How do you know when it's at perfect pitch?

[pumpkinfoot]

i may be able to find the answer to this if i drift through all of the pages... however, if i could get a quick, powerful, and important response on this... because i am sure, many many many people who use the SP, LP, or whatever it may be have this question...

How do you set the pitch to be perfect pitch as it would be on the slim phatty to my midi keyboard? What do I have to do to get perfect pitch? (since I recently downloaded the 3.1 firmware version..... is everything already set to perfect pitch at the initial patch setting?

[Electrolight]

I don't know if this is what you mean, but I use a guitar tuner that I connect to my headphone output, so that I can mute my master and tune the LP

[ark]

Set tuning to auto?

[praxisaxis]

Run it through a tuner, either in your DAW or just some guitar tuner.

You can tune it equally well by ear:

* Set it to sine wave, turn osc 2 down to nothing.
* play a pitch from somewhere else that you want to tune to. Ideally have this as a sine wave.
* play a note around middle C on both devices. When they are closely in tune but not quite, you will hear "beating." As the notes become closer in pitch, the beating will slow in speed. When they are close to being perfect, the beating will be very slow - maybe seconds between each beat.
* turn the tuning pitch off. Bring up osc 2 and tune it to osc 1 in the way described above.

[anchovyd]

Yeah I want to know this too. Last week at rehearsal I was playing it and it seemed way out of tune. I went into the menus to check because something sounded off, AutoTune was on and the little numbers were changing. But it wasn't at A440. I had to go to manual tune and manually tune it to a note on my organ.

Is there a way to always have it at A440? Or is this something that I will need to tune every rehearsal like a guitar. I suppose that I could get that Peterson Strobe iPod Touch app and use that. The whole calibration/autotune thing is confusing to me. I'm not sure if autotune just makes sure the keyboard is tuned to itself or a reference of A440 and calibration seems like it tunes as well but also monkeys around with the pitch and mod wheels.

Ciao,
AnchovyD

[praxisaxis]

Or is this something that I will need to tune every rehearsal like a guitar.

The LP has an autotune feature, but I've not tried it. I tune it every time I use it by ear, after all it is analogue. It doesn't hurt learning how; tuning is not a foreign concept for instrumentalists - not just guitar but a lot of acoustic instruments need to be warmed up and/or tuned on most occasions before playing: woodwinds, brass, strings, and some percussion (including drums).

Tuning the LP by ear takes approximately 10-20 seconds once it is warm. Not everything in life is automatic!

[anchovyd]

Tuning the LP by ear takes approximately 10-20 seconds once it is warm. Not everything in life is automatic!

I know that pretty much everything needs tuning before a session but it is a pain with the Phatty for two reasons:

1) I also play organ and its tuning is solid and it is hard to hit two notes at the same time and turn the tuning dial with the Phatty. I need either longer fingers or three hands. I can't just ask the guitarist or bassist to give me an A because who knows where these guys are...

2) This is the bigger problem, my Phatty's oscillators drift in tuning from one session to the next. I set up patches with the oscillators in unison or at fifths and no beating, then three or four days later at rehearsal they are throbbing. And some where I tune it to slightly beat like a chorus effect are really out of whack and I have to touch them up while we play.

I would like for it to be rock solid in the tuning department or at least be able to tune the oscillators up when the led rings are spinning at boot up so that my patches don't sound so off. I know that it is analog, but I didn't know it was this analog. I guess that it is good to know that my machine is alive. Tuning once per session isn't a big deal but tuning the second oscillator with every patch is drag city.

Peace,
AnchovyD

[CTRLSHFT]

After I go through the regular warm up period I usually just "solo" osc 1 and play this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQL3ljDHV_E

[praxisaxis]

1) I also play organ and its tuning is solid and it is hard to hit two notes at the same time and turn the tuning dial with the Phatty. I need either longer fingers or three hands.

I know what you mean. On a Voyager there's a handy keyboard off switch, so it's easy to start a note and leave it running. On the Phatty you could instead dial the volume envelope release all the way to full while you're tuning - then you don't have to hold the note - that's pretty easy.

