Sweetened tuning [Archive] - Mandolin Cafe Forum

grassrootphilosopher

Nov-23-2017, 3:26am

What is 'sweetened' tuning ?. I just had a look at a guitar thread on it,but all there were were questions not answers. Nobody seemed to be able to explain what it was.
Ivan:confused:

Basically all fretted instruments are out of tune all of the time. That comes from the fact that the intervals between the notes differ from key to key. This sounds crazy but it´s true. Read more (and clearly not as simplistic as I stated) about what happens here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_comma

The first composer to deal with this was Bach (if I´m not mistaken). He composed a collection of pieces that we refer to as "Das wohltemperierte Klavier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well-Tempered_Clavier)" (The Well-Tempered Clavier).

On a piano you could compose pieces that work for just that specific key. You could therefore cirumvent the problem of being out of tune. On violins - since they have no frets - you adjust by simply adjusting your fingering. Therefore you are not out of tune.

On fretted instruments though, you can´t just play in a different tuning when you have tuned up to the "perfect" note. I noticed this as a novice player.

When I first bought a tuner I thought my guitar was just bad. I tuned the guitar and when playing a chord it just did not sound right. I tweaked and fiddled with it and (rightfully so) got it out of tune enough to make it sound right.

I was relieved to hear Tony Rice explain the same thing about his Clarence White D-28 in the Homespun video "An Intimate Lesson With Tony Rice".

Playing the guitar you will notice being out of tune the easiest when it comes to tuning the B-string. If you tune the B-string perfectly the guitar will not sound in tune in certain keys. In order to have a nice sound (especially noticable when you play a G-chord) you you will either tune slightly flat (giving the guitar a sweet sound) or slightly sharp (giving the guitar a more agressive sound).

In short words: Our ears notice being out of tune. Yet we have come to terms with ourselves by accepting a certain "out-of-tuneness". We therefore have to tweak our instruments so that they can play all musical pieces in all keys.

If we talk tuners I can testify to the greatness of the Stroboclip (original and HD which I now have after the original stepped on a rainbow). The acuracy helped me enormously to learn to listen and to hear and understand better when someone is out of tune. It also sharpened my ear with respect to ensemble playing. That is when the ensemble (the band) is properly in tune this is a step to a better (a consice) band sound.

jesserules

Nov-23-2017, 4:09am

Some discussion here:

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?134589-Tuning-the-pairs-100-unison-or

Mandoplumb

Nov-23-2017, 7:18am

What is 'sweetened' tuning ?. I just had a look at a guitar thread on it,but all there were were questions not answers. Nobody seemed to be able to explain what it was Ivan:confused:

To me sweetened tuning is personal. When I lower the B string on a guitar it sounds a little better to me when I play a G chord, but a whole lot better when I play a D. I suppose that a lot of that is due to what I’m accustomed to hearing because that is the way my Dad tuned a guitar. I don’t want the tuner to decide how I sweeten tuning, I’ll sweeten it myself thank you,

fscotte

Nov-23-2017, 7:31am

B, b, b, bee, beeeeeeee, ah there it is.

Charlieshafer

Nov-23-2017, 8:44am

To me sweetened tuning is personal. When I lower the B string on a guitar it sounds a little better to me when I play a G chord, but a whole lot better when I play a D. I suppose that a lot of that is due to what I’m accustomed to hearing because that is the way my Dad tuned a guitar. I don’t want the tuner to decide how I sweeten tuning, I’ll sweeten it myself thank you,

Total agreement here! I use the electronic tuners, of any type, strictly to get an A or C down, depending on what everyone else is playing or the tunes being played. After that, I go by ear. In a noisy environment, yes, I'll use something to get all the strings in an equal temperament sort of correctness, then quickly mess with a few strings to get what sounds right. It's always off a tiny bit as I go to the higher strings, according to a clip-on tuner, and not always by the same amounts. Anyway, if you trust your ears, you'll find that you'll always be off of equal temperament by some small degree.

Tom Wright

Nov-23-2017, 9:17am

The sweetening I enjoy now is to have reduced the distance between the nut and the first fret on a couple of my 10-strings. After trying to get well-tempered tuning so I could play in multiple keys, I used my Peterson tuner to prove what I suspected--the notes at the first fret were sharp on all strings. After removing about 0.010" from the end of the fingerboard, no compromises in tuning are needed to get sweet chords, octaves, unisons everywhere.

A friend that repairs guitars tells me Taylor does this for their guitars. The value is that one can have a higher, more open-sounding nut without having the first fret play sharp. It really isn't a big issue on most guitars, but is kind of common on mandolins, I think. (That first fret is so close that the deflection will make it sharp unless the nut is super-low.) One luthier here also shortens his fingerboards. I mentioned this to Tom Buchanan and a new one I just received plays really well in tune, so I suspect he may have shaved a smidge off the fingerboard

Try testing this with the Peterson---get one pair looking really steady and then check the first fret.

BTW: Equal-tempered tuning should not sound out of tune. Consider a piano---does it sound out of tune? Tuning guitars requires stretching the 4ths ever so slightly so that the major 3rd between G and B doesn't hurt the ear. I always started by making sure the two E strings agreed, then fit the others to them---never had a complaint about that G-B interval once I did that.

My now-well-behaved mandolins would show perfect octaves but slightly narrow 5ths, slightly wide 4ths, etc. But that "slightly" is properly so slight you don't hear it. If the two notes of a 5th are squeezed by one Hertz, you would not hear that beat frequency without listening for two seconds. Issues like matching the pairs and fingering accurately will swamp the "imperfections" of equal-tempered tuning.

EdHanrahan

Nov-23-2017, 9:36am

My understanding is that "sweetening" benefits primarily certain open string keys & chords for which an instrument is commonly used. Playing o/t those standard keys is liable to have the opposite effect.

(I'm not saying that "sweetening" benefits only the open strings played, but that sweetening can benefit only a limited number of keys. Strongly suspect that the tuner manufacturers would not chose to favor keys such as Eb or A#, on either mandolin or guitar.)

FWIW, certain rock bands (possibly The Eagles, IIRC) would sometimes play different chord forms in the studio than they would in concert, to avoid those "more-out-of-tune" formations that would go unnoticed in a loud, live situation.

MediumMando5722

Nov-23-2017, 9:47am

Listen to "Start Me Up" by the Rolling Stones, then try to play that riff on guitar. Keith's open G tuning is "sweetened" as described above.

DavidKOS

Nov-23-2017, 10:24am

What is 'sweetened' tuning ?. I just had a look at a guitar thread on it,but all there were were questions not answers. Nobody seemed to be able to explain what it was.
Ivan:confused:

Basically all fretted instruments are out of tune all of the time. That comes from the fact that the intervals between the notes differ from key to key. This sounds crazy but it´s true. Read more (and clearly not as simplistic as I stated) about what happens here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_comma
......
In short words: Our ears notice being out of tune. Yet we have come to terms with ourselves by accepting a certain "out-of-tuneness". We therefore have to tweak our instruments so that they can play all musical pieces in all keys.

