Sweetened Tuning thoughts…

[ljguitar]

Larry J here…
I've playing acoustics for 60+ years now, and all-solid decent quality instruments for 54 of those years.

Only if your guitar does not have a compensated saddle, or has not been set up by a luthier for specific action and intonation is it going to benefit from generic sweetened tunings.

The James Taylor thing…from a practical view…
ONLY if your guitar has the same neck profile, and scale length as James Taylor's guitar
AND
ONLY if your guitar has the same string height action and specific weight of strings as James Taylor's guitar
AND
ONLY if your frets are the same height and condition as James Taylor's frets
AND
ONLY if you play the same style and volume and press strings with the same force as James Taylor…

…will his offsets help.

All three of my handbuilt guitars were properly intonated at the saddle by the same luthier, and the general profile of the finished saddles were similar, yet not identical. My Olson needed far more compensation on the 6th string, and a fair amount on the 2nd string. Another needed more correction on the 2nd string. And the third needed help with both the 2nd & 3rd strings.

You can buy generic compensated saddles, which usually locate the 2nd string break point toward the back of the bridge, and then advance the 3rd string and then shape strings 4, 5, & 6 progressively further toward the tail of the instrument.

They work ok, but they do not solve the spectrum of intonation issues caused by deliberately high action (versus low action).

• High set action tends to cause notes to go sharp just by pressing the string down further to reach the fretboard (you are actually bending the string by pressing it down).
• Low action strings tend to go sharp on fretted notes because it's so easy to over-press them…they are pressed too hard and bent sidewise slightly.

A lot of intonation issues are not noticed by novice players. When they get a pro level tuner and begin to see how far out of tune notes can become, they think their guitar has suddenly developed problems rather than realizing their ears are getting better at discerning out-of-tuneness.

*If one plays in alternate tunings a lot, it's good to have the bass string(s) compensated with the instrument tuned to the most frequent alternate tuning.

Thanks for tuning in…

Feel free to discuss or disagree…

[TJNies]

You may be a glutton for punishment, considering a similar thread just got nuked...

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by TJNies

You may be a glutton for punishment, considering a similar thread just got nuked...

Ooopps…

Hopefully not. I quit reading the other thread after 40th post…

Hope this one stays civil then…

[b1j]

Hey there Larry,

I know. If I had to offer someone advice about what was likely to work, I’d probably come up with all those caveats. I would not expect one size to fit all.

I cannot explain it, but this JT tuning works (for me) on my short-scale J-45 with a straight saddle and my long-scale HD-28 with a saddle double-compensated at both the B and low E. Why is that? No idea.

It might be that I play in a (horribly degraded) JT style, using similar chord shapes and neck locations. I frequently pluck a tenth interval here or there, and want all of them to sound like my idealized notion of how a tenth should sound. That’s where my focus is. I’ve also been much more mindful lately of pressing only hard enough for the note to ring clean, no more. That has helped with cowboy chords.

Over the past few days I’ve come around to the view that we should each try what we like. It’s like any other form of advice: offered to be helpful, but likely at odds with someone else’s advice.

So I withdraw the recommendation. Others do not play the songs or in the style that I do, and they sound great. They should follow their muse and seek success, and I wish them loads of it.

[Methos1979]

Lol - I just went back to that post to chime in again and was sad - but not surprised - to find it closed.

ANYWAY, I had chimed in on that one that while I'd heard for the JT 'sweetened' tuning, I'd never used it. I typically just flatten the low E so the fretted G sounds right and everything else gets tuned to standard. Then as I capo up I make minor tweaks as needed.

So I went and tried the JT sweetened tuning (no capo) and was pleasantly surprised to find it worked very well. As I moved the capo up to frets 1, 2, and 3, the tuning remained very stable throughout several hours of band practice. Today I went back and it was still in tune and so I just played several hours again and same thing.

When I was finish I removed the capo and went back in and checked the tuning and it was VERY close to the original sweetened tuning. My only concern (as noted in my other post) was having to remember those values when I'm tuning live IF I need to tune at all! I'll have to write them down just in case.

[Gas]

Anyone try this Peterson strobe?

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...igh-definition

[Italuke]

Yup, +1000. PP has effectively pointed out some of the many variables that factor into this whole topic. Sure, the theory is sound, and may work for JT. But from the viewpoint of 99% of us here playing gigs, I'm just not sure it's practical. Variability of fretting finger pressure and angle being only one factor when playing actual music. One of many...

[DavidE]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

Lol - I just went back to that post to chime in again and was sad - but not surprised - to find it closed.

