It seems that most Marine Band harps--and others, I'm guessing--are tuned to A-442, not A-440. In other words, they're tuned very slightly sharp. The 3 blow on an A harp, which I've always taken as a "good" E, turns out to be 442.
Assuming this stipulation is correct, would I be well advised to set my Boss chromatic tuner, or whatever electronic tuner I use, to the A-442 setting and then tune the basic chord tones (roots, fourths, and fifths) dead-on, or use the A-440 setting and tune those tones slightly sharp?
Also, since I've only just gotten one of these tuners, I'd appreciate if somebody could reprint the tuning charts that I've seen in one or two threads here.
Original Marine Band Tuning Cent Offsets from Equal Temperament Hole #____1_____2____3____4_____5____6____7_____8____9____10 Blow ____0___-14___+2____0___-14___+2____0___-14___+2_____0 Draw ___+4____+2__-12___+4___-27___+6__-12____+4__-27____+6
Modern Marine Band Tuning Hole #____1_____2____3____4_____5____6____7_____8____9____10 Blow______0___-12___+1____0___-12___+1____0___-12___+1_____0 Draw_____+2____+1__-11___+2___-12___+3__-11____+2__-12____+3
MS Richter Tuning Hole #____1_____2____3____4_____5____6____7_____8____9____10 Blow______0___-10___+1____0___-10___+1____0___-10____+1____0 Draw____+2____+1___-9___+2____+3___+3___-9____+2____+3___+3
The Rick Epping guide to tuning Marine Bands is here. He gives the original 7 Limit JI Tuning, the compromised tuning that Marine Bands use now as well.
Actually, the tuner I've got is one I bought more than 20 years ago and have never used: a Boss TU-12 Chromatic Tuner with "digital processing."
Which model tuners do serious harp customizers & tweakers use? Here is one question where a forum like this should be extremely useful, since collective experience can quickly be pooled.
A search of previous threads disclosed the fact that Buddha uses a Peterson Strobe Tuner. I googled Peterson, ran a search, and found that they recommend three different models for harmonica players. Here's one:
I'm glad you bought this subject up Adam. A while ago I bought a Seiko Guitar tuner to check out my harps only to find there was no C on the tuner. Doh! ----------
Chris and most of the other customisers use the Peterson Strobe Tuners. The Peterson is like the Rolls Royce of Tuners and is uber precise.
But tuners like the Boss TU-12 and the Korg CA20 are more than adequate to do the job (and a lot cheaper). I use a Korg CA20, I used to use a Boss tuner until it died on me.
I believe Jason Ricci uses a Korg as well (at least in the field).
The seventhstring.com tuner is simple to use and easily as good as a Korg CA20 or Boss TU-12 in my opinion.
When you click on the page it asks for you to ok an applet to use it. This in NOT anything dodgy (like viruses, spyware, etc) at all so don't worry about it. Just click ok to it and then you'll have full access to the tuner.
I downloaded the peterson strobe tunner for my lap top and it seems to work quite well, a lot better than any of the digital tunners that I have come accross.
Steve Baker has a few different tunnings in his book, The Harp Hand Book, but they are different to the other tunnings mentioned on the forum. Steve calabrates his tunner at 444hz.
Richard Sleigh calabrates his tunner to 442, I just got his book, Turbo Charge Your Harmonica. It is worth getting if you want to learn more about setting up you reeds and tunning harmonicas, there are also good tunning charts in it too.
Last Edited by on Jul 19, 2009 10:07 AM
Thanks for that. I've found so much conflicting information regarding various models' tunings and was looking for such a free program.
EDIT: that's really cool, not just for harps, but for singing as well. ---------- 'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchen; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty' - Frank Zappa
http://www.youtube.com/user/SlimHarpMick
Last Edited by on Jul 19, 2009 11:04 AM
Yes, it's a pretty nifty little application. I'm glad you guys like it. Whoever made it did the world a favour there.
I can't believe that I have also only just found out that if you scroll down the page you can download it so that it'll run even if your not web connected at the time. That's a great little feature.
Last Edited by on Jul 19, 2009 10:34 AM
Adam if you're thinking about it anyway, I recommend going ahead and doing it, you'll have no regrets. It will save you an incredible amount of time, and you'll get superior results, in the context of the model of harp you play, and the tuning of chords. I'd get a Peterson 490 (that's what I use). I think Chris M. has said he uses a 590, which is similar, with additional features you wouldn't probably use.
Once you have a real-deal mechanical strobe, it's child's play to tune a Marine Band. You just set the strobe to the root of the chord and tune the whole plate. On a Marine Band you could tune both blow and draw to the pitch of the 2 draw/3 blow, but the strobe often displays better if you tune the blow plate separately to the 1 blow pitch. Then tune the draw plate to the 2 draw pitch. If you're a harder player, then tuning the draw plate a couple cents sharp is often a good idea.