My understanding is that "sweetening" benefits primarily certain open string keys & chords for which an instrument is commonly used. Playing out those standard keys is liable to have the opposite effect.

Ah, the guitar "sweetened" tuning debate now in mandolin form.

"Basically all fretted instruments are out of tune all of the time"

Only if you assume that "pure" just intonation tuning is the only tuning. Our fretted instruments are in tune, to a system called 12 tone equal temperament.

It's based on the elegant interval of the 12th root of 2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_temperament

" In classical music and Western music in general, the most common tuning system for the past few hundred years has been and remains twelve-tone equal temperament (also known as 12 equal temperament, 12-TET, or 12-ET), which divides the octave into 12 parts, all of which are equal on a logarithmic scale, with a ratio equal to the 12th root of 2 (12√2 ≈ 1.05946). That resulting smallest interval, 1⁄12 the width of an octave, is called a semitone or half step. In modern times, 12TET is usually tuned relative to a standard pitch of 440 Hz, called A440, meaning one note is tuned to A440, and all other notes are some multiple of semitones away from that in either direction."

https://pages.mtu.edu/~suits/scales.html

"The "equal tempered scale" was developed for keyboard instruments, such as the piano, so that they could be played equally well (or badly) in any key. It is a compromise tuning scheme. The equal tempered system uses a constant frequency multiple between the notes of the chromatic scale. Hence, playing in any key sounds equally good (or bad, depending on your point of view)."

Almost all the folks that want to sweeten guitar tunings do so so that in the certain specific closely related keys they use, the 3rds will be closer to something like meantone temperament, a tuning system that makes 3rds sound "sweet" but if you go a few keys either direction of the home tuning, you get what are called wolf notes and cannot use those distant keys.

So, perhaps if you only play mandolin in a handful of related keys, a sweetened tuning may work for you. Personally I find a well set up and intonated mandolin or guitar to be quite suited for my musical needs, in all 12 keys.

DavidKOS

Nov-23-2017, 10:26am

The sweetening I enjoy now is to have reduced the distance between the nut and the first fret on a couple of my 10-strings. After trying to get well-tempered tuning so I could play in multiple keys, I used my Peterson tuner to prove what I suspected--the notes at the first fret were sharp on all strings. After removing about 0.010" from the end of the fingerboard, no compromises in tuning are needed to get sweet chords, octaves, unisons everywhere.
........

BTW: Equal-tempered tuning should not sound out of tune. Consider a piano---does it sound out of tune? Tuning guitars requires stretching the 4ths ever so slightly so that the major 3rd between G and B doesn't hurt the ear. I always started by making sure the two E strings agreed, then fit the others to them---never had a complaint about that G-B interval once I did that.

My now-well-behaved mandolins would show perfect octaves but slightly narrow 5ths, slightly wide 4ths, etc. But that "slightly" is properly so slight you don't hear it. If the two notes of a 5th are squeezed by one Hertz, you would not hear that beat frequency without listening for two seconds. Issues like matching the pairs and fingering accurately will swamp the "imperfections" of equal-tempered tuning.

An accurately made and set up 12TET instrument works!

That's why this tuning system has become the default tuning for Western music.

foldedpath

Nov-23-2017, 1:50pm

BTW: Equal-tempered tuning should not sound out of tune. Consider a piano---does it sound out of tune?

This is cultural conditioning more than anything else. If you're like me, you grew up surrounded by 20th Century "Western" pop music, which by virtue of being dominated by guitars and pianos is entirely 12TET. Our ears are trained to hear it as normal, and we subconsciously ignore the discrepancies.

If we grew up listening to other World music that depended more on the quirks of diatonic instruments and the human voice, without 12TET accompaniment, we might be more attuned to how "out" it sounds.

For example, I've been starting to move a bit of my Irish trad tune repertoire from mandolin to flute. I often play these tunes at home with my fiddler S.O. When we play tunes together with flute and fiddle, we "lock up" in a unison sound that's noticeably more pure, or sweet (if we have to use that term) than when I play the tunes on mandolin, because the flute is diatonic and doesn't precisely conform to the 12TET system. Especially a non-keyed flute like this one. My S.O. is subconsciously adapting to the more "perfect" scale of whatever mode we're in, and I'm doing the same with embouchure adjustments to the pitch of each note. We arrive at "perfect" intervals that way.

It's just instinctive with instruments that aren't locked down to the 12TET system. You hear this in Classical string quartets, which is one reason that particular group of instruments sounds so great playing together.

Almost all the folks that want to sweeten guitar tunings do so so that in the certain specific closely related keys they use, the 3rds will be closer to something like meantone temperament, a tuning system that makes 3rds sound "sweet" but if you go a few keys either direction of the home tuning, you get what are called wolf notes and cannot use those distant keys.

So, perhaps if you only play mandolin in a handful of related keys, a sweetened tuning may work for you. Personally I find a well set up and intonated mandolin or guitar to be quite suited for my musical needs, in all 12 keys.

Right, and this is why I don't mess with "sweetened" tunings for mandolin. The other instruments I play with these days are a crazy mix of chromatic (fiddle, guitar) and diatonic (flute, whistle, pipes, concertina), where keeping the mandolin in 12TET is just the best compromise. It's already complicated enough without throwing in one more set of variables.

sblock

Nov-23-2017, 2:02pm

A careful reading of the above posts will show that so-called "sweetened" tunings -- that is, ones that deviate from 12TET -- can, at best, only (partially) optimize things for a a few keys. There is no such thing as a "sweetened" tuning for mandolin that lets it play in all keys. In fact, equal temperament represents the best possible compromise for playing all keys, because it divides the octave into identical logarithmic intervals, based on the twelfth root of two (this is because there are 12 semitones in an octave, which is a factor of 2 in frequency). This is a "sweet" as you can get if you still want to play chromatically.

So, unless your band plays only in a couple of keys, a single, so-called "sweetened" tuning won't help much. In fact, it makes certain other keys worse, depending on what key the sweetening is trying to favor (do they even tell you this in the StroboClip manual, I wonder?) ! You could, of course, develop 12 different "sweetened" tunings, one for each key, and then retune every time you switch keys. But why bother?

Sweetened tunings make a lot more sense for banjos and Dobros, which play almost entirely out of an open tuning, or guitars when they are open-tuned, or always playing out of G positions with a capo (a lot of bluegrass!). But, unfortunately, they do no make a lot of sense for instruments that are tuned in 5ths, like mandolins. A tuning sweetened for G will sound bad in B, for example.

Mark Gunter

Nov-23-2017, 2:04pm

What is 'sweetened' tuning ?

Generally, it is a slight variation from the commonly used equal temperament tuning that people engage in as a compromise to make their instrument sound better to them, especially in certain keys. The common 12-ET tuning scheme is itself de facto compromised, and some people like to compromise their personal instrument's tuning with other tweaks that sound good to them. You will find variations on how people do this.

