Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by beat 2969 days ago
There is video of the James Taylor tuning method on YouTube, by James Taylor himself. His way depends on using precise digital tuners for repeatability. I came to similar conclusions years ago, by ear, before discovering his video, and I still do it by ear, because every guitar is a little different. Modern Peterson strobe tuners and some others have "sweetening" modes that produce a similar outcome.

The end result is that the strings get increasingly flat as you go down, with the low E quite flat (like 18 cents or something). I like doing this by ear, because it varies by guitar, and also by tuning - I often use non-standard tunings, and modal tunings want a different sort of sweetening due to the octave and fifth relationships.