a Christmas gift the community: Perfected Tuning offsets

Henry said:
I see the same as OP on my FM9. Without offset, open string and 12th harmonic both report to be in tune.

When using offset (e.g. low E, -12.0 Cent offset), open string is in tune, 12th harmonic reports about -5 Cent off.
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I think we're asking the AFX tuner to do things it can't do: distinguish between strings. The 6th string at the harmonic is close-ish to the open 4th D. Which according to this tuning is supposed to be down 8 cents.
What's a poor tuner to do when it can't tell what string you're trying to tune?
 
greiswig said:
I think we're asking the AFX tuner to do things it can't do: distinguish between strings. The 6th string at the harmonic is close-ish to the open 4th D. Which according to this tuning is supposed to be down 8 cents.
What's a poor tuner to do when it can't tell what string you're trying to tune?
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Wouldn't it switch to D then in the display?

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Wow...those offsets are pretty extreme. Down 12 cents on the low E? And the closest any string gets to standard is -3 cents?
I'm wondering how much of a difference there is between an acoustic guitar offset and an electric, given the different string properties and (often) action heights. As well as how these might be affected by alternate tunings, which I use a LOT on acoustic. I would guess that when I tune my 6th string to a low B, it doesn't bend as sharp as it might if it were on low E, but maybe I'm wrong.
 
trueresource said:
I noticed that not one person who has commented has actually tested the offsets. Instead have made judgments based on their own experiences. I called this a Christmas gift because its something new, something you must experience. Do yourselves a favor: plug in the offsets. -13.95 --10.3 -9.65 -13.85 -5.4 -2.85 EADGBE. Try them over music. Then comeback and inform us of the result. Ignore the grandstanders who are steering you away from what I have found is the greatest discovery that I found in guitar experience.
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I have been using Cooper Carters suggestions, which I think were based off of peterson tuners sweetened settings. They sounded good to me. I have just plugged in these values to try out this week. I'll let you know next week how they work out. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
At the risk of hijacking the very generous OP's thread, I find myself moving more and more away from extreme offsets in tuning, at least on electric. On almost all of my guitars (maybe all of them, actually) I've done some sort of modification to the 0 position fret...i.e. the nut. Some guitars have a full zero fret ahead of the nut, some have parts of a zero fret, one acoustic has a zero fret shaped a little like a hockey stick.
On one of my PRSs electrics, I have extended the nut toward the 1st fret on the 3rd and 4th strings, and pushed back toward the tuners on the 2nd, 5th and 6th strings. The 1st string seems fine on this one.

One giveway for me is whether I can play both a root position GMaj chord and a "cowboy G" (2nd string fretted at 3rd) on an overdriven tone and do all of the resulting harmonics stack up nicely without warble. If I can get things under the 5th fret to work nicely this way, I can adjust intonation at the bridge a little more to compensate for higher up and things seem to play pretty much in tune all the way up the fretboard.

What is strange to me is that literally every guitar needs a different adjustment to get this. And yes, I start with a good string height at the nut. But I find most guitars need the 0 position moved a little closer to the 1st fret on at least some strings in order for the first few frets to not sound out of tune to me.

If I do this, I find myself needing very little if any offset.

Mind you, I've also gone extreme with capos...modifying Kyser capos to let me play across them more easily while narrowing them and adjusting the springs so they don't bend things as sharp. Pretty obsessive, but it works well enough that it caught the attention of a couple of well-known pros who had me make them some, too.
 