Here's an example of how Norman Blake tunes guitar listening to intervals:

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Norman and Nancy will tune a guitar this way, then tune other instruments (mandolin, cello, guitars, etc.) to the guitar. The Homespun lesson, The Mandolin of Norman Blake shows how they do this.

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The above are samples from the Homespun Lessons, Norman Blake's Guitar Techniques, Vol. I and The Mandolin of Norman Blake. I highly recommend these video series. Anyone interested can obtain them through Mandolin Cafe on Demand (under the learn/listen tab) or directly from the Homespun website.

Personally, lately I've been happy with the programmed sweeteners in the new stroboclip.

Edited to add: I've read the posts above by David and by sblock; they are correct of course about the compromise of 12-ET - and I don't "argue" for any kind of "sweetened" tunings - but I would say that two things logically make "sweetened" tunings popular and desirable to some. One would be the characteristics of any individual instrument, and another would be the personal tastes of an individual player.

Mark Gunter

Nov-23-2017, 3:23pm

depending on what key the sweetening is trying to favor (do they even tell you this in the StroboClip manual, I wonder?)

No, you'd be disappointed in that aspect of the manual. I looked for specifics when I got it, but didn't find any, so it was "trial and error" - which would have occurred at any rate with a new gadget - and found that I've liked it, though any difference on the MAN sweetener seems so minuscule that I can't tell you what the difference is yet.

Here's what the manual does say:

Your StroboClip HD contains over 50 built-in presets that cater to specific instruments. We call these presets "Sweeteners" because they make an instrument sound "sweeter" by slightly adjusting each note to compensate for common tuning problems specific to an instrument type. Many of these adjustments are so small that they can only be measured with the incredible 1/10th cent accuracy of your Peterson Strobe Tuner. The default preset, EQU (Equal Temperament), does not apply any adjustments and should be used when you wish for your StroboClip HD to operate as a non-instrument-specific, highly accurate chromatic tuner.

And regards guitar preset it is vague, and written as a sales pitch, gimmicky kind of thing:

ACU

Designed for use with acoustic guitars tuned to standard EADGBE. The strings are adjusted to allow for deflection by varying amounts according to the gauge of the string in each case. The guitar is sweetened in the same way as if tuned by the ear of an experienced musician such as James Taylor who uses these settings.

The following settings are grouped under Bluegrass and include mandolin:

dbO

Compensates by making the thirds pure. This makes the sweetest sound, especially with long sustained chords where not using a Sweetener can grate on the ears due to an Equally Tempered third.

dbH
Major thirds in all three tunings are lowered slightly from Equal temperament, but not entirely beatless. This Sweetener is useful in band settings where instruments with fixed intonation are present.

bJO
Counters the typical sharp B string which is encountered when tuning a 5-string banjo without compensation with an ordinary tuner. The B is sweetened in the same way as a banjo tuned by the ear of an experienced musician.

MAN
This sweetener was developed for the mandolin, mandola and mandocello. Using it will result in perfectly tuned and voiced unison string pairs. Detuning in instruments with multiple string courses, as opposed to single strings, is much less pleasing to even the most untrained ear because both chords and melody lines are affected. The MAN setting can be used for 8-string mandolins, including Gibson Styles A and F as well as the Weber A and F series.

TBO
Compensates for string deflection taking into acount the different scale length and lower pitched tuning for 4 string tenor banjo.

FDL
Perfect 5th intervals for 4 and 5 string fiddle.

More "sales jargon" than technical info on the above.
There are interesting sweeteners that transform the tuning scheme away from TET:

JMI

Just Major Intonation

JME
Just Minor Intonation

PYT
Pythagorean Temperament

4MT
Quarter Comma Meantone Temperament

6MT
One Sixth Comma Meantone Temperament

KRN
Kirnberger III Temperament

WK3
Werckmeister III Temperament

YNG
Young Temperament

KLN
Kellner Temperament

VAL
Vallotti Temperament

RAM
Rameau Temperament

And a lot more of these type features, see here: https://www.petersontuners.com/products/stroboClipHD/
(scroll down a tad for sweeteners)

Mandoplumb

Nov-23-2017, 5:55pm

Sblock is correct, correcting one problem will create others, he’s also right that an instrument in fifths really don’t need it, but if I play BG guitar I’m playing the G shape and the D shape so much more than the E shape so why shouldn’t my guitar be tuned to sound better in G and D. That is where the personal sweeting comes in. Sweeten it for what your ear and your music needs.

Tom Haywood

Nov-23-2017, 6:26pm

So, if you tune your instrument to a sweetened tuning and everyone one else in the group tunes with a Snark, will you sound out of tune with everyone else?

Mark Gunter

Nov-23-2017, 6:37pm

So, if you tune your instrument to a sweetened tuning and everyone one else in the group tunes with a Snark, will you sound out of tune with everyone else?

Is that a Snark-y comment? :))

It's a good question, and it might make a discernible difference in a hi-fidelity recording of the group. Not tested, but honestly, I really doubt it would make much difference in a live setting. As I mentioned above the mandolin "sweetener" difference is so minuscule that it's hard to tell much difference. Could even be a BS sales hype for all I know; they don't give the technical specs. And they say this: "Many of these adjustments are so small that they can only be measured with the incredible 1/10th cent accuracy of your Peterson Strobe Tuner."

BUT, someone has been posting in recent threads how much they love the stroboclip and its onboard sweeteners. They say everyone in their ensemble has one, and each uses the sweetener tailored to his/her instrument, and they're loving the results as an ensemble. Can't remember who wrote that or where, but I've seen it in a couple of recent posts.

Alan Lackey

Nov-23-2017, 6:54pm

I have read this thread with extreme interest...however now my head hurts. Such a noob...

Michael Neverisky

Nov-23-2017, 8:18pm

"only be measured with the incredible 1/10th cent accuracy of your Peterson Strobe Tuner."

Maybe. But before the threshold of human perception.

foldedpath

Nov-23-2017, 8:26pm

"only be measured with the incredible 1/10th cent accuracy of your Peterson Strobe Tuner."

Maybe. But before the threshold of human perception.

It's not about the quoted accuracy of all these tuners, Snark, Peterson, or whatever. They all have quartz crystal circuits that are incredibly accurate on an electronic level.

It's about how good the analog front-end is with the pickup, and how good the back-end design is for the analog display that tells you when you're "in tune" with an LED or LCD display. And also about how wide the margin of acceptance is for what the tuner considers to be in-tune. Any manufacturer can design a tuner that seems to "lock on" quickly by having a wide acceptance margin.

I know some folks get frustrated by tuners that show upper harmonics like the Peterson tuners, but that lets you decide how close you want to get -- how close is "good enough" for the situation -- instead of a basic tuner with a wider margin and a more basic display.

