WorshipCentral

I remember doing worship once with a guy who led from a casio keyboard with preprogrammed midi tracks on it and he magaed to play it out of tune, without even having a pich bend control or transpose button!!! I think it may have been something to do with his midi file but his assumption was that it must have been everyone else in the band becuase how could his keyboard been out of tune? Moral of the story - Well firstly I think the best thing anyone can do is develop a good ear for tuning, at the end of the day if you can't tell you're out of tune then there's a real problem, I don't quite know how to develop an ear for it, maybe you guys could do a pitch pipe podcast for people to listen to on their ipod. Oh, and the second moral is that all 1980's style midi worship tracks should be erased!

It's worth being aware that 440 Hz is the British standard frequency (this is for A above middle C), but 442 is the American standard, and indeed the standard in some European countries (e.g. Denmark), which is slightly sharper. As a result, American-manufactured keyboards and instruments that don't have any fine-tuning facilities will be slightly sharper than British-manufactured ones. I don't know about those from Japan! This can actually be quite nice as you just get a slightly brighter sound on some of the instruments. But it's worth being aware of. The end.

my quick tips: a) get your guitar setup by a good guitar tech every now and again. they'll check the intonation and do some tweaks to make it play and sound nice. particularly important if you're tuning sounds ok in open position but starts to sound out as you go further up the neck. b) if you are playing in a band situation and can hear that you're out of tune try and let others play on while you tune up. you're probably doing more harm than good by trying to soldier on. bad tuning stands out. c) if you're using a capo tune while the capo is in position. if you tune while its open and then whack the capo on you'll probably be a little out. the alternative is just to let it go and say you're so into jazz.

Al, What a great post, some really useful info. I have one of the Boss tuners too, the TU8 I think, do you go into a DI box second or first? I noticed you used the Elixir strings website, is this just a coincidence or do you use them, I think they are great, but most of my guitar playing friends (including my flat mate who commented above) always break them. Ive tried telling them its their strumming technique not the strings, but can I get some celebrity endorsement here? haha, just kidding. I enjoy your blog. Thanks Liam

I got a few tips. Get you guitar set up properly and use the right gauge of strings for your setup. If you usually use 11s on an acoustic and suddenly slap a set of 13s on there to get a big beefy tone the action will raise, and the pressure of pressing the strings down can raise them sharp (an overtight capo can also do this). Intonation is also perfected at setup. To test your intonation check if the note at the 12th fret is sharp or flat compared to the open string - use a good pro tuner, not the Boss TU2 - excellent through it is for live stuff it isn't the best for guitar setups - and before you think I'm dissing it I own two of them - excellent for live use! If your intonation is out then certain chords will sound in tune but others will sound really bad, especially if you move chords all over the neck, like the slidey E shapes many peple use (I love em!). Old strings make your intonation go off, plus they are more likely to snap. I sweat loads when I play so I have to change strings all the time. But it is worth it. I had one snap on Sunday and managed to get it off my guitar whilst singing the chorus to a song, and then restring in under 60 seconds. Smooth. But not as smooth as having done it first though... Tuning offstage is not the same as tuning onstage as heat from lights and/or the weird drafts we get in churches can make tuning go well off. The more you tune in the environment you will be playing the better. The inherant tuning tradeoffs with a guitar mean that many people are looking for ways to "fix it". It may do you good to look at a compensated nut from someone like Earvana (www.earvana.com/) if you are getting fed up of intonation troubles. The Buzz Feiten system(www.buzzfeiten.com/) is another well known one. PRS guitars have done this for ages with their own system, so my electrics are quite nicely in tune. Check knife edges on tremelo units - they can make things go a bit funny if they are worn. If you find a sring sticking get some graphite or powder some pencil lead, mix in a bit of vaseline and put in the string slot on the nut nut to aid string movement and prevent catching. Graphtech do replacement nuts and saddles which might help with that amongst other things. If you break a string, all your others will invariably go out of tune (generally). So stop playing and let the rest of the band carry everything. Retune the existing strings whilst singing if you can. If you really can't stop playing, the bass couple of strings are probably the nearest to being in tune so play power chords on them to keep things going! It works! (just!) RE tuning pedals...I so want a Peterson Strobostonmp...anyone want to give me one? Or just get one of these...The Gibson Robot guitar which tunes itself (http://www.gibson.com/RobotGuitar/) And if all of this sounds very long and involved - at least we're not playing an old analogue synth where the electrics can "drift"! Hope that helps!

Ah yes, I meant TU2! Thanks for clearing up the strings issue, I had real trouble sleeping last night ;). Those Robot guitars seems pretty crazy. Liam

I'm no celebrity, but I really rate the Elixir strings highly. On an acoustic guitar they sound brighter, and last *much* longer than other brands. I play/rehearse about 3 hours every week with one Elixir-strung (electric) guitar, I *never* wipe down my strings after use, and they are still in usable shape after three or four months. You do get some "dandruff" on the acoustic strings, but they still sound good despite the coating flaking off. I do have a good ear for tuning and often ask the bassist/guitarist to check their tuning. And, I advise everybody to take advantage of every opportunity to check - I rarely *have*to* tune, but the one time I didn't check was the one time I should've. Finally, I wish I could tune my voice as easily as I can tune my guitar!

I recommend Black Panther machine heads, they're illegal in nine countries, 60% of the time they work every time!

I am not from the USA, but as far as I can tell, 440Hz is an international standard. It makes sense to me - all those guitar tuners would be region-specific otherwise, and when musicians work with those from other countries - soloists working with orchestras, for example, there would be mayhem I'll try a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A440