Tuner app question

[Malcolm]

Geoff, I tried Sid Hudson settings on the Peterson, worst setting I have ever heard. I went straight back to the ones used by Jack Stoner ( can be accessed on Peterson site, loosely based on Newman settings with a few tweaks), I tried the HD, but preferred the previous model the Stroboflip and stuck with that. The customer service from Peterson is second to none, mainly due to their Tech/sales Rep Sue Haslam, she is superb. Sue is a very dear friend of mine, and when she came over from Chicago on holiday, I took her along to the Scottish Steelie’s Workshop at Gartcosh, where she gave advice to all the players who had Peterson Products. You can’t go wrong with any Peterson tuner.

[Danny Mitchell]

I'll second Malcolm's endorsement, Sue's the tops. It was a real pleasure to meet her when Malcolm brought her along to Gartcosh.

[john roche]

increase the damping in settings

[Haddock]

It might be a whole different topic but I cant see how ‘presets’ can be anything other than a starting point for your own settings and even then, possibly a way to discover how much you hate geese! Every guitar will be different. Different cabinet drop, strings gauges, compensation, tuners, not to mention your own taste and ear- everything will make a difference. My own ongoing crusade is to start by trying to mechanically ‘fix’ the issues before getting too excited about the ultimate tuner tweaks. It’s another ‘one up’ for the pedal steel in that you can actually do this. Walter (or Wendy) Carlos brought out a Just Intonation synthesiser album in the 90’s that had to use a computer to correct the stuff that we do with a few bent rods, some nylon nuts and the odd bit of chewing gum!

Cheers
Calum

[Malcolm]

Calum, I look forward to seeing what you come up with, I have been told about your engineering prowess. Personally it puzzles me why some players get so fixated by cabinet drop etc, it verges on OCD for some, while others, including top pro players just cope with it and produce fantastic in tune performances. Over the years many manufacturers have tried so many things, but nothing works 100%. If anybody can come up with a solution that would be fantastic, but in the meantime I for now will just use the Peterson, with Jack Stoner settings plus a few very minor tweaks, and get on with playing( don’t get much playing in these days with back problem). It could be said that the vast majority of people listening to Steel Guitar Music could not hear cabinet drop, let alone know what it is. Once in a live band situation I personally would reckon it is virtually impossible to hear it, but if some one can come up with a solution great.
Keep us up to date with your findings Calum, very interested to hear your solutions.

[Haddock]

Thanks for the kind words Malcolm. I’m the first to admit that this is now a full on, gloves off, OCD situation! Sadly I’ve come to the instrument too late to ever achieve what you lifetimers have managed so trickery is where it’s at. Also, for a long time I’ve been interested in the whole 'in tune' thing. Just finished a book called 'Temperament ' by Stuart Isacoff and I thoroughly recomend it to anyone interested in the whys and why nots of tuning. The good and bad news is that no one is ever in tune! He describes the history of the development of temperament in an entertaining way and I won’t spoil the story by introducing spoilers but some 'big' names from history keep cropping up. It’s sort of like Bill and Ted do 'how to tune or not tune your guitar'. And anyway, it’s only music!
Cheers

[Malcolm]

I was waving at you when you were in Millport, stood on the beach at the Viking Boat Burning in Largs waving across to you Mean’t to say one of our number Fiona Tomnay lives on Millport, got a nice little Bennett.

[Jif]

Well ya know sometimes you've just got to put your hand up and say I might have got that one wrong. One of the reasons I went with Sids settings is that it is the same for both open and pedal/knee values and seemed to simplify the process and it sounded pretty good with a few tweaks. Malcolm your advice has always been spot on in the past, so I decided to try out the Newman settings for Universal as in the link below,

https://b0b.com/wp/?page_id=1505

This involved setting up 5 separate temperment profiles in Pitchlab Pro, as there are different settings for the same notes depending on context, as follows,

(1) open strings
(2) pedals ABC
(3) knees
(4) pedals 4,5 & 6
(5) pedal 7

Tuning my pedal 0 by ear and few other notes not in the Newman copedent. It may be possible to consolidate these into less profiles but I just wanted to see how it sounded so may try consolidating later.

I have to admit after a few tweaks mainly on the F value, it sounds a lot more consistent and in tune than Sids, so will be sticking with this. Not sure how the Peterson tuner would handle this, certainly being able to have different values for the same notes in different octaves would certainly help.

Taking up your point Calum, it does no harm at all to challenge accepted norms and see if they stand up under scrutiny. As you rightly point out different guitars different values etc, however guys like Jeff Newman have obviously put a lot of time into working out the complex relationships you have between notes, and how they relate in different inversions, and doing some fine tuning tweaking to suit your particular setup and guitar using the fruits of their research does seem to work. However am also looking forward to what you come up with, well through the temperament book, really interesting.

At the end of the day, less time tuning means more time playing, which is all I want to do these day

I will probably go for a Peterson for my combined xmas/birthday present my birthday is the 28th Dec. Malcolm why do you prefer the Stroboflip to the HD, what are the differences, can you connect a lead straight into the Strobflip for example.

[Malcolm]

Geoff, I prefer the flip because it is smaller and easier to see controls, which are well lit, the HD has more on it and probably is better of two technically. The HD is a bit larger and requires an extra ball adapter to let you see dial properly, also on a dark stage the grey/black buttons were difficult to see as they are not lit. I know Sue had asked for switches on HD to be a different colour or lit, but at that point the design had been already agreed. The recessed writing on these buttons can have some white tipex or paint dropped into them to make them a bit more readable.The HD was developed because the ordinal supplier of main chip in the Stroboflip went out of business, and despite trying Peterson could not get a replacement supplier.
The HD has built in Battery able to recharge from a USB port, or operate from external wall wart. Had various reports saying that the Stroboflip affects tone if it is in line and wall wart used, this does not seem to happen when used on battery power. I have a little A/B box that plugs into guitar , Main lead ( output A) goes to volume pedal, and small second lead from ( output B )into tuner just have to switch between them to get direct output or silent tuning.
The Stroboflip is no longer available from Peterson, but used ones appear on sales on US Forum. The HD is available from my good friend Gerry Hogan in UK.
Calum, to answer your question on HD- there is no secret switch on the HD, but anything you need to know just email Sue at Peterson.
Think Danny and some others are using HD, so give it a try at next work shop.

[Uncle Roy]

I Have had 3 tuners in the past but the Petersen HD is far the best imho. Love it.