MontanaMatt

Nov-23-2017, 9:57pm

So, my experience is that the sweetened tuning is the real deal. My four piece switched to stroboclips. Our sound gelled. When we play in b and e, the guitar and the banjo use the capo function to correct for the key...I use it for my mando, and a new level of intonation happens. I recommend doubters read about the interval inaccuracy of the 12tet system. That being said, it does take extra time to retune for key changes, but we listen to in ear hi-fidelity monitors, so the dry signal of the monitors is very noticeable to me.
Happy pickin

Mark Gunter

Nov-23-2017, 11:44pm

MontanaMatt

Nov-24-2017, 1:25am

Thanks Matt, I couldn't remember who had posted this experience. So you guys re-tune between numbers during performances?

Not every tune, but when the guitar adds a capo, he hits the capo button and retunes, same with the banjo. I've been doing it for bmaj, using capo 4 setting. My understanding is it centers the turnings for the native key's frequently used notes. I don't play much open strings in b so it's detuning of open fifths is only noticeable when we get back to g or d. We usually play a few songs in b in a row when we all go through the retuning. We all mute so our audience doesn't hear what's going on.
The bass doesn't bother to retune as he's fret less and using his ear to match our pitch.

If you have a stroboclip, check out what I'm talking about with chords in b...standard tuned, and capo 4 tuned, it becomes noticeable.

This is all under the standard mandolin sweetener tuning

Mark Gunter

Nov-24-2017, 2:21am

It's not about the quoted accuracy of all these tuners, Snark, Peterson, or whatever. They all have quartz crystal circuits that are incredibly accurate on an electronic level.

It's about how good the analog front-end is with the pickup, and how good the back-end design is for the analog display that tells you when you're "in tune" with an LED or LCD display. And also about how wide the margin of acceptance is for what the tuner considers to be in-tune. Any manufacturer can design a tuner that seems to "lock on" quickly by having a wide acceptance margin.

I know some folks get frustrated by tuners that show upper harmonics like the Peterson tuners, but that lets you decide how close you want to get -- how close is "good enough" for the situation -- instead of a basic tuner with a wider margin and a more basic display.

Actually, I think the quoted accuracy is an important aspect. Non-strobe tuners are generally accurate to +/-3 cents. That gives a worst-case 6 cent possible spread on a reading of "accurate" or "in-tune", and the difference is enough for your ears to hear the beats. This is why collective wisdom says to tune one string in a course by the tuner, and its twin by ear. A true strobe tuner is far more accurate.

Some "regular" tuners have a so-called "strobe mode" that uses an LED display that mimics the appearance of a strobe tuner, but uses the same, regular circuitry and method with a +/-3 cent margin of error. This is the reason I bought a strobe tuner. You don't need a strobe tuner, or any electronic tuner to tune your instrument well - see Norman Blake videos above - electronic tuners are newfangled things. But if you want a highly accurate tuner for setting intonation on instruments, a strobe tuner is a practical necessity. It has nothing to do with the fact that all these tuners use solid state chips, but everything to do with the method behind the circuitry and programming. Regular tuners suffer from inherent limitations in their methodology.

When I use a strobe tuner and get accurate readings of in-tune on a pair of strings, my ears tell me that the strings are in unison without further tweaking. So by that experience, and what I've been told for years, and what I've read on the accuracy of different types of tuners, I believe it. You may be right that "any manufacturer can design a tuner that seems to "lock on" quickly by having a wide acceptance margin" - I won't try to dispute that - but I do believe that the accuracy of strobe tuners vs. other designs is generally accepted fact. I haven't found any literature that indicates otherwise.

Ivan Kelsall

Nov-24-2017, 2:39am

Olaf - Many thanks. So - it's the stringed instrument version of 'The well tempered clavier' ?. I fully understand that fretted instrument intonation is a clever compromise,but a compromise nevertheless.

The way i tune my mandolins is to tune 1 string in each course to an elec.tuner,then the second string to the first string by ear = 'tuning the unisons'. I then check them 'course to course',fretted at the 7th fret. Usually D matches G / A matches D (so closely that they sound perfectly ok) but the E strings on my Weber & Lebeda are a tiny fraction flat,so i tune 'em up to suit that A at the 7th & they sound fine. Only my Ellis is ''almost'' perfectly spot on A to E,possibly due to Tom Ellis making his own custom compensated bridges for his mandolins.

Here's how piano tuners do it :- 162493
Ivan;)

grassrootphilosopher

Nov-24-2017, 4:10am

Ah, the guitar "sweetened" tuning debate now in mandolin form.

"Basically all fretted instruments are out of tune all of the time"

Only if you assume that "pure" just intonation tuning is the only tuning. Our fretted instruments are in tune, to a system called 12 tone equal temperament.

...

Well ain´t that some kind of a sweetened tuning? ... just saying...

Your reference to the different tuning approaches shows that we do "sweeten" the tuning whichever approach we are using.

I took Ivan´s question as a general question and not just as related to the mandolin. Therefore specific tuning topics that arise in other instruments (guitar) are ok to bring up, no?

Also, tuning has to do something with our ears, namely how we accept intervals. The setup of the instrument is crucial.

Listen to Tony Rice:

ERrAESXE0_o

I agree that it has to do with the individual instrument (Clarence White D-28). I also agree that with an instrument that is tuned in fifth the interval thingy is not as crucial. Yet listen to this:

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The adjustments made by the violin is also a way of "sweetening".

Further elaborated here:

buZOs-czOUg

What I´m saying is, that we use a certain way of tuning that already takes into consideration our hearing/listening habits.

As this thread has derailed somewhat by strongly discussing different tuning approaches I would like to come back to the Peterson HD tuner and its sweetening modes.

I see that the sweetening modes on the Peterson HD tuner deals with the different types of music that the customers play. I think that the sweetened tunings of mandolin, banjo, "fiddle" and acoustic guitar have the bluegrass customer in mind. Therefore the sweetener focuses on G and C shapes on the mandolin, the typical B-string tuning topic on a guitar and for the fiddle probably on blending it into the guitar and mandolin sweetened tuning.

I found out that with the wider acceptance range of tuners such as a Korg (I have some older ... but quite ok ... ones) the intonation is quite less acurate. In this case you do not hear a "sweetening" as pronounced (probably not at all).

After having used (the old) Peterson stroboclip for some time (in various modes, EQ, ACOU, MAN, BJO etc. on various instruments, guitar, mandolin, banjo, dog house bass) I found out that my hearing got sensitive to a point where I strongly started to notice the different modes, their strong points and their drawbacks. I still "tweak" by ear. But the Peterson stroboclip makes tuning a lot easier.

grassrootphilosopher

Nov-24-2017, 4:26am

Olaf - Many thanks. So - it's the stringed instrument version of 'The well tempered clavier' ?. I fully understand that fretted instrument intonation is a clever compromise,but a compromise nevertheless.

You could probably call it that. The "compromise" is what I would call the sweetening.

My beautiful Strad-O-Lin does need a lot of compromise when it comes to setup. I once was fool enough to take the bridge off. I could not get the instrument set up properly. So I thought I´d take it to some (gifted) violin makers. They put the bridge back on. They did not change the bridge height or anything else. The open strings and the twelfth fret were perfectly in tune. The harmonics were there. Yet all the notes inbetween were off. So I had to drive my 350 km to my nearest mandolin maker of choice to have him set up the instrument well. Lesson learned.

