Is it possible for BIAB to drift away from A440?

My guitar is set to an electronic tuner and its sounding
out of tune with my biab progression.

thanks

What version of BIAB are you using?

Also, are you using Realtrack backings or is it a MIDI backing that's playing?

Hi,

that was weird! I decided to change strings waiting
, hopefully, for replies.

Strings changed. Tuning back up.

I now noticed - for the first time- under the main TUNER note in small letters: A 430. HUH?

This is a cheap headstock tuner which works great
for relative tuning. but there are zero controls on it.

Anyway, I pulled the battery, reinserted. SMALL
letters now say A440. Phew.

So all seems well.

[I originally though biab could possible be set to
alternated A pitches and that was my problem?]

thanks

I can’t count how many times guitarists have lost correct calibration on guitar tuners. Can really cause arguments until you figure it out. A=430 is really low, however. 432 is used on occasion.

Sometimes when using BIAB and a DAW and audio interface and I leave the room long enough for the computer to go into sleep mode, something goes wrong with the clock-synch. BIAB and the DAW playback faster and the pitch raises. Reboot clears it all up.

I'm thinking that could more likely be your sound card, jumping to 48 KHz from 44.1. If the pitch went up a little under a minor third, that's probably what happened.

Matt, you are probably right about 44.1 going to 48 causing my occasional speed up and pitch change after sleep mode.

John, if so, there are a few precautions you could take.

1) especially if this is a desktop, change your Windows / Control Panel / power settings so everything is always on, particularly the settings for USB if your sound card is a USB device

2) check the Windows sound mixer advanced settings and make sure it is set at 44.1, not 48; it should say 2-channel, 16-bit, 44.100 Hz CD Quality

3) consider disabling any sleep mode / hibernate settings (especially on a desktop) because device drivers don't always get correctly reset after a PC wakes up

If you need better instructions on how to do these things, let us know and we can provide better detail.

I have an old synth that is tuned to A=442. I don't know why, and I have to calibrate it every time I use it. No biggie, a couple of unison button pushes and a knob twist.

I have read that some orchestras, NY Phil and many of the European symphonies tune to A=442, so perhaps that's it.

Now my saxophone, like all woodwinds, is not in tune with itself. I have to 'lip' each note to play it in tune. So when I get a new sax, I play all the notes in front of a tuner to see which ones are out and by how much. This gives my mind a ball park of which direction to lip each note.

Then when I tune, I tune the sax to the note that registers the flattest while "lipping" the sax up as high as possible. That way I know when I play I can play in tune

Then while playing, I use my ears and my lip. It's done automatically, it's just part of playing the horn.

Often I'll play a note out of tune intentionally, a little flat to add tension and gradually pulling up to pitch, a little sharp to add brightness, or whatever. It's like bending a guitar string or using the whammy.

Notes

Bob, you're a far better woodwind player than I will ever be, so you probably know most modern flutes are cut to be able to tune as far up as A=442. Comes in handy when the guitarist tunes by ear on the high side. My Powell is great but my Emerson alto flute topped out at 440, so I (gasp!) used a pipe cutter and shortened the lead pipe. You do what you have to do.

I have a Selmer flute and I have no idea if it will tune to A=442. I'll have to try it.

My Selmer saxophones (Modele 26, Mark VI and Mark VII) have always played sharp so that my mouthpiece is at the very end of the cork. I've had other saxophones from Conn, Couf, King, Grassi, MacSax (boutique custom job), and Yamaha that tune with the mouthpiece in the middle of the cork or pushed in further. On the Sax On The Web Forum I found others have this Selmer 'problem' and people who don't have this problem can't understand it. And yes, I tried different mouthpieces.

Playing with guitarists keeps my ears in practice. As the guitar cools off it goes sharp, as the sax cools off it goes flat. So when I was in a guitar band, and we played where the temperature varied, I had to constantly adjust to be able to play in tune with them. After all they tune 6 strings and I have only one adjustment so that's the way it should be.

This confused me for a long time. Why? I can see the guitars because metal contracts when it's cold. Just look at the amount of sag on power or telephone lines between a summer and winter day to illustrate that. So cold weather makes the string tighter, and conversely warm makes it looser.

But the sax?

After much googling I found that the speed of sound is slower when the air is cold. This makes the horn seem longer to the sound waves, and thus it is lower in pitch. The opposite is true for warm air.

Another thing about intonation. Synths use equal temperament and our ears like just intonation. There is a difference in the blending of notes. Also a good piano uses 'stretch tuning' making the high notes a little sharper and the low ones flatter.

When doing backing tracks for my duo, I often separate the notes in say a horn section and de-tune them from equal temperament to make them sound more like just intonation. I figure horn players like myself do this automatically, so if I do this, it will sound better. Since I don't have a formula, it takes a lot of tweaking, listening, tweaking and listening but it's worth it. After all if I'm lucky I'll play that song a zillion times.

I hope I haven't drifted off thread too much.

Insights and incites by Notes

Love it. Thanks for the trip, Bob. I can’t hold my Mark VI tenor without aches anymore but I still play soprano, which I describe to others as like trying to herd cats.

I never bonded to soprano. Alto, Tenor and Bari I do fine with, and although I of course can play Soprano, I just don't like what I play on it. Perhaps the sound is too nasal or edgy -- I'm not sure.

When doing just intonation on MIDI ensembles, it's best to just do the long notes, it takes too much time for not so noticeable results on the shorter ones. Sometime I just do a version of 'stretch tuning' on horn/string parts, and that gives pleasing results.

Insights and incites by Notes

I installed the 2019 update and started playing along with my guitar, had a moment of "whaaa???" as it seemed BIAB was playing 1/2 tone sharp.
Read the posts and saw the comment about "cheap headstock tuner," which I use. Got out my old tuning fork (remember those?) and it agreed with BIAB, not my guitar or its tuner.
Lesson learned - tuner battery gets weak, it tunes flat. Blame the battery (or cheap headstock tuner), not BIAB!!
Now I won't wonder why on earth I tuned to Eb!!
Happy new year, BIAB fans!

Glad to hear that’s resolved via your guitar tuner.