Official Luthiers Forum!

Yes, the old StroboConns had a certain je ne sais quoi, didn't they ?

However, Howard, I am surprised to see you going down the slippery slope of abandonment of meticulous accuracy on the grounds that player sloppiness renders it invalid. I admit that I have intonated far more electrics than I have acoustics, and in that area, one does allow for the fact that horny handed Tele wielders are going to press the strings sharp, so it is standard practice to intonate slightly flat. I still need my Peterson to accomplish this uniform flatness. If the player thinks I got it wrong, all I need is two minutes and an Allen wrench to rectify the situation.

FWIW, I never use the harmonic method for setting intonation. Fret the notes at the 5th fret and 17th fret , get the 5th fret note dead on pitch and adjust the saddle until the 17th fret is a couple of cents flat. And I always use a push stick to depress the string just behind the fret crown , using just enough pressure to make clean contact. That is on Teles and Strats, of course, but I am sure the same principle could be applied to acoustics, given sufficient width of saddle, although it would be really, really, time consuming.

Frankly, I am at a loss to understand how one could even begin to intonate a guitar without a strobe tuner.

I use an old seiko tuner which has needle, digital and led display.

The accuracy of the tuner is IMHO largely irrelevant, because the signal from the string can vary by several cents depending on finger pressure and whether you are measuring the attack or delay portion.
You are not measuring a signal which is consistent to anywhere near the 0.1 cent accuracy.

I think the most important thing is to fret with a realistic pressure as if you were just grabbing that note during a scale or fretting a bar chord.

Here's an interesting wiki page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cent_(music)

Scroll down and listen to the sound clips. I can hear the 6 cent change, but I'll readily admit that I cannot at all hear the 1 cent change, hard as I try. It's obvious, though, when you listen to the beating that they're not the same note.

I don't have any real point here other than it's a cool comparison and it puts a face to the small intervals we're talking about.

Not just player sloppiness. Inharmonicity of strings, aging of strings, problems of equal temperament, temperature changes, imperfection in fret contact points, and variations in playing that I do not call sloppiness. Probably some other things. There is no point in making one link in a system far more accurate than the others. It's like getting a super accurate low noise amplifier when the speakers and microphone are mediocre.

By asking which harmonic do you tune, I meant that a strobe tuner displays the pitches of some of the overtone series. If you are always tuning the fundamental, you have all this other information displayed that is useless. And at odds with the fundamental, due to the inharmonicity of the string. You could tune an overtone on the low strings and the fundamental on the high strings. But that makes assumptions about the player's use that may be false. And it, too, will be swamped by the other variables.

Last, turning the allen screw on an electric guitar bridge is way different from taking the saddle out and filing it for every adjustment on an acoustic.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

+1

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brendan 3.0 new and improved, with better interpersonal subroutines

Great link!

+1

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

I have used AP Guitar Tuner on my laptop. It's a shareware program that you can preview for free. Shows pitch down to a tenth of a cent if you want. Has other options and also shows overtones if you are interested. Handy little program. Check it out.

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Chuck Kish

This thread clearly shows that builder laziness is behind most guitar tuning problems.

I fail to see how this comment is being in any way constructive...

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

A question for those using the Peterson iPhone App. I am looking at iTunes store now, and see they have both an iPad and iPhone app. The iPad app is 20 bucks, and the iPhone app is 10. Just curious if anybody has the iPad app )which runs ONLY on iPad).

Glenn

I think there is room for purely critical comments; but it helps if the reasoning behind them is understandable.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

"This thread clearly shows that builder laziness is behind most guitar tuning problems."
That has to be one of the most absurd responses I have seen on this here forum.
Most folks here are beating their brains out to build better boxes.
FWIW, IMO, any decent tuner will work.
At least to start.
.01 cent accuracy?
What about slight bridge rotation,
which would definitely affect intonation,
even if it were slight through time.
I wonder how many thousandths would change the intonation one cent.
Another point I want to make is,
If the intonation is pretty close,
the only time it would be noticed is when chording on the upper frets.
Or, if a player is playing slowly in the upper register,
which would be easily corrected by slightly bending the string to the right pitch,
unless it was sharp,
then you are screwed.

+1 on that! I love this app!

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Tracy
http://www.luthiersuppliers.com

Alan,
There is actually a formula for finding out how a thousandth of an inch will affect intonation for a scale length. Search compensation formula in the archives. I have found this very useful even though I am just a lazy builder.

Since I have a "tin ear," a tuner is crucial for me. I do some repair/setup, occasionally for a retailer if they get a "problem guitar."[electrics] The Turbo-Tuner( mine is the bench style, not the "stomp" version) is a very versatile and accurate device-I don't have "I-ANYTHING" phones or pads. I don't even know how to use the camera in my cell phone. I am also very pleased with the sensitivity of a Korg "PitchBlack," stomp tuner that I have. I did a side by side comparison of the two and the Korg was so close to the Turbo that I could be comfortable using it for intonation but it does not sweeten the fretboard and so extra tweaking is needed which is not a task for a tin eared setup/repair fellow. My ear does get better the more frequently I use it, but I have kind of been "out of commission" for awhile.

I offer this post because, at least in my opinion, the Turbo performs as claimed, and, the Korg is a real bargain for bench and stage use. Note that the Turbo strobe never really comes to rest-it usually has some very slow rotation -they claim this is because of how sensitive it is- I am not in a position to doubt that claim since my results have been sufficient for my expectations.

I notice that no one offers commentary on the program from Petersen for computers(unless I missed something)-that would seem to be a good deal, especially for someone like me who has only laptops, one of which is near my basement shop main bench.

I like the Turbo Tuner also. You can also use it for finding the main top and back resonant frequencies. I also like the fact that it is independent of my computer... hate to rely on it for everything. I will say that the AP Guitar tuner is very accurate if you are willing to use the computer.

Chuck

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Hmmm. I agree with the claim, which for me is a reason that I do not use my strobe tuner.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.