Van Halen Tuning with Peterson Reference

[garbeaj]

Its super accurate guaranteed fast as hell tuning or you can geek out and explore the deeper points of this thread easily.

Glad you got a good Peterson tuner!...Now will you "geek out and explore the deeper points of this thread" and try out my tunings and see how they compare to the records for you?!

The more people with a Peterson and the will to try out the tunings I've found the better! The whole point of this thread was to see if everybody is able to reproduce the tunings I've noted and to see how well it matches up to the recordings for them. I also hoped to see if anybody can correct my tunings or wants to post any that they find from the recordings and notate them as I have done.

I think I'll get the StroboPlus HD model that you have with the "HD" display. The StroboClip is great and it works especially well on my acoustic instruments (acoustic 6 and 12 string and mandolin) but it does eat up watch batteries...

[dirtycooter]

I have had my peterson digitals ever simce they first came out. Love them to death! Will never use any other tuners ever.
It would be cool if you posted the reference pitch and the strings 1-6 in offset cents values.
So SOMEDAY..... you know..... when I have alot of time on my hands... I will dig into this.

[garbeaj]

I have had my peterson digitals ever simce they first came out. Love them to death! Will never use any other tuners ever.
It would be cool if you posted the reference pitch and the strings 1-6 in offset cents values.
So SOMEDAY..... you know..... when I have alot of time on my hands... I will dig into this.

That's the one thing that my tuner doesn't have...a reading for cent values. The StroboPlus HD apparently has cent measurement. If I had that one, I wouldn't need to use differing reference pitches, I'd just post how many cents each individual string is off. Hz readings get within 4 cents, but the cent reading is the real deal.

I got the Peterson StroboClip because it was the least expensive Peterson tuner on the market. But back then I didn't know that the StroboPlus HD had the cent value reading that I was really looking for. I called Peterson's customer service and I explained to them exactly what I was doing and they verified that the StroboPlus HD will let me adjust to cent values as well as hz...The StroboPlus HD costs $139, which is about $60 more than the StroboClip, so I'll have to wait for payday and get that one now!

[dirtycooter]

The VS1 was about $200 I think when I jumped all over it. It has cent values. Not sure on the latest strobo stomp.
I was ditchin the wah, the newer strobostomp was hardwire bypass too so I snagged that to put it in the wahs place.
Even has screw down tabs to mount it on a pedal board. Robust switchcraft jacks. Bright ass amber and black display.
Just an all around yes problem solver and neccessity. Plus when you step on it it mutes while tuning silently.
The VS1 was great but huge and had to unplug and plug into it when you wanted to tune and it has a big ass wall wart adapter.
For acoustics it has a mic input on the VS1. So thats a nice feature too. But unless you had it in a router switcher it was cumbersome using the vs1-not to mention the space and power issue. Its meant more for a tech bench really.

[garbeaj]

Yes I confirmed that the StroboPlus HD has cent values. It also has the largest and brightest display of any model they've ever made. Here is a link to the specs:
http://www.petersontuners.com/index.cfm?category=197" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There is a PDF of the manual on the above link that describes how to set the parameters either by adjusting the A pitch reference in hz (as I have done with my StroboClip) or by adjusting cent values.

[BrownSound1]

I have an old StroboStomp with the sweetened tunings as well. Once I found that, I quit using "regular"tuning.

[garbeaj]

I have an old StroboStomp with the sweetened tunings as well. Once I found that, I quit using "regular"tuning.

Oh yeah...It's like I can't understand how any guitar player would ever use chromatic tuning ever. You can use them, but you still have to flatten certain strings. With the Peterson, all the work is done for you, plus you can use it to quantify the pitch of guitars used on recordings like I am doing in this thread...

[garbeaj]

I just got my StroboStomp HD in the mail yesterday...it is amazing. Works even better than my StroboClip. I'm still learning how to use it and apply it to what I'm doing in this thread, but hopefully I'll be able to break down Ed's tunings using cent values.

[Rich_D]

How about the inotanation sucked on his home brew franky and he tuned it by ear to sound right?

+1, especially for specific songs. Of course, his Destroyer should have been correct.

[tsma]

Um. You guys do realize that pianos are (de)tuned to "sweeten" certain intervals, right? Y'all know what "well-tempered" means, right?

So, of COURSE Eddie isn't going to tune his guitar "straight" – he's going to make particular intervals work best for each piece.

I certainly do that for every song I play, and have done that since long before I understood the concepts involved. I just knew what sounded right.

So, I like that garbeaj took the time to sus-out Eddie's variances on particular songs.

Now, the WHOLE thing being up or down from A440 could just be tape speed.

It could also be quite intentional tuning – it could be that the band made a decision to stray from A440 because it sounded better.