Even my new (now 11 years old) F-5 needs (a little) compromise. I sincerely doubt that there is anyone out there who could say that there is no compromise in tuning.

When I started to learn how to tune an instrument I checked the harmonics (guitar at the 5th, 7th and 12th fret, mandolin 7th and 12th fret). Now I do all sorts of things, the afore mentioned harmonics, the Norman Blake thing on guitar (guitar: listen to the interval of the adjacent strings one played open the other fretted at the 2nd fret 3rd fret on the B-string in reference to the G-string) and most of all listening to the intervals while playing the strings open (see Tony Rice). I learned this while tuning with the Stroboclip. I got quite good at it so far. It´s all tweaking.

jesserules

Nov-24-2017, 4:38am

... collective wisdom says to tune one string in a course by the tuner, and its twin by ear. ...
.

Overall, the thread linked in Post #7 does not appear to support the idea that this is in fact collective wisdom.

Dagger Gordon

Nov-24-2017, 9:40am

I find Norman Blake's videos very interesting.

I rarely am happy with a guitar tuned to a tuner, certainly using the open strings, although I get on a bit better by tuning the D note (third fret) of the second string to the tuner rather than the open B.

I usually find it's ok for a mandolin, however.

Kip Carter

Nov-24-2017, 11:05am

Good point.. and in the promo video's for the StroboClip HD their reasoning is exactly that.

The human ear can detect variances of 2 cents or more. So if you have a Snark tuned ensemble with +- 5 cents these instruments can potentially be 10 cents apart and easily sound off pitch.

For my own use, I'm considering the 'sweetened tuning' for strictly my solo recording work for the moment. I consider the value of the StroboClip HD to be that if I begin the set spot on, then it should hold there reasonably through the end of the set.

Hendrik Ahrend

Nov-24-2017, 12:39pm

A tuning is also called "temperament", a term derived from the latin "temperare", which means something like "to temper", "to milden", "to soften" and, if you will, "to sweeten". So "sweetened tuning" is a pleonamus, doesn't make much sense to begin with. David is spot on with his explanation of modern equal temperament. Ideas of that equal temperament have been around since at least 1511 (Arnold Schlick), but wasn't generally adopted (for pipe organs and pianos) until the mid 18th century, especially because super artists like Bach more and more wanted to compose in all keys. The price, however, was high: In equal temperament, all major thirds sound 13.7 cents (of a tempered halfnote) out of tune, "too wide", so to speak. All fifths, a less important interval since after the middle ages, are too narrow. Out of tune thirds are a major problem with instruments that generate lots of overtones, such as a harpsichord. But it not so much a problem with modern pianos. Their strings are moved by felt hammers - overtone killers. Now, pianos sound comparatively boring (as compared to harpsichords and other "historical instruments with complex overtone structures; the most boring - to name the opposite - would be a tuning fork with just a sinus curve). When it comes to dynamics however, piano is king. Not for nothing the instrument is being called "piano forte". Still, equal temperament is so boring on the piano that piano tuners have developed a method of "stretching" the temperament over the whole keyboard compass, that is tuning the notes a bit "too high" the higher they are on the keyboard. So, only on the overtone-poor piano, the octaves are not tuned pure, they beat a bit. Those beat-frequencies make a piano sound more colorful and interesting, an approach called "sweetening", at which every piano tuner has his own art. In this sense, only on the piano tuning can be an artistic approach. On all other instruments, tuning is merely technical, especially when you rely on a tuner. (Just for the record, there are lots of keyboard instrument tunings like "Werckmeister", that are called "well-tempered": The idea is to favor several more frequent major thirds at the cost of some more rare major thirds, the latter typically the ones with more bs and #es.) Fretted instruments are usually made for equal temperament, although in reality and merely due to individual differences and basic problems (e.g. frets generally straight, strings differ in tension), not all notes obey exactly to equal temperament on each and every note and instrument, technical issues, if you will. That said, in my view and to my experience (I do own a Peterson) a "sweetened tuning" for mandolins is just a sales pitch, appearing like some advanced and highly sophisticated artistic development in temperament, some sort of progress. Any temperament remains a compromise. Of course, if you tune your strings in pure fifths, all your fifths (and fourths) should sound nice and pure, the major third for instance on the note A however (7th fret on the D-string, 4th fret on the A-string) becomes even wider than the already false sounding 13.7 cents, thus almost unbearable. Such trade-offs just can't be avoided with sweetening. Which doesn't make sense at all to me. (It should be clear that mandolins shouldn't be tuned after the violin.) The sweetening of the piano cannot be transferred to the mandolin, because a whole string, all possible notes on that string, are tuned higher (or lower for that matter). Doesn't seem like delicate approach to me, but instead one put on with a shovel. Not only that, I like the display on the Peterson, but I find the many possibilities and the need to keep the owner's manual within reach quite annoying.

Mark Gunter

Nov-24-2017, 1:17pm

That said, in my view and to my experience (I do own a Peterson) a "sweetened tuning" for mandolins is just a sales pitch, appearing like some advanced and highly sophisticated artistic development in temperament, some sort of progress.

+1 on that

Such trade-offs just can't be avoided with sweetening. Which doesn't make sense at all to me.

See Mandoplumb, post #20: "but if I play BG guitar I’m playing the G shape and the D shape so much more than the E shape so why shouldn’t my guitar be tuned to sound better in G and D. That is where the personal sweeting comes in. Sweeten it for what your ear and your music needs."

And repeating from post #18: 'I don't "argue" for any kind of "sweetened" tunings - but I would say that two things logically make "sweetened" tunings popular and desirable to some. One would be the characteristics of any individual instrument, and another would be the personal tastes of an individual player.'

I like the display on the Peterson, but I find the many possibilities and the need to keep the owner's manual within reach quite annoying.

Just think how annoying you'd find the early mechanical strobe tuners.

Timbofood

Nov-24-2017, 2:29pm

I wonder what Carlton Haney might say about this.....

Cochiti Don

Nov-24-2017, 2:54pm

foldedpath

Nov-24-2017, 3:03pm

Not every tune, but when the guitar adds a capo, he hits the capo button and retunes, same with the banjo. I've been doing it for bmaj, using capo 4 setting. My understanding is it centers the turnings for the native key's frequently used notes. I don't play much open strings in b so it's detuning of open fifths is only noticeable when we get back to g or d. We usually play a few songs in b in a row when we all go through the retuning. We all mute so our audience doesn't hear what's going on.
The bass doesn't bother to retune as he's fret less and using his ear to match our pitch.

If you have a stroboclip, check out what I'm talking about with chords in b...standard tuned, and capo 4 tuned, it becomes noticeable.

