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Electronic Tuners: Peterson StroboClip, iPhone ClearTune MELODIC INSTRUMENTS
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Senior Member 302 posts Bakersbites786 Senior Member 302 posts
Bakersbites786
Sorry to hear about your loss of hearing Ray.
Hope and pray you make a full recovery.
How the devil are u otherwise?

How many Bashirs do you own now?

I got a baby thats in the making right now, should get it in a couple of week. Natural wood polished with no wood stain and ebony trim.
Also requested a hand written badge like Naeem is doing for Lars.

its probably time you defrozed that freezer again.
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DreamingPanther 39 posts
DreamingPanther
Hi Friends, I'm new here and hoping not to overpost my welcome Just bringing up topics I'm figuring out as I go along...

When it comes to tuning, the sage advice seems to be "just learn the sounds, because tuners will let you down." Being a fretless bassist for years I have very good relative pitch. But, also being a computer programmer I tend to want to "trust but verify" my ears.

I see lots of people asking about tuners, and I thought I'd tell what works for me and why, and maybe get a few opinions from others on their experiences.

I knew from research that the sitar uses Just temperament, so my equal tempered guitar tuner wouldn't be ideal. Drat. I'm fortunate to have an iPhone, so I did some research on different tuners for that.

IPHONE/ANDROID FINDINGS: ClearTune
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I found the iPhone/Android app called ClearTune. It's available from http://www.bitcount.com. This is my favorite of the iphone tuners. In that app, I have created presets called "Sitar C", "Sitar C#", and "Sitar D".

The three presets are the same, except the transposition setting changes from C, C#, D.

In ClearTune's OPTIONS tab for each preset, here is what I do:

* NOTATION: "Moveable Do Solfege Ascending". It's not Sargam notation, but it's close enough to get my mind around it.

* TRANSPOSITION: C, C# or D, depending on the preset I'm saving.

* TEMPERAMENT: "Pythagorean Just". This app offers Pythagorean, Pythagorean Just, and Standard Just. This one I could use some opinions on? Pythagorean Just sounds best to me, but maybe someone has a different opinion or knowledge?

* TEMPERAMENT KEY: C, C# or D, depending on the preset I'm saving.

* NEEDLE DAMPING - set to "II" this keeps the rotating wheel steadiest for me with regular household noise around.

Anyway, I use that and it works well, even with the kids watching TV. For noisier situations, I asked for and got a Peterson StroboClip for my birthday last year. It is the ONLY tuner I know of that has a specific "Sitar" preset.

PETERSON STROBOCLIP:
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There is a shockingly tiny amount of information about the Sitar preset for this, but as far as I know it is the first and only consumer electronic tuner to attempt a preset. It clips on, and I have it clipped to the low SA peg.
00stroboclip.JPG Seems to work best there, though it's kinda jumpy for tuning tarafs. The low SA is easily the one I have to tweak the manka on the most. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has any better placement, or information on the temperament used for their. Anyway, I will be doing my first performance this Friday, and because I can't count on a quiet environment for tuning will probably rely on the stroboclip for tuning more than the iPhone.

So what do you think? Does anybody have any better apps/ideas/info on temperaments?

Oh, one other thing... for taraf tuning I've got another iPhone app called Samvada, http://www.http://iotic.com/samvada which allows me to input scales and save them. That way I can experiment with different taraf sequences (a lot of them I borrowed from this forum) save them to a preset and recall them later. It's tuning by note matching with my ears, but it gets me in the neighborhood quickly until I can memorize some tunings. Right now I have about 4 different combinations for Yaman that I can experiment with... even without the sitar in front of me.

Peace, and thanks friends for your fellowship ~ Wade
whatsofunnyboutpeaceloveandunderstanding
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nicneufeld Senior Member 1,566 posts
nicneufeld
My experience with tuners...in the Western music world my current favorite are those little clip-on Snark tuners...so easy and convenient for guitarists.

For sitar, though, the ideal tuning tool for me is a tanpura app/machine. Tune the sa chikaris and tune the others relative to that. I like to set my tanpura app (iTabla Pro) to Ga-Pa-Sa'-Sa'-Sa, which gets that much more enigmatic gandhar note (which I struggle with getting just right sometimes) solid. The others are easily tuned to from the tonic, for me. One trick passed on to me here, is to just shift the tuning of the first string in the tanpura app to the note you are tuning, but as time has passed it takes too much time and twiddling, its easier just to do it by ear without an exact reference pitch to match.

I grant that a machine may be able to tune more exactly, but something to consider, if its too tricky to judge where exactly a pitch should be when tuning up based on a relative sa, how are you going to exactly nail that pitch when meending at speed? It's all about the ear, and by using a tuner to tune all the strings you're missing out on a critical component of practice that helps develop a rock solid sense of "sur". But that's only my own (limited) experience, thus far. YMMV!
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OM GUY 841 posts
OM GUY
I'd be interested to hear if anyone has any better placement, or information on the temperament used for their. Anyway, I will be doing my first performance this Friday, and because I can't count on a quiet environment for tuning will probably rely on the stroboclip for tuning more than the iPhone.



DreamingPanther~

Try sticking the clamp inside the upper tumba. I've always used my stroboclip right there. Occasionally, just to test it, I will move it around just to see if I can fool it, but it seems to be right at home in the upper tumba.

I use all three methods: ear, machine and the clip. The clip can tell you if your tuning is slipping, you know, like when you first put a new string on.

