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Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)

ethanhein.com

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Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)

#101

Post by engine_y »

dahart wrote: post #63
post-it wrote: post #28

> If you watch slow-motion video of a guitar string vibrating, you’ll see a complex, evolving blend of squiggles. These squiggles are the mathematical sum of all of the string’s different harmonics. This is incorrect. If you watch a video like [0], the squiggles aren't real, they're an artifact of a rolling shutter camera. A real slowmo camera will correctly show the entire string vibrating[1]. The rest of the articl…

Hold on. Your first video is indeed a rolling shutter artifact. But your second video never shows enough of the string to see the harmonics. When you (for example) pluck with a finger on the 12th fret, you absolutely do have a real physical squiggle vibrating in the string, with one node and two antinodes. With a 7th fret harmonic, there are 3 antinodes, with a 5th fret harmonic there are four. There are squiggles, a…

Yes, I think that with all these videos what you actually see is aliasing...

Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)

#102

Post by dahart »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #73
dahart wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many musicians can readily confirm that the difference between temperaments can be felt and heard by trained ears. A guitar tuned to equal temperament has major thirds that warble audibly. It feels different when you use just intonation, which isn’t generally possible on a guitar.

Why can’t you use intonation? Isn’t that just confirming the note is the same on different strings? And also the goal of bridge adjustment?

For the reasons the article explains. You can use “just intonation” a bit on a guitar, but it will only work for certain chords in certain positions. BTW note that just intonation is different from string intonation - I wasn’t talking about making sure the 12th fret is the same note as the 12th fret harmonic on a single string, I was talking about the tuning system called “just intonation” that defines what certain intervals are, and allows for perfect thirds and perfect fifths in some keys. But it won’t work everywhere on a guitar. It’s not possible to get (for example) perfect fifths on all string combinations in all positions, but it is possible to tune the guitar so you have a perfect fifth when crossing 1 string while in 5th position.

The goal of regular guitar intonation and bridge adjustment is to get the guitar as close as possible to 12 tone equal temperament (TET), which is slightly ‘out of tune’ as the article describes. 12 TET is the best you can do if you want something equally close to perfect fifths (or thirds, etc.) in all positions in all keys across all string combinations; that’s what 12 TET is for, it’s designed to minimize the worse case, at the expense of losing the best case.

Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)

#105

Post by shermantanktop »

analog31 wrote: post #37
KuSpa wrote: post #35

This is why string instrument players sometimes prefer to play a note not on the empty string (let's say play a A on the A-string on a cello), but instead on a lower string (e.g. first finger, fourth position on the lower D string) to accord for these imperfections. As a string instrumemt player, you pretty much only have to worry about these notes on empty strings, every other note you can "wiggle into place".

Indeed, and another factor is that a fingered note has a different tone quality. Disclosure: String player.

And the thicker strings sound a bit different as well.

And the fingering for a given melody may just lay across the strings better one way than another.

Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)

#106

Post by analog31 »

RealityVoid wrote: post #98
analog31 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One simplistic way is to successively add a small constant to a large integer, and generate the waveform from the most significant bits. A "cent," which is 1/100 of a semitone, is a factor of about 580 parts per million, so you can work out the precision needed for the constant. On a microcontroller, you can control the timing with a PWM, which runs independently of the processor and its timing foibles. Proof is left…

> On a microcontroller, you can control the timing with a PWM, which runs independently of the processor and its timing foibles. That is not really true. You usually have a couple of clock sources on a MCU, but the clock gets propagated down the clock tree and the source, and most of the times, the PWM has the same source clock as the CPU. Indeed, I think if you're before the PLL the clock is more accurate as in you…

Is it enough to have an audible effect? We’re not talking cesium clock levels of stability here. Now my curiosity is piqued, I have to figure out a way to measure this.

Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)

#107

Post by rzzzt »

I always thought it's an optimization problem: the headstock is pulled by the strings towards the guitar's body, and whenever you get one string in tune, the change in (the distribution of) force changes the tuning of all other strings as well. So ideally they should be moved into an acceptable configuration collectively. People with six hands should be able to do it.

Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)

#109

Post by busterarm »

semitones wrote: post #72
dagmx wrote: post #69

I’m surprised they don’t show true temperament frets. https://strandbergguitars.com/en-WW/magazine/true-temperamen... They solve exactly for this issue, and sound amazing in use. The downside is that you are somewhat locked into a given tuning. Alternatively you can take the approach of guitars with movable frets so you can adjust them per tuning. https://youtu.be/EZC69A8TsJ8?si=7hUIb7FEKb45eV_L These are generally u…

True temperament solves for a _different_ issue than what OP's post talks about. From the strandberg true temperament page: > Let’s begin by describing the issue with standard equal tempered frets; standard fret spacing is calculated from one single piece of information about the guitar, the scale length. This principle ignores that the frequency of a vibrating string is calculated by three factors: the mass of the s…

TT necks are an absolute waste of money. At least if you went with the Earvana nut you only wasted $5 and the time to replace the thing.

I've known a lot of musicians that have used the necks but mainly only while sponsored and none of them prefer them. Big names in the guitar world.

You're better off spending that money on a better-constructed guitar. And lessons.

So many people mistakenly think that gimmicks will make them sound better. TT necks. Fanned frets/multiscale. The right effects chain...

Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)

#110

Post by phkahler »

post-it wrote: post #28

> If you watch slow-motion video of a guitar string vibrating, you’ll see a complex, evolving blend of squiggles. These squiggles are the mathematical sum of all of the string’s different harmonics. This is incorrect. If you watch a video like [0], the squiggles aren't real, they're an artifact of a rolling shutter camera. A real slowmo camera will correctly show the entire string vibrating[1]. The rest of the articl…

>> but you can't see harmonics happening to the string.

But you absolutely can if you rest a finger on a node and pick it, producing primarily the harmonic. You can even see the lesser vibration at the nodes with your eyes.

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