I can see where this might work for a Bluegrass or other Americana style band, where you stay in one key for a while. But man, that really would NOT work for Irish music!
:)

It's slippery stuff. Three tunes played in a continuous set might not be in the same keys/modes. Some tunes will even shift different keys/modes back and forth within the same tune like "Kid on the Mountain," "Knocknagow," etc. And then there are tunes are in gapped scales where you can't even tell if they're supposed to be a major or minor feel. Irish trad isn't the only music that does this. You hear it in Jazz and Pop music too. But it's one of the distinctive features of the music that keys aren't as locked-down as they are in Americana styles.

Another wrinkle is that certain diatonic melody instruments will play C natural a bit sharp -- the "piper's C," or "C supernatural." I have to be careful when backing a Dmix tune on guitar, avoiding a full C chord that clashes with the melody instruments. This is one case where I could use a sweetened tuning, but then it wouldn't work if the next tune in a set is in a different key. In this style of music at least, keeping my Peterson in bog standard 12TET is a least common denominator approach that seems to work best.

Hendrik Ahrend

Nov-24-2017, 4:03pm

Perfect tuning bothers me a little. An extreme example would be electronic sounds with perfect wave forms vs. any acoustic instrument. Which sounds better: mathematical perfection or hand made imperfection? I’ve said this before but i quickly grew tired of the band “Boston” due to their perfect tuning and harmony. It’s boring and impersonal. I prefer live recordings over studio perfection.
I hope you get my drift here. No offense to the discussion above, which is very interesting
Don, I'm sorry to say it, but there is no perfect tuning, even if all notes were electronically measured true to equal temperament. Only the octaves are pure. I'm quite sure you mean something completely different.

Cochiti Don

Nov-24-2017, 4:14pm

Don, I'm sorry to say it, but there is no perfect tuning, even if all notes were electronically measured true to equal temperament. Only the octaves are pure. I'm quite sure you mean something completely different.

Thanks. I am fairly ignorant about these things

Mark Gunter

Nov-24-2017, 4:18pm

Perfect tuning bothers me a little. An extreme example would be electronic sounds with perfect wave forms vs. any acoustic instrument. Which sounds better: mathematical perfection or hand made imperfection? I’ve said this before but i quickly grew tired of the band “Boston” due to their perfect tuning and harmony. It’s boring and impersonal. I prefer live recordings over studio perfection.
I hope you get my drift here. No offense to the discussion above, which is very interesting

Hey Don, I get your drift, but Henry's got a good point - and what you're talking about is personal taste there; obviously, there are Boston fans somewhere who love whatever it is you don't like about them. And, think about the other extreme - say, a live performance by someone on an instrument discordantly "out of tune" who can't carry a tune with vocals. Ouch.

162512

Kevin Stueve

Nov-24-2017, 5:06pm

Perfect tuning bothers me a little. An extreme example would be electronic sounds with perfect wave forms vs. any acoustic instrument. Which sounds better: mathematical perfection or hand made imperfection? I’ve said this before but i quickly grew tired of the band “Boston” due to their perfect tuning and harmony. It’s boring and impersonal. I prefer live recordings over studio perfection.
I hope you get my drift here. No offense to the discussion above, which is very interesting

Totally off topic here but Boston's problem is they only have one song, lots of lyrics and titles but one song. ;)

Louise NM

Nov-24-2017, 7:38pm

If anyone wants to really geek out about intonation and temperament, there are two good books on my shelf (and probably more that aren't).

Duffin, Ross W., How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care)

Isacoff, Stuart, Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization

Both are accessible to anyone who is a bit of a nerd, but neither requires a PhD to understand. As others have said, any system is full of compromises. The compromises you are used to sound best, at least until you start messing with others. Cajun music, for example, has its own tuning conventions. To me, it always sounds out-of-tune, but I'm sure people who hear a lot of it don't notice at all, and they probably find equal temperament equally grating.

The whole point of Bach's well-tempering system, and our current use of equal temperament, is to allow the use of all key signatures. Old music (pre-Bach) rarely uses more that two or three sharps or flats. When they did, it was for effect: listen to Heinrich Biber's Rosary Sonatas sometime. They get progressively more and more tortured as he moves through scordatura—different tunings of the solo violin. Subsequent temperaments hoped to reduce the torture, although until the advent of equal temperament, different key signatures were presumed to have different emotional characters, caused by the tempering. It was a more interesting world.

Any "sweetening" will come with benefits and drawbacks. Does one outweigh the other?

Jess L.

Nov-25-2017, 12:59am

...Duffin, Ross W., How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) ...

I wonder if that's why some of the pre-Bach, and some Bach, pieces have occasional notes that, when played on modern instruments, sound horribly dissonant and clashy and harsh, like "Why would anyone write that, it sounds awful."

I used to think they must have just liked clashy weird music back then, :whistling: some sort of style or fashion of the times.

But, if old composers were writing for different temperaments, that would explain a lot. They might be horrified to hear how their compositions sound on modern pianos etc. :confused:

I did notice, early on in my piano lessons, that the major 3rds were so sharp as to be almost unlistenable.

At least on a non-piano stringed instrument, you can do stuff to adjust the sound of a prominent note in a particular tune, if it becomes irritating. For instance, on banjo in 2C tuning, I intentionally de-tune the 1st string slightly so that the 3rd note of the scale (on the 2nd fret of 1st string) sounds sweet... however, I have to intentionally bend (sharpen) that same string's 5th-fret note (the fifth note of the scale) up a little bit to make it sharp enough to sound right, otherwise the 5th fret note is noticeably flat since I've detuned the open string slightly. In that tuning, the open 1st string is often just a passing note and doesn't seem to have as much emphasis, so it can get away with being a little out of tune. Anyway...

I can see I have much reading to do. :)

Thanks for the links! :)

Jess L.

Nov-25-2017, 1:26am

162512

:grin: I see what you did there, adding the mandolin to the pic. Good job! :mandosmiley: :)

Ivan Kelsall

Nov-25-2017, 2:04am

From Kip Carter - " The human ear can detect variances of 2 cents or more..". The human ear at it's best can distinguish between 440 Hz & 441Hz !!. There's a multitude of I/net articles to read up on 'tuning / hearing'.

I've mentioned before on here,that compared to a 5-string banjo,mandolins are a cinch to tune. Getting a good compromise between the 3rd G string & the 2nd B & 1st D strings is a real PITA. Not only does the fretting innacuracy come into play,but the flexibility of the neck does as well. Ask any 5-string player & they'll tell you the same thing.

Years back,i used to use several of the multitude of different banjo tunings to play 'Old Timey' tunes. That didn't last too long. Re-tuning to standard Bluegrass tuning D,G,B & D took way too long,& when you're playing to an audience,to have folk watching you tune up for 5 minutes or more,isn't really courteous - something that i wish all musicians would consider !,
Ivan :grin:

Bertram Henze

Nov-25-2017, 2:08am

162512

:disbelief::))
the scribbling on the blackboard seems to be a wild mixture of trigonometry and complex numbers, and yes, e is the connection between the two but if e = 2.9 in the US I totally understand why BG songs sound so out of tune... :whistling:

Charlieshafer

Nov-25-2017, 7:50am

I wonder if that's why some of the pre-Bach, and some Bach, pieces have occasional notes that, when played on modern instruments, sound horribly dissonant and clashy and harsh, like "Why would anyone write that, it sounds awful."