But, frankly, I doubt any of this is purely accidental. Anyone playing an instrument that much each day, every day has A440 in their head whether they like it or not. I most certainly do not have perfect pitch – if I don't play the guitar for a few weeks damn if I could sing you A440. But when I'm playing regularly, I can nail it with shocking accuracy. I just can't see Eddie – a guy with one hell of an ear – not having A440 available in his head at any given moment. So if he wanted to be at A440 I suspect he could.

Yup. A bit of what I have written is speculation. But most isn't.


-bryan

[rgorke]

Seems like VH1 is a bit different than VH2 and others. Not sure if that is purposeful or not. If you play along with, say, RWTD, and then DTNA or SGMAD, the latter two are different than the former. Not by much but noticeable.

[garbeaj]

I agree that intentional tape speed manipulation or unintentional variance only works when ALL the strings remain in tune with each other.

There just seems to be a method to Ed's madness...and it isn't just the flattened B-string only on "RWTD" as many have assumed. There are definite tunings that I believe Ed chose for various recordings of various songs for various reasons and I think that now that I have the Peterson tuners I can actually quantify these deliberate tunings.

Now, if I can just build some consensus among the other cats that have these tuners who have had a chance to try out the tunings I've listed and compare it to the recordings for themselves, I think we can come up with some pretty definitive measurements.

[garbeaj]

Seems like VH1 is a bit different than VH2 and others. Not sure if that is purposeful or not. If you play along with, say, RWTD, and then DTNA or SGMAD, the latter two are different than the former. Not by much but noticeable.

It's a lot to me! And I think I have pretty much proven that it is purposeful to my own mind. Now I just need to get others to try out my tunings and see what their results are...whether or not I need to revise some if someone comes up with a more accurate reading or whatever...but I really think there is no question that it was purposeful. Ed had his ears and a Peterson very early on, at least by the first world tour and possibly for the recording of the first album.

And this phenomenon continues through the 1984 album...go ahead and try tuning to the 1984 recording of "Panama" with chromatic tuning at 1/2 step down and play along...it will be completely out of tune with the record.

I haven't tried this on any Hagar era recordings, but I'll check out 5150 and 0U812 at some point. I don't like any of the albums after that, so I don't really care to check those. Maybe "A Different Kind of Truth", but that's where I draw the line!

[dirtycooter]

Glad you like your new strobostomp. Told you it was Badthefuckass!
Like I said before-I will never use any other tuner.
Once you intonate like a mofo (which is a bigger deal to me than just regular tuning up) then use the sweetened in Eb or even regular E all these things you guys say don't work from song to song is not the case. It has ALOT to do with attack and fingerpressure. That will make or break you. I can get RWTD chords and then DTNA and so on, Panama. All off the one sweetened tuning. So I guess I don't get it-and I been through all these similar things in my younger years-chords don't sound exactly true or this or that-Peterson just gives you that optimum sweet spot right out of the gate.
If you wanna microtonally adjust the whole set of sweetened strings up or down jist a cunt hair-you can do that all day long messin with reference to A. Pretty simple really.
I personally think Ed mapped all the offsets of each string the hard way back in the day with his peterson(they didn't have sweetened tuning references back then)-knew what they were and made note of them-to quickly whip into his own "by ear" sweetened tuning. Thats seriously very very likely. I know I wondered and pondered that about a peterson long ago.
Geez I got this thing sounding awesome in tune. Maybe I should start using my tuner how it looks when it sounds right even though the needle is not where it looks ideal in the exact middle. Seriously I did ponder on that alot. Looks like Ed was onto it as well but with a far better box back then than me with my silly ass Boss TU what the hell ever it was called.

[garbeaj]

I think what dirtycooter is referring to is what he chooses to do for playing live. What I'm talking about is tuning to the recordings...in other words I'm trying to show the exact tunings for each recording as they are on the albums so that your guitar can be exactly in tune with the recordings as you play along with them and work to learn how to play the notes and/or transcribe them.

You can tune your guitar to play all the songs to be passably in tune where you can play the songs in one tuning as dirtycooter says...but the fact is there doesn't seem to be an exact rubric for all the recordings.

As I've pointed out, there are different strings that are tuned differently on different recordings on the same album...in other words, the B string isn't always flattened on every recording or the high E isn't always tuned slightly sharp on every recording. It is all on a song by song, recording by recording basis. Some recordings have all the strings in tune with each other, but some have individual strings that are out of tune with each other-and even the songs that feature different pitch references for individual strings aren't tuned to the same deviance every time.

I agree that we can tune 1/2 step down in Sweetened mode and play just about all of the Roth era albums in a live situation fairly convincingly. Ed himself obviously did not tune his guitar to different pitch references between each song when he played live. About the only thing he did as far as changing tuning in a live situation was to drop the 6th string to D.

But if we bear in mind that what I'm talking about is tuning to the recordings then you can follow the intent of this thread.