhettshull
I actually preferred the sweetened Peterson GTR tuning over standard tuning. The first "online-forum-style"-sweetened tuning as well as the Peterson acoustic one were duds to me, though.
You could just get a True Temperament neck, preferably a Strandberg (I'm sure this will will draw fire haha) and then you have your sweetened tunings that work in every key. Not so well in different tunings, but they're currently making one for a sponsored artist that plays in drop C I believe. C-something at least haha
Very interesting. Thank you Rhett. Back before digital tuners became affordable, there was something called a tuning fork. Usually at A=440Hz. I would use this to set my A string harmonic at the 5th fret, then match E string 5th fret to A string 7th fret. I would set the high E open to match Low E 5th fret. (All my "fret" terms mean harmonic at said fret.) Match D/7th fret to A/5th fret. Match G/7th fret to D/5th fret. Match open B to Low E/7th fret. (None of this works on a Strat with a wanger unless you keep re-tuning the A string--and all the rest of the strings each time you try to tune another string. My other guitar player would wait for me to tune up, then tune to me!)
Now comes the tricky part; I'd double check that the open B would match the D string fretted on the 9th fret, and open E match the G string fretted on the 9th fret--and in this case I'm actually playing the note of the D and G strings, NOT the harmonics. Generally, if my intonation was set up properly and my strings were new and all stretched, my instrument would be in tune.
As for setting intonation back in the day, I'd match 12th fret harmonics to 12th fretted notes, then recheck against then19th fret (harmonic vs fretted). I also had very little relief in my neck, less than a business card half way between the first and last frets. I bought a brand new Les Paul in 1973 and had to keep tightening the truss rod every 6 months for the first 2 or 3 years, then once a year until it was about 7 or 8 years old. It was my only guitar up until the 90s. I didn't get a digital tuner until the mid-90s, but when checking the guitar with the digital tuner, I found it to be perfectly intonated and in tune. How about that.
P.S. I thought the standard tuning sounded just fine. If you play with a Hammond B3, your keyboard player will NOT want to adjust his tuning!
I guess I've been kinda doing this since I started playing in that I've always tuned by ear and by intervals/chords around the neck. I use many methods together, but for the most part now I tune my a reference and then getting the 4ths of the open strings in tune. Then I'll play through chords and try to make sure my octaves and thirds sound good. I'll check with harmonics and fretted notes with open strings, different play velocities as well because the strings go sharp when played hard or depending on how you fret. It comes pretty quick to me now, but I'm checking for all sorts of things. Rarely am I just tuning to a tuner, maybe sometimes live but even then I'm making adjustments to what the tuner says. Often I'll slightly change the tuning and the tuner doesn't even pick it up, so I've learned to mostly just use tuners as a reference point to start from.
And I'll also change the tuning when recording so whatever I'm playing is more in tune. Often I've found I like being just a bit flat when recording leads. It just seems to sound more expressive and vocal, a little warmer too, and makes fretted vibrato a little sweeter. Sometimes, especially with acoustics, I'll just not pay too much attention to a tuner, and just tune the instrument to whatever it seems to want to sit at the best, and where it resonates the best. Sometimes that's not going to be at concert pitch, which is fine usually unless you're playing with a piano.
I recently bought a Peterson Strobostomp tuner pedal and it includes the "sweetened" tunings as well.
I normally tune the g string down slightly and adjust the b based on how it sounds for a d chord. As long as it's intonated after being set like that, everything seems to sit well together