I used to think they must have just liked clashy weird music back then, :whistling: some sort of style or fashion of the times.

But, if old composers were writing for different temperaments, that would explain a lot. They might be horrified to hear how their compositions sound on modern pianos etc. :confused:
)

Well, possibly to some degree. Many of the compositions were written with odd intervals in mind, and they still are played and sound that way in a lot of the Bach Partitas and Sonatas. It was mentioned earlier that much of what our ears perceive as "pleasant intervals" are a function of our culture. As in: modern western European/U.S culture. A simple example of this would be to hit the streaming services and type in "Dzintars" or "Bulgarian Women's Choir." By using vocals as example instead of instruments, you eliminate any question of intent, tuning, weird instruments played in odd ways, etc. You'll find the chords and intervals and modes to be very unfamiliar to our ears, constantly shifting from discordant to sweet. It's what they want.

When you're talking temperament, the cents between notes varies by an audible difference between the types of temperament, but not that much. There's a button box builder in Australia, Peter Hyde, who tunes all his boxes in Kellner tuning, as it sounds better when playing with fiddles. That tiny difference means everything to him. Anyway, there's a lifetime of study here, and many a post-doctoral professor are still hashing it out, so don't ever think there's a consensus in the air... 300 years later and there are still heated exchanges about exactly what tuning Bach was using.

I was going to link an article or two, but so many came up it was pointless. Just google "Kellner Tuning" (what most think Bach was using) and get ready for many years of reading..

Hendrik Ahrend

Nov-25-2017, 8:09am

I wonder if that's why some of the pre-Bach, and some Bach, pieces have occasional notes that, when played on modern instruments, sound horribly dissonant and clashy and harsh, like "Why would anyone write that, it sounds awful."
I used to think they must have just liked clashy weird music back then, :whistling: some sort of style or fashion of the times.

But, if old composers were writing for different temperaments, that would explain a lot. They might be horrified to hear how their compositions sound on modern pianos etc. :confused:

I did notice, early on in my piano lessons, that the major 3rds were so sharp as to be almost unlistenable.

I can see I have much reading to do. :)

We all have to, I believe.

Thanks for the links! :)

Those questions are highly debated among organists. Some suggest that those bad major thirds were intentional for certain effects, which may be true or not. Others ask, whether there is proof that Bach ever played an organ recital off of his own written music. (There is proof of him improvising for hours.) In other words, those pieces may have been written to make some money from students, who needed pieces for practicing at home. Far-off key demand certain fingering patterns.

Most pipe organs were tuned in meantone temperament (with 8 pure major thirds and 4 unusable). This means that a Bach-piece in eb would sound awful because the piece would inevitable lead to an ab chord, whereas there is only an unusable g# in meantone temperament. One may ask, if you don't know either the temperament Bach intended nor the pitch (many Northern European organs where tuned 1 half note higher than today), why would anybody play in the key of eb, just because Bach wrote it like that instead of transposing, an art Bach knew perfectly BTW.

Eric Platt

Nov-25-2017, 8:42am

This has turned into quite the discussion. Since I took up playing Scandinavian music a few years ago, have learned to not rely on any tuner and more on my ear. Quite often because an accordion is tuned the way the maker (or the repairperson) wanted it to sound. For me, that means getting close and hoping that when we're switching keys (even within a song) that it doesn't sound too far out of tune. So far, hasn't happened. It's also why many accordions have "dry" and "wet" settings. The wet makes it sound better with an instrument like a mandolin.

Had been thinking about getting a Peterson HD yesterday. Ended up just getting a Snark SN-8 instead. Close enough for my musical needs, and I like the display.

Oh, and in old-time music, if it takes the banjo player 5 minutes to tune between key changes, there might be something wrong with the banjo. Usually the folks I play with can do it in a minute. Sometimes under. Depending on the tuning. They might drag it out a bit if they are telling a story. That happens, too.

FWIW, I do my own version of sweetened tuning on guitar, using a combination of Tony Rice and Norman Blake. Get it close, then tune the G notes on the E strings to the G, the D on the B string to the open and double check to make sure the B is still close to the low B (on the A string).

ukenukem

Nov-25-2017, 10:48am

Very interesting topic! My experience with this started when I began playing guitar, especially electric. This ended up forcing me to learn several things.

1) The better your instrument (generally) the more accurately you can adjust the intonation.
2) The average person at a music store cannot adjust the guitar to my liking.
3) I read up on intonation adjustment (pre-internet) to understand what was going on.
4) I did my own setups and made lots of errors but learned along the way.

Then I arrived at the following understanding.

Stringed fretted instruments are only capable of so much accuracy.
The set of strings can make a big difference.
You can adjust all you want but you have to "fudge" a little based on the music you play.
The playing environment has a lot to do with staying in tune.
Very, very few listeners can tell as long as you are closer than 95% in tune all around.
The average musician can't tell within 95% accuracy.

Louise NM

Nov-25-2017, 12:12pm

As this conversation has taken all sorts of twists and turns, including into the realm of historical methods of tempering, check out this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enharmonic_keyboard

When playing or singing in just intonation, an Ab and a G# are not exactly equivalent. This keyboard was an attempt to bring a fixed-pitch instrument closer to just intonation.

Since no one has yet brought up the horrors of auto-tune, shall we go there? Cochiti Don got close. While auto-tune can be a mercy in the case of a tin-eared singer, it also takes much of the humanity out of music. A truly great singer—Frank Sinatra comes to mind—masters expressive intonation. Sweet, low thirds, leading tones that actually lead, so-called blue notes in jazz, all the tiny variations of pitch that make for an emotionally resonant performance are a big part of what separates out a truly great singer.

Playing a fretted instrument, we can't control any of those gradations in pitch, but knowing they exist explains why are never totally satisfied with the instrument's intonation.

Willie Poole

Nov-25-2017, 12:30pm

Well said Louise, I have been trying for years to explain all of this but never knew the correct terms to use, "Sweetened "tuning is something I had never heard of before this thread...I always use a electronic tuner to get my D string in tune and then adjust the others by ear, after all my ear is what has to agree with what I am playing....Other people have their own way of doing the same thing so as long as they are happy with the what their mandolin sounds like that is fine...

I am kind of curious as to what a "Reno" mandolin is? :disbelief:

Willie

Louise NM

Nov-25-2017, 12:42pm

Willie, the Reno was an antique-store find. It turned out to be a small, New Mexico–based label. My mandolin was built in 1988. From what I can ferret out, the luthier died later that year and the company folded. Too bad, as he made beautiful instruments.