Plus, it doesn't care if there is some kid with sticky-rice fingers, screaming "ME TOUCH? ME TOUCH??" right next to you.

BTW, good luck with your first gig!
Let's hope 2016 is less violent and that people discover the soothing influence of ICM. Hari OM!
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chrisnovice Senior Member 106 posts
chrisnovice
If ever I use a tuner I clip it onto the main bridge, it just about fits and can pick up all the tarafs OK.
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DreamingPanther 39 posts
DreamingPanther
Thank you! I will experiment with clipping to the upper tumba, and to the foot of the main bridge. There may not be enough space on the main bridge foot, since I lowered it to proper height (it had only the most basic jawari done when I got it, and it was very, very high) but we will see.

And thanks for the best wishes on my first performance... not sure what to expect, but we shall see how it goes. It's a very popular college-crowd coffeehouse here that does live music on the weekends. I'm not really advertising it in case it's terrible ha ha I'm leaving room to deny everything!
whatsofunnyboutpeaceloveandunderstanding
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Kirya Senior Member 749 posts
Kirya
I use an Android app called gStrings that I find quite satisfactory

The app has enough features to make it useful and not so many that you get lost in the complexity

There is a feature to just play the tone in upper or lower octaves or to have it recognize and identify the note you are tuned to.
Kirya in CA
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barend Senior Member 1,426 posts
barend
what tuner would work in a loud fusion setting for sitar?
Tried to hook my sitar pickup to a Boss TU-2 and Korg Pitchblack tuner pedal but this doesn't work. These pedal tuners are way to jumpy. I think the tuners can't handle all the sitar overtones. Will a clip on tuner work? and which one is really good for noisy live situations and affordable?
I never use a tuner at home.
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nicneufeld Senior Member 1,566 posts
nicneufeld
Hadn't considered live venues or noisy environments...thinking more, yeah, its very hard to tune by ear when theres a lot of noise around. I like the idea of a clip-on tuner attached to bridge legs...that should really pick up the sound pretty hot, I would think...its where a lot of people affix pickups anyway!
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vbnautilus 32 posts
vbnautilus
The temperament issue is interesting. Technically, the tuning should be untempered, totally just, shouldn't it? The only reason to introduce temperament is in order to allow for modulation -- so that playing in other keys sounds "correct" without having to retune, right?

Tempered tuning is probably preferable when playing in some kind of fusion situation, like with western instruments, so as not to sound out of tune with them, but I think in that situation you probably want equal temperament and not pythagorean. I'm no expert, so I'd like to hear from others who know more about this issue...
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barend Senior Member 1,426 posts
barend
nicneufeld wrote:
Hadn't considered live venues or noisy environments...thinking more, yeah, its very hard to tune by ear when theres a lot of noise around. I like the idea of a clip-on tuner attached to bridge legs...that should really pick up the sound pretty hot, I would think...its where a lot of people affix pickups anyway!
Any good clip on tuner alternatives for the Peterson Stroboclip? 70$ for a clip on tuner is way too much I think.
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chrisnovice Senior Member 106 posts
chrisnovice
The one I have is ENO ET-3000+ which I clip onto the surface of the bridge not the legs (not enough space there). It seems to work pretty well. Although I have heard that outside noise can interfere with clip on tuners.
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nicneufeld Senior Member 1,566 posts
nicneufeld
Snark tuners are pretty cheap. Get a chromatic one, of course. And you have to mentally transpose sargam into western notes to use it of course. Oh, and I haven't tried it on sitar myself so caveat emptor! But they are a cheap lifesaver for guitar...very fast retuning on stage without having to hookup and power a pedal tuner. I recommended one to a fellow musician who kept wanting to hook into my pedal tuner while on stage :evil:

http://www.snarktuners.com/clip-on
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DreamingPanther 39 posts
DreamingPanther
Reminds me, my stepdaughter just bought a Snark clip-on. I'll ask to borrow it for comparison to the StroboClip and post the results.

For me, the ClearTune with the Pythagorean Just settings I posted sounds best, followed by the StroboTune, which Peterson reports to be simply "Just".

I went off on a spiral learning about the pythagorean system of intervals at one point many months ago... turns out Pythagoras learned his math riffs from ancient Indian scholars like Baudhayana, and then he began applying them to musical theory. It was close, but the theory had some mistakes apparently, and Galilli (father of Galileo) corrected them to come up with Just temperament.

So that was my thinking for the temperament I chose on the ClearTune.

I haven't played with any other guitarists to know whether it would sound "out", but my thinking is if I'm playing with a guitarist, he's going to have to stick to a C, C# or D tonal center too, so maybe he should try just temperament also?

I don't know. It's an interesting subject though.
whatsofunnyboutpeaceloveandunderstanding
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DreamingPanther 39 posts
DreamingPanther
Oh, here's where I got some of that info on Pythagoras. Probably lies... but hey it's on the internet so it HAS to be true, right?

http://ray.tomes.biz/alex.htm
whatsofunnyboutpeaceloveandunderstanding
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vbnautilus 32 posts
vbnautilus
DreamingPanther wrote:

I haven't played with any other guitarists to know whether it would sound "out", but my thinking is if I'm playing with a guitarist, he's going to have to stick to a C, C# or D tonal center too, so maybe he should try just temperament also?

I don't know. It's an interesting subject though.
Guitarist doesn't have a choice because his frets are fixed. The guitar is equal tempered.
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