How to tune your guitar

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I only use that method when a tuner is not available. That method will get me 85% of the way there...so, it's not a bad method in a pinch.
 
When I was playing more (ie, constantly) I found I could remember the correct pitch for a low E as accurately as my TU-12. After that, the above method would put me right on. Funny thing was, my brother, the other guitar player, developed the same ear. We'd show up for rehearsal, plug in, play E5-A5-Dmaj, shrug at each other, and start playing.
 
i like to get a note from something, a piano, pitch pipe, another guitar thats in tune, and go from there. play two strings together, you'll know when its right.

i dont like using tuners, but i do on occasion. well, i dont have one, but i use them at work sometimes.
 
I stopped reading this after the first line where it said to make the octaves precisely in tune. That's about three cents off in my book. :D

330Hz is the high E on a guitar without adjustment. F above it is 371.25Hz. Difference is 41.25Hz. Each cent is .4125Hz. The top E should, after adjustment, then be about 329.5825 Hz.

The bottom E should be 82.5 before adjustment, and the F above it should be 92.8125Hz. Difference is 10.3125 Hz. Cent is 0.103125 Hz. Should be four cents down, or about 0.4125 Hz. That would be 82.0875 Hz.

So if you tune the upper E to the lower E times four, you'd be at 328.35 Hz, when you should really be at 329.5825 Hz. To get a nice stretch, there should be just over one beat per second between those.

Am I being too pedantic? :D
 
Isn't this what the Buzz Feiten system is supposed to remedy?
 
dgatwood said:
I stopped reading this after the first line where it said to make the octaves precisely in tune. That's about three cents off in my book. :D

Am I being too pedantic? :D
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Yes. :D

I'm sure you know that any fretted instrument has a lot more than 3 cents error built into it.
 
dgatwood said:
I stopped reading this after the first line where it said to make the octaves precisely in tune. That's about three cents off in my book. :D

330Hz is the high E on a guitar without adjustment. F above it is 371.25Hz. Difference is 41.25Hz. Each cent is .4125Hz. The top E should, after adjustment, then be about 329.5825 Hz.

The bottom E should be 82.5 before adjustment, and the F above it should be 92.8125Hz. Difference is 10.3125 Hz. Cent is 0.103125 Hz. Should be four cents down, or about 0.4125 Hz. That would be 82.0875 Hz.

So if you tune the upper E to the lower E times four, you'd be at 328.35 Hz, when you should really be at 329.5825 Hz. To get a nice stretch, there should be just over one beat per second between those.

Am I being too pedantic? :D
Click to expand...

That's just accumulated round off error. Octaves should be in tune.
 
A good reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octave

Octaves, by their very definition, are in tune. If you play what should be an octive on a guitar, and it's not in tune, then it's not an octive, but some other note close to an octive.

Ed
 
ermghoti said:
Yes. :D

I'm sure you know that any fretted instrument has a lot more than 3 cents error built into it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but not necessarily between two open strings. ;)
 
dgatwood said:
Yeah, but not necessarily between two open strings. ;)
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If you want the fretted notes in between to be close, they may well be.
 
dgatwood said:
No, it isn't, and as for whether they should be in tune, that's debatable.

Read http://www.doolinguitars.com/intonation/intonation5.html and scroll down to "What About Stretch Tuning". :)
Click to expand...

Dammit, I just hate it when I'm wrong! Yes, I forgot about stretch tuning. There is an accumulated roundoff error, however, in applying a numerical step up to each note to get the one above it and going up an octave, which is separate from the issue you raise.

Though really, I doubt most of us would hear the diff between 330 Hz and 329.58whatever Hz. That's an interference beat every two and a half seconds or so, and IMO the rest of the tuning inaccuracies in dealing with a guitar swamp that tiny difference. I'll tune my octaves as close to exact as I can get them and hope for the best. ;^)
 
how do you go about accurately measuring all of the distances? is the twelfth fret the reference point for both the nut and saddle? or is the first fret the reference point for the nut? how can one determine the accuracy of fret placement?
 
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