Sterling

Nov-25-2017, 12:56pm

Mark Gunter

Nov-25-2017, 12:57pm

As this conversation has taken all sorts of twists and turns, including into the realm of historical methods of tempering, check out this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enharmonic_keyboard

From article footnotes:
Rasch 2009, p. 61: "Enharmonic music is music... that is mostly to be found in the surroundings of enharmonic instruments. Without those instruments nearby, it makes little sense to produce such music"

Well, yeah :))

foldedpath

Nov-25-2017, 1:22pm

Duffin, Ross W., How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care)

I bought that book and read it a few years ago. The history in the first part was very interesting.

But then, the later part of the book was basically ranting about the evils of 12TET without offering a way out of the dilemma, other than maybe keeping a piano in Just intonation for one or two keys. Not really a solution. But maybe I'm remembering it wrong, it's been a while since I've read it. Definitely recommended for the historical background.

Charlieshafer

Nov-26-2017, 3:20pm

I am a professional trumpet player employed mostly in church settings playing classical style music. I have a hard time playing with and get physically tired when I have to play along with a digital organ rather than an acoustic pipe organ. Perfect tuning is not always the best idea.

I'm curious, with all the modeling software out there, is there a program that could be used to offer different tunings for digital organs? I'd think this would be an available option, but maybe not..

Hendrik Ahrend

Nov-26-2017, 3:46pm

I'm curious, with all the modeling software out there, is there a program that could be used to offer different tunings for digital organs? I'd think this would be an available option, but maybe not..

Absolutely, the "Cantus" (by Kisselbach) comes with 6 different temperaments. But that's just a digital electronic instrument. I'd hesitate to call it organ.

DavidKOS

Nov-26-2017, 4:02pm

This is cultural conditioning more than anything else. If you're like me, you grew up surrounded by 20th Century "Western" pop music, which by virtue of being dominated by guitars and pianos is entirely 12TET. Our ears are trained to hear it as normal, and we subconsciously ignore the discrepancies.

I've played with Turkish musicians that tune and play in just intonation based on Pythagorean tuning. Notes can be 1/9th of a whole tone apart.

If anyone wants to really geek out about intonation and temperament, there are two good books on my shelf (and probably more that aren't).

Duffin, Ross W., How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care)

.................

I need to read that, since it seems 12TET seems to be based on the ability to harmonize in all 12 keys on a 12 tone per octave keyboard.

Now if the book was called How Equal Temperament Ruined Folk Music (and Why You Should Care)

I would already get it.

The whole point of Bach's well-tempering system, and our current use of equal temperament, is to allow the use of all key signatures.
...............

And that could be done without 12TET, btw.

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~mrubinst/tuning/tuning.html

http://www.colinbooth.co.uk/bach-n-tuning.pdf

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/focus/the-tuning-wars-%E2%80%98equal-temperament-destroys-everything%E2%80%99

Any "sweetening" will come with benefits and drawbacks. Does one outweigh the other?

That depends on what you want musically.

I need to play in all 12 keys with full chordal harmony so I like 12TET.

If I played certain other styles of music I may prefer using another tuning system.

Kip Carter

Nov-27-2017, 8:29pm

I just got my Peterson clip on strobe tuner... and gave it a go on my mandolin and two of my guitars. OH MY GOODNESS... sooooo sweet! I’m loving it!

David L

Nov-28-2017, 12:24pm

The aspect of "sweetened" tuning that hasn't been mentioned is this:"Sweetened" tuning doesn't sweeten different keys, it sweetens different shapes. In equal temperament, some intervals are widened, some are narrowed. If you sweeten a string to raise the third of a chord, if you use a different shape and the third of the chord is now on a different string, then sweetening can make the temperament worse, not better.

sblock

Nov-28-2017, 7:10pm

(I posted the following text in another, related thread, under Equipment, called "Stroboclip HD prefers harmonic to fundamental problem," which interested folks might want to read in its entirety. But I am re-posting it here for convenience.)

Well, I am a sweetening skeptic when it comes to the mandolin.

There's a famous saying, often wrongly attributed to Napoleon or Sun Tzu (but is probably from Helmut von Moltke), to the effect that "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy!"

Much the same can probably be said about tuning a mandolin to something other than equal temperament. So I offer the folks of the MC this analogous aphorism: "No attempt to sweeten your tuning will survive past the first performance!"

All of these so-called "sweeteners" are key-specific. They favor some keys at the expense of others. Furthermore, they only adjust the tuned notes up or down by a several cents. But most instrument-mounted electronic tuners -- except for strobe tuners -- are only good to within a few cents, anyway. So the other instruments in a band will usually differ up or down by a few cents either way, obliterating almost any effect of sweetening unilaterally. Add to that the fact that the more sensitive strobe tuners will show you very clearly that the pitch of a picked note (with the string struck as when actually playing, not lightly brushed with a finger for tuning!) is never perfectly stable, changes continuously after it's struck, first going sharp and then flattening. So the long and short notes in a piece will sound with slightly different pitches (and which one do you decide to tune to?). Finally, the vast majority of freshly-tuned mandolins will fail to hold their tuning to within a few cents over the course of a single performance. Not even if they're equipped with the best mechanical tuners, well-lubricated nuts, and broken-in strings.

In 12TET, we are used to hearing harmonic intervals that are routinely off by several cents: as much as 15, in fact, for major and minor thirds, which you very often hear in folk music, or 17 for a tritone, which you seldom hear. You get used to it.

In my opinion, those who claim that mandolin "sweeteners" are improving their playing sound are being deceived by something akin to a placebo effect. Or perhaps, the real improvement they are associating with the "sweetening" is actually coming from the guitar, Dobro, or banjo in the ensemble, where open string intervals matter much more. And I doubt that the subtle, small differences associated with all this sweetening are stable for more than a minute or two, unless you all retune for every single tune played.

This constant retuning might work for recording (but then again, there are other ways of playing with pitches with modern recording, after the fact), but it is simply not practical for most stage performances. I have seldom heard two fretted instruments that are within a couple of cents of one another on most notes while playing together. Start picking higher up the neck on your mandolin and you will be off by a few cents, one way or another (this is a compensation issue). Pick louder or softer and you will also be off by a few cents, too. It can't be helped. These small changes are at the same level as any so-called sweetening, by the way.

mandocaster

Nov-28-2017, 11:19pm

Have you seen the classic movie "Key Largo" with Bogart, Bacall, and EG Robinson? Everyman Bogart asks gangster Robinson what he wants. After all, the gangster already has money and power.
Robinson says he simply wants "more".
For myself, what I want is to be more in tune to my own ear, whether playing solo, ensemble, with a fiddler or with a digital piano player. I know there is no perfection 12TET, Just, and all that. This discussion is moot unless there is an extremely fine setup that is optimized for the particular brand and gauge of strings, the bridge has not drifted a 32nd of an inch with string changes, the nut grooves are precisely cut (not by the 17 year old kid at the guitar shop), and the frets. Oh my gosh, the frets wear flat spots so the crowns aren't in the right place any more.
If you are getting the idea that this is driving me crazy you would be right. Sometimes. Sometimes I spend five minutes carefully tuning and it sounds glorious for quite a while.