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tadfisheryesterday at 6:55 PM1 replyview on HN

Humans are also not perfect at fretting with the exact same pressure every time, or without inducing some bend in the strings. This is really noticeable with the G string which always sounds out of tune while playing, because our tuning system gives it a half-step-down intonation as a trade-off to make it easier to form chords.

James Taylor compensates by tuning everything down a few cents, between -12 at the low E and -3 at the high E, with a little break in the pattern with -4 cents at the G to deal with its weirdness. Good electronic tuners have "sweetened" presets which do something similar.


Replies

allearstoday at 2:32 AM

Peterson guitar tuners can do custom tunings, and have the James Taylor tuning built in as a preset. (On Peterson tuners, it's called the 'acoustic' preset, but is actually the JT tuning.)