I don't understand "why" to use a capo

[gmel555]

Originally Posted by jimmy bookout

Sorry, I couldn't listen to the entire thing, he is SO out of tune (bad intonation?) that it made my skin crawl.

Originally Posted by PiousDevil

I think most of that is the old recording technology. All of those old recordings sound out of tune.

Wasn’t going to add any further comment to this old thread. More than enough has already been said about the capo. However, thought this would be useful for those only familiar with digital or “later “ analogue recordings. Old “masters” didn’t play out of tune any more than players now I think, and at least when they played live TV they actually REALLY PLAYED (but I digress). Regarding the recording, before digital there used to be a common and important technical measurement for frequency distortion:

“Measurement of wow and flutter is carried out on audio tape machines, cassette recorders and players, and other analog recording and reproduction devices with rotary components (e.g. movie projectors, turntables (vinyl recording), etc.) This measurement quantifies the amount of 'frequency wobble' (caused by speed fluctuations)...”

[varmonter]

after 16 pages i wonder if the op understands
now...

[mikehartigan]

Originally Posted by PHJim

[...]
-It's also good when there are two or more guitars playing together to capo the guitars apart. (One guitar playing E shapes with no capo and another playing C shapes with the capo at the fourth fret and perhaps D shapes capoed at the second fret for example)

Indeed! One instance that instantly comes to mind was George Harrison and Paul Simon on SNL many years ago performing Here Comes The Sun. George had the capo on the 5th fret (down a full step from the original), while Simon played without a capo in G. I was too mesmerized by the performance, itself, to note how nicely the combination of capo/no capo sounded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4B9orDIScA