Tuner Calibration

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Light said:
When I get to be dubious about my Strobe's calibration, I hold an A 440 tuning fork up to an electric guitars pickup, and adjust accordingly. Mind you, it almost never needs any adjustment, but every now and then a tweak of a couple thousandths of a cent is needed.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
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How do you know your tuning fork isn't 440.0428876?

That's the kind of thing I'm driving at.
 
apl said:
How do you know your tuning fork isn't 440.0428876?

That's the kind of thing I'm driving at.
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APL, The bit your not getting is just that. It doesn't matter. You are making music not a piece of scientific equipment. You need to find a consistent way of getting you guitar in tune with itself and then with the other instruments you are going to be playing with. A single point of reference is all you need. By adding a multiple points of reference you are adding errors and compounding them. You cannot hear an interval of .0428876 cents. It makes no difference.

Sure understand the science, maths and physics behind music and how we make it, I think it's invaluable, but don't get too lost up in the pursuit of the tiny detail. Knowing the theory behind different temperaments and how to intonate an instrument is what counts not that you can do it to such a degree that makes no odds.

Don't take this the wrong way but now you have that understanding your time would be better spent making music or improving your setup skills.
 
muttley600 said:
...but don't get too lost up in the pursuit of the tiny detail.
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Ah, OK. I get it. I gave the impression that I was really, really concerned about knowing exact frequencies and traceablility to NIST or something. Trust me, I'm not. It only took, what, three months to put my thumb on the end of the cable to get the hum into the tuner to check it? So the pursuit of this is more out of curiosity than genuine concern. It'll also tell me about the accuracy of some of the clocks in my other digital equipment.

I'm pretty sure if I recorded a note on my Saffire and then the same note on the laptop's soundcard, I'd be able to hear a difference in pitch.
 
That would be down to your clock speed and accuracy of the chip.

You can get an idea of the human perception of interval pitch in cents by reading the wiki entry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cent_(music)

My own ability stands at around 4 cents at best depending on timbre and note duration and my ear is pretty good after years of straining to hear various things. It also varies with pitch. If your clock speed is that far out I'd be looking to get a new soundcard.
 
muttley600 said:
If your clock speed is that far out I'd be looking to get a new soundcard.
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The built-in card is expectedly bad. When I said I could probably hear a difference, I meant when playing mixing the two tracks.
 
That in a way is my whole point. Your computers are tools just like instruments. In this case you are using two tools/instruments that have been tuned to two separate reference points. What you are left with is an error. Better to use a single point of reference where ever possible. Maybe not possible in this instance but it is with stringed musical instruments. It doesn't matter if the note is A=439 or A=441 it does matter that we understand why.
 
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