For example, I tune the blow plate at 440, setting the strobe at +12 cents for the 1 blow pitch, and tuning all notes on the blow plate. If not offsetting sharp for harder playing, the draw plate would then get tuned at the 2 draw pitch, +14 cents at 440. A harder player often likes it at +16 cents.
If you do this, you end up with 7-limit Just Intonation, and beatless chords. To compromise it for modern blues, tune the pitch of the 5/9 draw to 0 cents at 440 for a very-similar-to-stock compromise (stock modern MB tuning also very slightly raises the pitch of some other notes). If you send a harp to Hohner for tuning, this is how it will come back.
For 19-limit just, which many players like, tune the 5/9 draw to about 14 cents at 440, (16 if you've sharpened the whole draw plate 2 cents as described). With either compromise, the smoothness of chords involving the 5 draw are affected.
When tuning chords, I play them through a "dirty" amp to make it easier to hear the difference tones. A huge part of the traditional blues sound is due to how these difference tones are in tune with the chord. A brief explanation is that the difference in frequencies (of two notes played) creates a third note. In just intonation, this difference tone is a smooth part of the chord with no beating. Once you are aware of this, you can hear it very plainly. It's easier to hear on higher keyed harps.
For a more modern compromise between equal temperament and smooth chords, quite a few extended-position players like their harps tuned equal, with the exception of the thirds, which would get tuned 4 cents flat of equal. This yields a pretty nice sounding harp as well.
You know, it's funny, but I think I ended up figuring out a lot of these tweaks for myself over the years, but had no idea how they actually stacked up in cents terms.
Here's what I do with a stock Marine Band. I'll use a key of A, since that's how I developed this method:
1) Before doing anything, I play it hard for 15-30 minutes, working all the bends. My goal is to work the draw bends hard enough to slightly flatten things, if that is where things are eventually headed in any case. (Playing the streets, I didn't have the luxury of a slow break in. I had to turn around a fresh harp in 24 hours.)
2) I tune the high E string of a guitar to the 3 blow. The 3 blow tends not to flatten because, for me, it's the least-used melody note on the harp--although of course I play chords on it.
3) Making sure that the guitar is precisely tuned to itself--i.e., to that 3 blow E--and also has good intonation, I now check the 2 draw relative to that high E string. I play it softly, then play it full and strong, as I would if I were playing with Mr. Satan. 99% of the time it's (already) slightly flat from the E string. I tune it up. Often I leave it very slightly sharp, so that it comes down into perfect pitch with a full strong pull.
4) I tune the 1 draw and 4 draw off of the B string on the guitar. First I recheck to make sure the B and E string are perfectly in tune, a perfect fourth. I do this all by ear. (Remember that I've tuned the guitar to itself, making particularly sure that the open octaves AND barred octaves are in tune.) The 1 and 4 draw on new/broken-in harps are almost always a little flat on a strong pull--the 1 in particular. This is less true with higher key harps; for D and above, the 1, 2, 4 draws are often in tune. But the lower harps, esp. G, A, and B-flat, always tend to have lagging lower draw reeds.
5) As I tune the 1 draw, I'm very careful to sound the 1&2 draw together. I want to maintain a good chord sound on the 1234 draw. That's the only chord that I'm finicky about.
6) I check the 5 draw. Often I sharpen it up a little bit. I'm careful to keep it in tune with the 9 draw, since I like to play high draw octaves.
7) I rarely need to tweak blow reeds on new harps, and in fact I'd rather avoid sharpening them up unless they're starting to go noticeably flat. The 4 blow and 6 blow are particularly important in this respect because I play those octaves a fair bit.
8) If the 3 draw is sticky, I'll open up the gap a little. Occasionally I'll do that with the 2 draw.
9) On older harps, I'll sharpen up the 3 draw a little, since frequent bending tends to flatten them. Older harps also often require some 4 draw sharpening. Again, I tune the 4 draw on an E harp against either the B string or the E string on the seventh fret--wherever the B barre chord is.
10) If need be, I'll close down the 4, 5, and/or 6 blow a little in order to facilitate overblows. Occasionally I'll need to close down the draw reed gaps on those holes, too, but I don't do that unless I have to.
11) I leave the 2 and 5 blow alone, tuning wise, although occasionally I've had older harps where those notes were clearly tuned flat (an intentional intonation thing, I'm sure) for the sake of smooth chords, and in those cases I sometimes sharpened them up.