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I bought a true-temprament Stratocaster neck, bought some spare parts and made a guitar, just to try the TT neck. The TT neck is another answer to the same issue that OP raises. The straight and regularly placed (logarithmic scale) frets are a compromise that gets our guitars mostly in tune across the neck - but not totally so. As others have said, you can hear it if you pay close attention. Most of us have learned to accept that imperfection and happily play along despite a sour chord here and there. The true temperament neck requires a specialized tuning (some offsets), and the wiggly frets are making small adjustments to string lengths that accomplish this adjustment. The TT necks are pretty cool, because they result in chords across the neck sounding good both below and above the 12 fret (in direct comparison). Not everyone hears it. Any specific tuning offsets on a standard neck, will probably only improve harmony in one area of the neck, such as open strings at the nut. Another approach people have used is to insert “micro frets” between the regular frets to try to have a choice of which notes work best with which chords. For me, I hear the improvement of the TT neck, and use it for comping, and wide spread chords in recording (less work for Melodyne). However, when you start playing single note lines, leads, improvisation etc… the added expense doesn’t help much. Difficult at that point to argue for it - there are just too many factors (pitch modulators, bends, pulls, hammers, whammy pedals, tremolo bars, and various techniques).

However, I do recommend the rabbit hole. If you are interested in “why?” Our guitars aren’t perfectly in tune when they come from the factory I would recommend the book “Temperament” by Stuart Isacoff. Great read.
Cheers.
 
All this talk about what you can do to minimize the effects of equal-temperament tuning, and what you do to one guitar verses another cannot change this fact:

As an example, If you tune the first 2 strings so that a barre chord across them sounds perfect, then raise the B string one fret and then play that chord, it will sound out-of-tune. This assumes you're pressing straight down onto the strings, and not compensating by bending one slightly. It doesn't matter what guitar (with the possible exception of that Ibanez with the altered frets; I don't know), what string gauge you use, how old they are, or your action height, or even if your intonation is right. If that barre chord sounds perfect, the other one will not.

It's the way it is. Yeah, a compensated nut (like EBMM puts on all their guitars) can help, but only with open strings. As soon as you fret a note, you're right back to the original problem.

This is why offsets can help, as the choices you make as to how much and on which strings you use them, can allow your chords, as an average, to all be as close as possible to sounding good.

Whatever you do involves tradeoffs. Like on EVH's guitar, in which he altered the tuning so his 4-3-2 string barre chords sounded good, I guarantee you if you picked up that guitar and played a different chord shape, it would sound worse than if you just tuned each string to the exact pitch.

If you understand how basic chords are created using the harmonics of the root note, then look up a chart of the actual frequencies for each note, you will see they are slightly different. They have to be so we can play in various keys, among other reasons.

Using A=110 Hz as a starting point, the major third is 138.59 and the 5th is 164.81. But the based on the harmonics, they should be: 110 * 5/4= 137.5, and 110 * 3/2= 165. But if we used those values instead of the equal-temperament calculated values (which by the way, come from multiplying the first pitch, whatever it is, by the 12th root of 2. Do that for each note, and you will arrive at the octave of exactly 220 Hz.), eventually things would not work out.

I don't know how things would start to fall apart, as I've never traced it through a series of notes, but the "errors" would start to compound.
 
Also, I can see some people here understand this, and some don't. But being a musician, I'd recommend, especially if this topic is news to you, to spend an hour searching the internet. Google 'Equal Temperament.' If one result seems too technical, just find another. It's really interesting once you understand it somewhat!
 
greiswig said:
Wow...those offsets are pretty extreme.
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I agree. While I like that the OP started this conversation, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to try any offsets that, 1) don't have both E strings the same, especially that far apart, 2) any offset that in which every string is lower. Why not raise all of them until one string is not changed?, and 3) I like my offsets just fine. Every chord I play sounds great, so any change I'd make might make one chord shape sound better, but it would be at the expense of a different one sounding worse. Imo.

As a test, when I play the final riff in Barracuda with distortion (the one on the 1st 2 strings up in the 12th position), all those diads sound great.
Another chord I use as a test is an open E played in the 4th position, as an open C chord shape, either with an open B, or fretted at the 5th fret, doubling the high E. There's no way any chord that uses both E strings on the same fret, or those Alex Lifeson open chords, could sound good with the OP's offsets.

Maybe certain offsets work for certain people, due to how "fat-fingered" they are when fretting certain strings (i.e., bending strings slightly, out of habit), but I work hard not to introduce another variable into things, and strive to fret each note without bending, or using more pressure than necessary, with one exception: Unison/chordal bends on a floating trem guitar. Maybe that large offset on the low E helps if you bang the shit out of that string when you play, causing it to go sharp, I dunno. (Or is it the other way around? ;) )
 
Im just baffled anyone doesnt know about sweetened tunings to be honest. Call me a tuning nerd, but I watch/read everything about tunings, microtonal guitars, fanned frets, different setups, etc to be more accurate.