ANYWAY, I had chimed in on that one that while I'd heard for the JT 'sweetened' tuning, I'd never used it. I typically just flatten the low E so the fretted G sounds right and everything else gets tuned to standard. Then as I capo up I make minor tweaks as needed.

So I went and tried the JT sweetened tuning (no capo) and was pleasantly surprised to find it worked very well. As I moved the capo up to frets 1, 2, and 3, the tuning remained very stable throughout several hours of band practice. Today I went back and it was still in tune and so I just played several hours again and same thing.

When I was finish I removed the capo and went back in and checked the tuning and it was VERY close to the original sweetened tuning. My only concern (as noted in my other post) was having to remember those values when I'm tuning live IF I need to tune at all! I'll have to write them down just in case.

Better to get a tuner that allows you to enter the offsets and create a sweetened preset.

[DavidE]

Originally Posted by Gas

Anyone try this Peterson strobe?

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...igh-definition

I would guess a majority of us have. Excellent tuner. Accurate. And the sweetened tuning has worked on every one of my guitars, acoustic and electric.

[Robin, Wales]

Just to throw out there as a concept:

All these sweetened tunings are back engineering. They were done by ear first, time after time, for gigs and recordings. Each player making their own adjustments. Only latterly have they been "measured".

So why not just do what folks have done for years, and many of us still do. Which is to tune your guitar, play a few chords, then tweek the tuning buy ear so it sounds sweet.

It is not rocket science, it is music, and always has been.

[rmp]

Originally Posted by Gas

Anyone try this Peterson strobe?

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...igh-definition

yes I have one it's very good

I had one of the first generation VS-1 tuners too, got it back in '99 (the last century!)

Great tuner but the clip on ones are far more convenient

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by b1j

…I cannot explain it, but this JT tuning works (for me)
…Others do not play the songs or in the style that I do, and they sound great. They should follow their muse and seek success, and I wish them loads of it.

Hi b1j
As a listener or audience member, I'm more tolerant about intonation than when I'm playing and performing.

I think at least one contributing factor is when I hold/wear a guitar and tune it, and it's touching my body, I feel it as well as hear it. So I have more issues with getting intonation perfect in that case.

All of my acoustics are very resonant. Have been since my first really nice guitar (a Martin D-28 that I played for 17 years). Soon as I started playing the D-28 I became hyper aware of the need to tweak the B string based on whether I was playing in key of D, E, or A.

Another factor is I cut my teeth on classical music and had 18 years of classical training where intonation is emphasized and 'enforced' rigidly…

Also, I've played guitars for 60 years now, and somewhere along the line I started squeezing certain notes when I play inversions (for example think standard 'D' chord shape played on higher frets) I just squeeze the 3rd string into tune with the other two because it sounds flat.

Funny thing, it's the string that closest to in-tune, but it sounds out of tune with the others. Squeezing it into tune is like a barber-shop quartet resolving chords even if they have drifted away from their original 'pitch'/key.

And when I bend a string in a blues song, it never is ever in tune. But if I'm playing a solo lead part in a band, and bend a string ½ or full step it's spot-on in tune with the adjacent strings.

And then there is the capo can-o-worms. My gigging partner & I often use capos but rarely on the same fret at the same time, and if he's playing electric his in-tuneness stays closer in tune than my acoustics.

Intonation when playing is an interesting topic.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

....Intonation when playing is an interesting topic.

I like the fabled musicians story about Muddy Waters in the studio. He was asked by one of the session guys what notes he was playing for a blues lick and he turned round and said "Most of the notes I play don't have names!".

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

I like the fabled musicians story about Muddy Waters in the studio. He was asked by one of the session guys what notes he was playing for a blues lick and he turned round and said "Most of the notes I play don't have names!".

Hi R from W…
My experience has informed me that there are trained musicians, partially trained musicians, and learned-it-as-they-went musicians, all of whom play fairly well when they stay within their preferred styles. And of course there are self-styled musicians.

I've had all of those styles in private lessons over the 40 years I taught.

When they were there to learn, the key for me was to learn how to communicate clearly and quickly so they could learn more, and I went with their 'language' and approach, tweaking for improvement and adding skills.

Then it often came down to monkey-see-monkey-do which most adequate (or better) musicians are pretty good at. The ones who struggled most over the years were classically trained.

[tommieboy]

You might want to add string gauge/tension to the list. Many guitars are built around a specific string gauge/tension and intonated accordingly. Add to that that many of these guitars have a very thin saddle that doesn't leave a lot of meat on the bone for further adjustments. I took one of my guitars in for a setup and my local luthier advised me to install a set of strings that match the ones that came from the factory. It resolved most of the intonation issues.

Tommy