That's what I do with an A harp. I evolved this method primarily because I was playing in a duo with a guitar man who played in E at least half the time. I needed to play very strong extended 2 draws and have them stay in tune. I needed to stay in tune with the guitar man when he put on a capo. I discovered that the 3 draw on a new(ish) A harp was a stable note. As a guitar player myself, I know how to bring a guitar into perfect tune, and I know the quirks of guitar tuning that come from intonation problems (i.e., the bridge) and the difference between equal temperament and just as they manifest in that G-string "third," which needs to be settled somewhere between perfect in-tuneness on E-chord forms and perfect in-tuneness on A-chord forms.
Once I've brought my A harps into tune this way, I move up in keys: B-flat, C, etc. If I've tuned the high E string to the 3 blow on an A harp (an E), I've found that in 95% of the cases, the 3 blow on a B-flat harp (F) will be in perfect tune with the fretted F on that E string. Same with the 3 blow G on a C harp and the fretted G on the E string (and the entire G barre chord, in fact). So I tune my harps to the notes in those barre chords.
When anomalies surface, I do my best to diagnose them, by ear.
Very occasionally something weird will flummox me--as when a 6 blow goes SHARP for no reason. This happened to one harp. I didn't know what to do. My ear couldn't tell that it was sharp. I didn't trust what the guitar told me.
I gave it to Dennis Gruenling. He fixed it in his hotel room in less than 5 minutes.
That's why I need to get a strobe tuner.
Thanks for the many insights, Joe.
Here's a final note on what I've discovered through this tortuous long-term experiment in home-grown, by-ear tuning: 99% of off-the-shelf harps, after I've played them for even a little while, have flat lower draw reeds--1, 2, 4, especially--when played at a solid but not excessive volume. Those reeds are flat relative to the other reeds on the harps, and they're flat in absolute terms (i.e., vis a vis a guitar that somebody has tuned up using a strobe tuner). If a harp player learns NOTHING else about harp modification & maintenance, I'd say that he needs to learn how to sharpen those key draw reeds up so the harp is back in tune. When "out of tune-ness," sourness, manifests on a harp in a performance context involving other musicians, it is almost always due to one or more of these three draw reeds being flat. (Improper embouchure obviously aggravates the problem.)
Last Edited by on Jul 19, 2009 12:41 PM
I got my 590 via craiglist for cheap. I wouldn't have purchased that model other wise because as Joe said it has features you wouldn't use - piano tuners use this model. I used to have an old Conn strobe tuner but it finally crapped out on me.
I also have peterson's strobo soft on my laptop for when I travel. It's only 50 bucks and worth it if you don't have the bucks for a mechanical strobe. I'm pretty impressed with strobo-soft and so far has proven to be almost right on when compared to my mechanical strobe tuner, even though it's not exact its good enough to get the results you want - but who knows, maybe my mechanical tuner is the one that is off.
One of my guitar buds has strobo-soft for his iPhone. I haven't tried the iPhone version yet but I imagine its ok, probably as good as what is on my laptop and certainly better than nothing.
Brain on overload. I gotta tell you guys I caught about half of all that. I still don't understand Just Into vs whatever the alternative is. I'm sure it's my lack of music knowledge (I'm catching up honest) But I understood that Suzuki's are tuned differently and the chords won't sound like what I'm used too and I've kept from buying one for that reason. I figure I have enough learning on my plate without going there). I think I need to quit the day job and become a student again. send any donations to Bluzdude46 care of The Retired Harp players Home, Somewhere USA. And thanks for the program Kingley!!
Last Edited by on Jul 19, 2009 10:55 PM
"3)...I...check the 2 draw...I play it softly, then play it full and strong, as I would if I were playing with Mr. Satan. 99% of the time it's (already) slightly flat...Often I leave it very slightly sharp, so that it comes down into perfect pitch with a full strong pull.
4)...the lower harps, esp. G, A, and B-flat, always tend to have lagging lower draw reeds."
and so on.
Yes, I'd been aware of Adam's assertion that the 2 draw can be flat since I first saw his video about a year ago, but I'd never experienced it myself until I bought my Ab MB. Until recently I'd practised playing the 2 draw on its own as loud as I could, without bending it, and I'd never played a really loud 123 draw chord, but the Ab took a long time for me to set up, and while playing it I found the 2 draw to be pretty unstable and, starting mezzoforte with a 123 chord and crescendoing, I can hear the 2 draw just getting flatter and flatter as I crescendo. I just tried it on my beloved G harp, and I got the same effect, to my horror! OK, I've done another experiment - most of that can be cured by a different embouchure, but not all of it.
So I've got to get me some files, I guess.
In theory, you can sharpen the 2 draw as much as you like, and it will still bend all the way down to where it got before. You'll need practice to play it in tune in normal circumstances, so it's back to the drawing-board for some of us. Except that whereas most bends can get to within a whisper of the note of the slot's companion reed, the lower ones seem less able to do this, which would indicate that it might be dangerous to sharpen the 2-draw too much.
