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Tronical Variax


jgunter
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Hi all.  I'm a beginning guitarist.  I recently purchased my Variax Standard second hand.  I also have a JTV-89F.

 

I've been learning to play over the past year and kept getting bummed by constantly having to tune the guitar when I wanted to play.  I've been leaning to play from an app called Youcisian and using an iRig HD to import the signal into my tablet.  Youcisian requires a slightly different tune to read the strings correctly.  So I was back and forth between tunes with my practice guitar.

 

When I got the Variax Standard I also installed a C1 Tronical tuner.  It makes short work of my tuning chore.  I realize the Variax allows for custom tunes as well through the Bench software.  I just haven't dived into it yet to learn what all it does and make it function the way I'd want it.  I'm still pretty dumb with the guitar yet.

 

Anyway, forums are great for sharing information.  And I had not seen any on the Tronical and Variax Standard mix yet.  I look forward to learning a lot about the Variax guitars and their capabilities.

 

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I've been learning to play over the past year and kept getting bummed by constantly having to tune the guitar when I wanted to play.

 

Others might disagree, but here's my 2 cents:

 

Technology is great, but the first fundamental step to becoming a musician is learning to tune your instrument. The best guitars in the world (or any other stringed instrument, for that matter) will need slight tuning adjustments every time you pick them up. Strings stretch and wood moves. End of story. If you bypass learning how to do it yourself with fancy gadgets, you're not going to get very far. You need to learn to use your ears...developing a sense of relative pitch is not optional if you ever want to play with other musicians, or develop the ability to learn tunes by ear.

 

Assuming that the guitar is not junk, and that the strings aren't 8 months old, tuning up takes less than a minute.

 

Tools like that are convenient on stage, enabling quick adjustments between songs, but they're not meant to be a substitute for learning basic skills.

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Get a good tuner and use it often.  Guitars never stay in tune very long.  Cruisinon2 tells it like it is.  Use a tuner but listen to the results and train your ears to tell when you need to tune up.  Watch good players and they are constantly tuning between songs.

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I get the knowing how to tune.  I've been doing that over the last year. 

 

However, the software I use requires a slight tune down in order to read the the notes.  If I tune the guitar to a proper tune, i.e. where my tuner says its in tune, that's another tune setting.  So there is at least 2 settings I have to contend with. 

 

I realize tuning is a basic part of the learning process.  But, I'd rather spend the time learning to play a song using the fret boards, strings, and timing.  I figure I'll refine what I've learned with different tunings. 

 

I feel if I have a guitar in tune when I use it while I'm learning, then I'll already know when its in tune when I get around to learning about tuning, fine tuning and alternative tunings.  I'd just rather learn about tuning later then sooner.  The fancy gadget allows me to do just that.

 

I just wanted to put out there the device fits on the Variax.  Thank you for your time and input gentlemen.

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However, the software I use requires a slight tune down in order to read the the notes. If I tune the guitar to a proper tune, i.e. where my tuner says its in tune, that's another tune setting. So there is at least 2 settings I have to contend with.

 

OK...but it's baffling why this is the case. Standard concert pitch is exactly that...standard. Why someone would design software that requires a peculiar "in between" tuning is beyond me, and as far as I'm concerned, is seriously detrimental for a beginner. And aside from being inconvenient in the extreme, it's not good for the strings, or the guitar itself. The strings will wear out faster. Also, keeping a guitar in playing order is tricky enough, with regard to action height and neck relief. It depends on keeping a number of variables relatively constant, which is basically impossible of the string tension is constantly changing.

 

I've been teaching lessons for many years...if a student came to me with a tool like this, I would discourage it's use. It's a hindrance in more ways than one.

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I have a Shadow e-Tuner, a D'Addario, and now the Tronical.  When they show in tune the software shows the guitar out of tune and the software can't read it.

 

The software is Youcisian.  I run it on a PC through an iRig HD.  Perhaps you can explain all that to them and they will fix their algorithyms.

 

With my work schedule and where I live, there is no music teacher available when I am. The software is available anytime I want to sit down and learn.  Perhaps it has something off on tuning.  But it does teach the basics in an interesting way.

 

If you have some other method that fulfills criteria to learn, please let me know what it is.

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I have a Shadow e-Tuner, a D'Addario, and now the Tronical. When they show in tune the software shows the guitar out of tune and the software can't read it.

 

The software is Youcisian. I run it on a PC through an iRig HD. Perhaps you can explain all that to them and they will fix their algorithyms.

 

With my work schedule and where I live, there is no music teacher available when I am. The software is available anytime I want to sit down and learn. Perhaps it has something off on tuning. But it does teach the basics in an interesting way.

 

If you have some other method that fulfills criteria to learn, please let me know what it is.

If both tuners indicate that the guitar is in tune, and they are both set to "A 440", but the software indicates otherwise, then it would seem that the software is at fault. The alternative is that you have two busted tuners, but that is rather unlikely.

 

The only other explanation is that both tuners are set to a pitch other than "A 440"...which could easily be the case. On some tuners it's easier than it should be to change the setting inadvertently, so I'd check that first.

 

As far as learning to tune...without knowing exactly what level you're at, it's hard to know where to start, but here's the Cliff Notes version:

 

Use a tuner to tune the low E string to pitch, then tune the rest of the strings by ear, relative to the low E. When you're done, use the tuner again to see how close you got by ear.

 

I'm assuming that the software covers the basic method to do this, detailing which fretted notes correspond to each open string pitch, etc etc. If not, it's easily Googled...just rather lengthy to try an explain in text.

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Don't be sorry!  We are here to help.  I agree that your Software is strange if it doesn't work with standard concert tuning.  Many tuners let you tune to other than concert pitch.  I find that playing with recorded music often has tuning issues.  I use a package called Transcribe that allows me to change the pitch of the songs in cents until it is in tune with my properly tuned guitar.  Some recorded songs are off a bunch for some reason.  It sounds  1000 percent better when your guitar is in tune with the song you are playing along with. :-)

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Some recorded songs are off a bunch for some reason.

I've got a theory about that...

 

It seems that it used to happen much more frequently years ago when everything was still being recorded analog on big 2" reels. Since mastering was/is usually done somewhere other than the studio where the original tracks are recorded, those reels are ending up on different machines. If one wasn't calibrated quite right, and moved the tape just a little faster or slower than the other, then the finished mix would end up just a few cents sharp, or flat. Often entire albums suffer from this. VH's first record comes to mind...yes, Eddie was tuning down a half-step in those days, but that whole record is approximately 1/4 step flat. There's no sane reason that they would deliberately tune down less than 1 semi-tone, unless they were completely winging it, sans-tuners of any kind ...which seems unlikely. Producers and engineers are wildly OCD. ;)

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  • 2 months later...

In reviewing this thread, I realize I didn't post any pictures up.  So here you go. 

 

Thanks a ton for that. I wondered whether the Standard's headstock was parallel to the neck or tilted (like the JTV-89 and -59). 

 

I have Tronical on my Stratocaster and on my Taylor acoustic. I'm a huge fan. I love how fast and accurate it is, and the multiple tuning versatility. Thanks for posting on this.

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