Pitch Control for CD player?

Ron Thompson · Post by **Ron Thompson** » 13 Sep 2002 11:26 am

I am going to purchase a CD player and was wondering if I should get one with a pitch control. Is it necessary or are most CD's in pitch with our guitars.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 13 Sep 2002 3:01 pm

Most are dead-on with the 440 standard. The very few you find that are not will be good practice for "playing in the cracks"! (That's an old piano player's joke.)

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 13 Sep 2002 6:39 pm

I try to play along with CDs a lot and find that many cuts are not A440, especially reissues of old recordings. I had an adjustable pitch turntable that served me well until CDs came along. I wish I had looked around for an adjustable pitch CD player when I bought mine.

There are several reasons some cuts are not A440. Years ago people simply didn't always bother to tune guitars standard if there wasn't a piano involved. Older recording equipment may have been off a little, and if a cut goes through two or more pieces of equipment that are slightly off in the same direction, now it's way off. Recording engineers sometimes shift things up a little to pick up the tempo and brighten up the sound.

It's not so bad if you are running through a bunch of cuts and one or two are off a little. But it's irritating as hell if the one song you want to go over several times is off.

I'm not sure what value there is to practicing playing between the frets. Playing along with CDs, tapes and radio is about the only time I run across the problem. Most live groups these days stay close to A440 with their little battery operated tuners, even if there is no keyboard. Some groups will drift a little off during long sets, but you will probably automatically adjust to that by ear except for open strings, which most pedal steelers don't play on much these days.

Anyway, that's my meager experience. Get an adjustable CD player. You'll be glad you did for that one tough golden oldy you just gotta learn.

Gary Walker · Post by **Gary Walker** » 13 Sep 2002 7:25 pm

As stated before, a CD player is digital and not analog. A speed or so-called pitch control would not change the tuning, just the speed of the music.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 13 Sep 2002 9:22 pm

Well, that depends. There is digital equipment that will simply speed up or slow the music without changing the pitch. this is good for picking apart fast licks. There is other equipment that will change the pitch. Ask a knowledgeable audio salesperson to be sure what you are getting.

erik · Post by **erik** » 14 Sep 2002 4:41 am

You can get rack mount DJ CD players with pitch control for $100. If you want the kind that does both pitch AND/OR slow down then you can expect to pay much more.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 14 Sep 2002 5:40 am

<SMALL>I'm not sure what value there is to practicing playing between the frets.</SMALL>

Well, it will really help your intonation when you try it once in awhile. You see, it makes you really listen to what you're doing, instead of just "watching the frets". (Some players cringe when they hear themselves the first time on a recording!) Buddy Emmons, as well as a few other players, have actually played steels with no fretboards!

I will admit that some of the older recordings were less than perfect, as far as being in "standard". This was due to the lack of a tuning standard (pitchfork), as well as the "less than perfect" recording equipment that was used decades ago.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 14 Sep 2002 7:23 am

Can't argue with you on that, Donny. Playing steel is an eye-ear thing. The eyes get you close, but the ears have to do the fine pitch control. Anything that helps make that more automatic is probably good. It probably does help your ears to practice between the frets or with something covering the fretboard.

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 14 Sep 2002 8:29 am

My solution was to record any out of tune rhythm tracks on CD, to cassette (many cassette decks have pitch control).

I use rythm tracks from many sources, many of which are only available on cassette, and when availalbe on CD or Cassette, I often opt for cassette, for ease of pitch control.

I have a dual deck cassette recorder (Sony) that has pitch control on one side, and you record on the other side.
This way I can dial in the right tuning, and record it at the right pitch at the same time, on the same unit.

I've had CD rhythm tracks that were just a hair off 440, or that I wanted to slow down or speed up a half or whole step.

For example I got a rhythm track for Lonesome Fugative and it was in F# (F#???), and I wanted it in F (or G).
Record to cassette, change the pitch, and either burn it back to CD, or MD (I mainly use MD myself) or just use the cassette deck.

Jeff Newman has rhythm tracks called Star Tracks on cassette, and Panhandle Rag is so fast that I had to dial it down a full step from E to D.
Same thing with some Herby Wallace rhythm tracks that only come on cassette.
I had to slow 'em down so I could enjoy playing along with them.

I don't reccomend changing pitch more than a whole step because they start to sound a little funky.

Also, I run my rhythm tracks through a BBE Sonic Maximizer to get them sounding better.

Now I have one Mini-Disk, with rhythm tracks from many sources, dialed in to the key/pitch I want them.

The coolest thing I recently found is that you can record your rhythm tracks onto a digital multitracker, and pull out all the fiddle, piano, guitar solos, and repeat the steel solo as many times as you want!
Cool!