No, there's a further problem - if your natural style is to play fairly quietly, that 123 draw chord is going to be out of tune all the time with a sharp 2-draw. What's the answer to that one, two sets of harps, one for the stage/street and one for the porch? Or maybe I answered this question already - change my embouchure?
Last Edited by on Jul 20, 2009 2:41 AM
Just for the hell of it I downloaded the seventhstring tuner and got it up alongside my Peterson StoboSoft tuner--with them running simultaneously--there might be a cent or two difference between them--but I can't imagine it would be enough to matter.
I found that it is important to read the number at the bottom of the screen on the 7thsting--the one at the top is a little different--by something like 9 cents. I didn't look into the documentation or anything to fine out why--I just observed it.
The Richard Sleigh book that was mentioned earlier is very good--The compact size and the way it is made to sit up on the workbench so you can check the tuning charts is great. Richard discusses three basic tunings--Equal Temperment--Just (LW Tuning)--and a third one that he calls the all-purpose tuning--splits the differences so you can play single note runs and chords with accuracy. I am still working on getting that All-purpose one going.
In his book, Richard also tells about a concept of "stretching the octaves," which I hadn't run into before. All in all--the Richard Sleigh book getts a big two thumbs up from me--I hope others find it as useful as I do. . .
Just curious, how much does that Richard Sleigh book go for? It's so new, it's not yet price-listed on his website, just "contact me for more info"... I don't want to bother him if it's way out of my price league...
I have to put in a good word for the Sonic Research Turbo Tuner ST-122. http://www.turbo-tuner.com/
It's an extremely accurate portable true strobe tuner (as distinct from the 'virtual' electronic strobe tuner that Peterson makes now).
I'm sure there are advantages that mechanical strobe tuners have over this, but this is cheaper, portable wont need servicing and has some great features of its own.
You can tune the just thirds and fifths in the same way as a mechanical strobe if you wish, though I find this doesnt work as well as programming the device with custom temperaments.
Here's how I do my tuning with the st-122:
I set up all the temperaments I might use: Equal but with thirds -5 cents, 7 limit JI, 19 limit JI, Hohner and Seydel compromises etc. I set these up for the key C (eg for 7 limit JI Cs are 0 cents, Es -13.7 cents, Fs -29 cents etc).
I then use the transpose function (alt-sharp / alt-flat buttons) of the tuner for different keys, eg for a harp in D it's set to 2# for a harp in A it's 3b, etc. One thing I like about using the transpose feature in this way is that the note readout will always display C for 1 blow, E for 2 blow, G for 3 blow etc, and I dont need to think about what actual notes each reed should be for every key of harmonica - I can check that I'm playing the right hole and that the tuner's reading the note correctly more easily (for me).
I use the A440 change function to set A to 443 or 444 HZ. I play the notes softly and this works out to about the same as hohner's tuning. I also stretch the octaves slightly - 1 cent per octave. I use the Cents + / - buttons to set the cent offsets as follows:
Blow: 1-3 0c 4-6 +1c 7-9 +2c 10 +3c
Draw: 1-3 0c 4-7 +1c 8-9 +2c
I've just started experimenting with raising all the draw cent offsets a couple of cents higher to compensate for the way the draw notes seem to play sharper with the covers off than on.
Last Edited by on Jul 20, 2009 2:13 PM
Question about the Online Tuner mentioned above by Kingley... http://www.seventhstring.com/tuner/tuner.html It's free. Could some of those who tune their own harmonica's tell us what you think about this online tuner? Is it good enough for someone new to tuning a harmonica? Any precautions we should be aware of?
I've not tried it in earnest yet but I spent a long time just playing notes with it on. The thing I found was that the output wavered so much I couldn't really tell when the reading was accurately on the money. I have no doubt it's OK and that the wavering was due to my blowing technique but I'm not sure how I could use it with any accuracy unless I play a note a number of times and then consider the average to be about right. Richard Sleigh's video above makes it look easy. ----------
Adam, I would say to set your tunner up to 442 or what ever you like first, then start your tuning process. As far as tuners go, if you have an iphone you can buy the app from Peterson for $10.00 it is a good strobe tuner and the price is great.
Don't think so GH. I get best results by looking at the figures at the bottom left hand corner and ignoring the moving bar. A short blast from the harp will provide a reading but it doesn't last for long, so I do a series of short blasts while looking at that figure, and try to find the average.
Next Day.
Had a little play and found I get best results when I turned my Mic recording level down so that the "Level" indicator at the top registered nothing when it was quiet. If level is high to start with, it may be picking up ambient noise which confuses it.