THAT SAID. I prefer a perfectly intonated guitar, with low action and medium tension to minimize deflection, combined with equal temperment to a peterson strobe tuner. Why? Its what our ears are used to hearing, and youre more in tune with the rest of the band. Its just practical.

P.s. I recorded an entire album at A432 because I didnt want to drop a full half step but wanted to sound "different" and lower than regular drop "D" to help out the singer. I thought it was genius, even though it drove the engineer mad tuning the VSTs. I also preferred how it sounded. Funny thing is (years later) I learned I wasnt original at all, and many people did this before me, and A432 is apparently a magic number for tuning 😅
 
Brewce said:
First guy I heard introducing corrections was studio cat "Buzzy" Feiten...
www.buzzfeiten.com/howitworks/howitworks.htm

His system seems to use a special nut (like MusicMan?) and Pitch Offsets at the bridge.


You have an Uncle Larry mindset...? That can't be bad! ;)



Importance of the nut:

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You know I play guitar since nearly 30 years daily… I quite never used a tuner my whole life cause I started with a fork pitch that helps me developing my ears while tuning the others strings by ears everytime … because of this, now I’m able to sing whatever note you ask me, even # and b.

most of the time when I do covers, I tune with the song. For my own songs when I do a record, I use a tuner but then I adjust by ears to harmonize the guitar .

I have tried his settings, sound out of tune here, need to readjust . Also when you try this setting and play behind a record, you are out too cause 99,99% of recording tracks don’t use this technique or fanned fret and everything . So. Use your fucking ears. 🤣
By the way, everyone is free and masturbate on what they want.
 
My name is mud said:
Also when you try this setting and play behind a record, you are out too cause 99,99% of recording tracks don’t use this technique or fanned fret and everything.
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I don't think Buzzy's way uses fanned frets, although I initially thought to remember so.
I like Uncle Larry and good 4ths/5ths.
Some of these guys almost sound too much in tune :p (Actually, Uncle Larry makes that point too)
 
Brewce said:
I don't think Buzzy's way uses fanned frets, although I initially thought to remember so.
I like Uncle Larry and good 4ths/5ths.
Some of these guys almost sound too much in tune :p (Actually, Uncle Larry makes that point too)
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I mean if you play behind a ac/dc track or whatever . I ve tried quickly after using his settings to play behind a random track that was on my computer, I put the first track from ac dc’s black ice album, and the A string was out of tune at the first chord… rock n roll is not math .

That’s the same for guitar set up : there is theory and what you do on every guitar . I ve set up hundreds of guitar as is was part of my daily job, and if you think that I was putting the “brand’s recommended settings” for their instruments … theory is a start, then the feeling does the rest. Specially with this shitty instrument that guitar is 😅. Too much parameters … the strings, the guy, his taste … every guitars needed to be set near the player if you want to do it good the best way possible .

So ..putting the string at 19,9657 hz.. ok ok . I play with 1.5 mm sharp pick, so your ultra precise setting hahahaha
 
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RevDrucifer said:
They sound perfectly in tune with the Evertune, but with other guitars...
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Been using Evertune guitars since shortly after they came out. Evertune self adjust when you put on a capo, move up the neck or have temp or humidity changes. Since you start out in near perfect tune, each time you tune check, you only get more and more stable and accurate as time goes by making a perfect guitar to ‘fine tune’ your tunings and intonation.

Over time I was able to extract that Peterson Sweetened Tuning, on an Axe, uses these offsets if anyone wishes to give it a shot.

E1 -2.75 cts
B2 -3.10 cts
G3 0.40 cts
D4 -0.40 cts
A5 -1.20 cts
E6 -2.90 cts

(my disclaimer is that this was my experience and it was when I had my XL. Not sure if the III has changed algorithms).
 
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