Recording Guitars That Are REALLY In Tune
It's Harder (and More Rewarding) Than You Thought
by Ray Dybzinski
October 17, 2000
“The frets, while guiding the player to the correct pitch, also cause and exacerbate pitch inaccuracies at various places on the neck.”
The books and magazine articles devoted to guitar tone could fill a control room, but little has been written about the basic art of tuning. While you probably consult an electric tuner before tracking, that may not be enough to deliver perfectly in-tune tracks. On most guitars, slight irregularities in fret positioning, warps in the neck, variations in the string-to-fret distance, and myriad other minute details contribute to imperfect intonation. Some frets can play flat, others play perfectly in tune, and still others play sharp. Tuning perfection may not be possible, but your job as a guitarist is to maximize your tuning and get your tracks as in tune as possible.
Compromise vs. Perfection
Equal tempered tuning, as used by pianos and other keyboard instruments, is the generally accepted standard of intonation. But equal-tempered does not mean precise intonation. In fact, it's a compromise: All of the notes in the scale are slightly out of tune so that the relative intonation will be acceptable for all intervals. Otherwise, certain intervals would work in some keys but would sound hopelessly dissonant in others.
The guitar -- or any fretted instrument -- attempts to approximate equal-tempered tuning. But the frets, while guiding the player to the correct pitch, also cause and exacerbate pitch inaccuracies at various places on the neck. These variations can differ from string to string: A heavy low-A string will be affected by the fret differently than a slinky high-E.
If your guitar is not intonated properly, having the open strings in tune may not mean that fretted notes are in tune. Even a guitar that is intonated correctly can be out of tune in some places on the neck. The problem is most noticeable on chords, where slight dissonances cause the guitar to "beat." All kinds of attempts have been made to address the problem -- angled frets, moveable frets, no frets -- but one solution that has caught on is the Buzz Feiten tuning system, which makes subtle adjustments to nut, bridge, and fret position. The Feiten system is available as a retrofit and has been adopted by several guitar and bass manufacturers, notably Washburn, Tobias, and Tom Anderson, but not all players agree on its effectiveness. Careful setup and technique should yield satisfactory results with a standard guitar in good condition.
Checking Out Your Guitar
How out of tune is "out of tune?" With help from an accurate electronic tuner, tune each open string. Next, finger notes up and down the neck and check these against the tuner. If you find that all the notes are only one cent (.01 semitones) off in either direction, then you're in good shape. More likely, you'll find a variance of plus-or-minus two cents with a few whacked-out notes that fall even flatter or sharper than that. Note that not all tuners are accurate enough for this test -- pros often use high-end strobe tuners, such as the Peterson AutoStrobe 490 -- so you may have to trust your ears as well as your eyes.
Many guitarists would argue a couple of cents is an acceptable variance in intonation, even for critical recorded tracks. But if you cut some perfectly intonated tracks, you'll notice that your songs sound more solid and resonant. Chords will ring out where they used to flop around. Each instrument will have more space, but at the same time the total mix will fatten. The difference is subtle but profound.
Next Page: Tuning In, Preparing, Intonation, Is It Perfect?, Working Around Imperfection, Rewards....
Ray Dybzinski is a freelance writer, audio engineer (associated with someoddpilot records), and musician (a member of someoddpilot recording artists The Timeout Drawer). He has his hands deep in the goo of audio at every level. A degree in acoustics informs his purist beliefs about audio recording, and true sonic perfection is his soma.
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