Strobe tuners

[Sip]

Go right now and try a strobe tuner if you haven't. I just set the intonation on my strat and WOW! I can play chords on it. Yeesss, I could play chords on it before, but now I can play chords and they actually sound good. I've been playing for a long time, and I have a very good ear, but this is a different ballgame.

Really, if poor intonation and tuning has been bothering you for years, go try one.

[EssDee]

I have had a Conn Strobe Tuner most of my professional life. I have one right here beside me on my desk and it goes with me when I have a show or a session. There is no way I would even consider tuning with anything else except my own ear. It is completely IMPOSSIBLE to accurately set intonation without one. The new rack-crap trendy tuners are a waste of materials and real estate. It takes a certain degree of INACCURACY or their LED's would never light up (indicating "in tune"). It takes approximately 5% inaccuracy to get the LED to light long enough to satisfy the average user. In case you haven't noticed, I am scoffing at those tuners. A few years back you could get analog tuners made by Korg, Seiko, etc that had needle pointers and they were very accurate (extremely accurate as compared to today's "tuners"). I still have an old Seiko that I keep with me when gigging or at a session. It is very close but still not nearly as precise as a True Strobe Tuner. Peterson is the only company that still makes true strobes any more to my knowledge.

From the Peterson Website
www.peterson.tuners.com (http://www.petersontuners.com)

07-01-02

Why Use A Real Strobe?

There are many cheap "strobe pattern" tuners on the market which attempt to emulate the look of the image produced by an authentic rotating strobe disc. This is usually done with an array of LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) which are simply turned ON or OFF in sequence so as to "appear" that the light image is drifting left or right.

While such schemes may satisfy an economic niche, all but oneÑthe peterson VSá1ª Ñmiss out on the almost magical (and supremely functional) aspects of a true strobe effect. Unlike the patent-pending VS-1, other emulation schemes necessarily have one thing in common: a digital decision must be made to interpret when to indicate an "in tune" signal (either by lighting a special green LED or otherwise creating a non- sequencing pattern on the LEDs). This creates several problems.

The most glaring of these is the "dead band" problem. The circuitry to form an "In tune?/Out of tune?" decision can, indeed, be very simple and cheap but, by its very nature, it implies that some amount of "out-of-tuneness" must be tolerated when making an "in tune" indication. This is because a frequency that is EXACTLY in tune is an infinitely narrow point. If a circuit could be made to react to only this point (which is impossible by the way), getting that treasured "Green LED" to turn on would be even more of a frustration than it already is on such tuners. In fact, given the normal pitch fluctuations in a real instrument, the light would simply never be ON (or at best be turned on for such short periods that you would never see it). As the manufacturers of such tuners widen the band of "out of tuneness" around that ideal frequencyÑthe deviation from perfect tuning that they decide is "in tune enough" for youÑa more stable indication is made. Note that this is at the expense of your ever knowing how close or far from perfect tuning you are up to the limit of this "dead band". Such devices typically give up at about ±1 cent deviation and usually allow several times this degree of inaccuracy before the "in tune" signal reverts to an "out-of-tune" indication. Of course, the really bad news is: the total worse case error is double that. (You could tune your instrument near the sharp end of the dead band, another player might land near the flat end.)

How bad is this level of detuning? Pretty bad! Over the centuries, many have wrestled with the concepts of intonation and temperamentÑthe art of setting appropriate pitch intervals for the various musical notes. As it happens, there is no one temperament that allows for truly in-tune musical intervals over multiple key signatures. The level of concern in these cases: as small as 1 or 2 cents! For example, music in modern western culture is overwhelmingly based upon equal temperament. We have grown accustomed to some of the inherent inaccuracies of this temperament, yet it does present problems. For instance, one of the milder imperfections is the production of intervals of fifths which are between 1 and 2 cents flat from "perfect" non-beating intervals (...and you don't even want to know how bad the thirds are!) In many cases, this is quite acceptable. However, with harmonically rich instrumentsÑa brass section or an electronically distorted guitar, for exampleÑeven this level of detuning can be disturbing. (Good brass players actually adjust the intonation of the notes they play to minimize this problem. This is why "a good section is hard to find!") In the case of the guitar where such on-the-fly adjustments are impossible, adding another couple of cents inaccuracy because of tuning device limitations can yield positively raucous results. In the orchestral case, the added imprecision could spread the instruments out to the point that even accomplished players would have difficulty "lipping" the notes accurately. Of course, with their limited precision, the pseudo-strobe tuners have no hope of properly distinguishing between temperaments. The best that they can do is center on equal-tempered notes (with their particular shortcomings) and lop on a "dead band" for good measure.

The magic of a true strobe (and VS-1 Virtual Strobe Technologyª) lies in the responsiveness and "smoothness" of the effect from "flat" to "perfectly in tune" to "sharp". Physically, no change of state occurs in the tunerÑno discrete decision takes place. Your eye simply interprets the effect of the spinning pattern in relation to the blinking illumination behind it. Thus, the response to the user as the input pitch is adjusted is literally at the speed of light! This is a perfect visual analogy to the effect of hearing two sound sources "beat" against each other when they are out of tune. Moreover, your ability to discern movement in the strobe image (indicating an out-of-tune audio source) is actually more sensitive than that of hearing audio beats and much more sensitive (about 10 to 20 times more!) than "pseudo-strobe" tuners. This level of precision in a peterson strobe tuner not only allows unprecedented accuracy in tuning to "standard" pitches, but permits one to utilize the subtler shades of altered temperamentsÑboth pre-programmed and user-programmableÑdiscussed within the tunerÊinstructionÊmanuals included on this website.
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Does it sound like I agree with you? You guys have a great Christmas season!!


EssDee

[This message has been edited by EssDee (edited 12-08-2002).]

[EssDee]

Wow, I find it interesting that no one responded to this thread.

[Sip]

Sorry man.
Merry Christmas! http://www.audioforums.com/forums/smile.gif

[Robert D]

Essdee, We're just waiting for it to come out in hardback. http://www.audioforums.com/forums/smile.gif

Nice job, that explains why I quit using tuners several years ago, and never have owned one with an LED. Somewhere along the line I decided I could do a better job tuning by ear. Now I know why. I remember those great strobe tuners, but had really forgotten all about them. What do they cost these days?
Thanks, RD

[knowdoubt]

I use a combination of a Boss that has an analog meter & my ears. Works fine for me. I use a strobe tuner at work quite often & it also works fine for me. You may be surprised how many people are suffering & complaining about poor intonation that just don't have proper nut height adjustment. That can make a world of difference. If the nut height is to low for instance, when you set your intonation to be correct at the 12th fret, the intonation will creep flatter & flatter as you approach the 1st fret because the string won't be stretched as much when fretting towards the nut end relative to the amount it's stretched the further you get from the nut. In other words, for good intonation, 'the higher the overall action, the higher the nut must be'. A nut to high would have the opposite effect.

[This message has been edited by knowdoubt (edited 12-12-2002).]