2) This is the bigger problem, my Phatty's oscillators drift in tuning from one session to the next. I set up patches with the oscillators in unison or at fifths and no beating, then three or four days later at rehearsal they are throbbing. And some where I tune it to slightly beat like a chorus effect are really out of whack and I have to touch them up while we play.

Unless 2 oscs are absolutely, perfectly in tune, they will always beat at least at a slow rate. The oscs will rarely maintain exact pitches because it is analogue, therefore you cannot save a "non-beating patch" as such, as a preset. Nor will you be able to effectively save a very specific type of beating in a patch. That's the nature of the beast: you have to think of it more like a guitar or trumpet, and less like a computer . Players of acoustic instruments get used to tuning on the fly, and trust me, it's possible on the Phatty too (I've played acoustic and electronic instruments).

On my LP the oscs drift a bit and the pitch beats, but it rarely detunes so much that you'd think they were different pitches (however I am mainly in a studio so the environment isn't changing often). If they are detuning so much that they are distinguishably different pitches, then that is problematic (you could post about it here and get a response from one of the Moog guys).

[Assar]

"How do you know when it's at perfect pitch?"

+

[magnet]

Heh- been following this for awhile. Decided to settle my own bet as to MY hearing.
So I bought a SNARK "all instrument tuner", model SN-4, from Amazon. $14 USD. Smaller than a deck of cards.
Lots of features. (www.Snarktuners.com) Wonderful display, and fast response time. Even fetches note when oscillators
are 'singing'. I found that I was a very few cents off, and that both my Voyager and LP Tribute were pretty evenly weighted
across the keyboard. I was very surprised, as I hear quite a few complaints. Oh, I got a few sharps, but nothing terrible. I haven't had it long enough to check for heat stability, all tests were without warm up. But for the $, settles MY bet.

best, hope this helps...someone.
-me.-

[Assar]

Actually, I use the tuner in this app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... J0dW5lciJd

I put it in front of my speaker.

[newtoslim]

Run it through a tuner, either in your DAW or just some guitar tuner.

You can tune it equally well by ear:

* Set it to sine wave, turn osc 2 down to nothing.
* play a pitch from somewhere else that you want to tune to. Ideally have this as a sine wave.
* play a note around middle C on both devices. When they are closely in tune but not quite, you will hear "beating." As the notes become closer in pitch, the beating will slow in speed. When they are close to being perfect, the beating will be very slow - maybe seconds between each beat.
* turn the tuning pitch off. Bring up osc 2 and tune it to osc 1 in the way described above.

good advice.

add the following tips and tricks:

sine waves are teoretically perfect but will make difficult to detect beating. try triangle waves.

saw waves are the easiest to detect, but they can become "pleasing" to the ear and still be out of tune. You hear "fat" and think "good", and you are wrong as far as tuning is concerned.

don't use square waves

completely open the filter and set resonance to zero.

of course, use flat envelopes and forget about any lfo or pitch modulation (yes, I once tried tuning a synth with aftertouch routed to pitch modulation... ).

the same is true for BOTH instrument (the one to be tuned, and the one you use for reference)

check that the OSCs are on the same foot (if, e.g. you use as a reference a digital rompler, which is supposed to be perfectly tuned, check you don't have one OSC's waveform set to 8' and the other set to 16').

Avoid using as a reference composite sounds (rhodes emulations with tines possibly detuned): they are the closest thing a rompler can produce, comparable to a diapason, but they hide plenty of funny harmonics

Finally: it is true that slow beating will always happen. Don't go for perfection by ear, based on beatings.

Rather, repeat the process one octave belowe and one octave above C4. This will help you avoid mistakes.

Check lowest C and highest C. I learnt that with modular synths. A perfectly tuned C4 would sometimes turn into a nasty screeching "emerson on a drinking binge" solo.

what else?

Oh, right:

don't ask your guitar player to help with with tuning They take HOURS tuning a TV set

[Adam-T]

I use the Autotune now mine as an OS with the Feature in it .

If Autotune is good enough for a 1982 MemoryMoog, a 1979 OBX or a 1978 Prophet-5 then it`s fine for a 21st century synth like the LP. Why make life hard for yourself ? . if you need an alternative tuning then disable and mess about.