Tune your pedal steel to Modern Newman (SE9) (e9 neck) with a strobe display that resolves to less than 0.1 cent. The table below lists every target string; click to launch the tuner already set to Modern Newman (SE9).
Open the free Modern Newman (SE9) tuner| # | Note | Hz | Cents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | B2 | 123.5 | 7.9 |
| 2 | D3 | 146.8 | 5.9 |
| 3 | E3 | 164.8 | 9.8 |
| 4 | F#3 | 185.0 | 5.9 |
| 5 | G#3 | 207.7 | -3.9 |
| 6 | B3 | 246.9 | 7.9 |
| 7 | E4 | 329.6 | 9.8 |
| 8 | G#4 | 415.3 | -3.9 |
| 9 | D#4 | 311.1 | -3.9 |
| 10 | F#4 | 370.0 | 5.9 |
Pedal-steel players rarely tune to pure equal temperament. They sweeten the tuning, offsetting individual notes by fractions of a cent so common chords ring beatless. These offsets are not random: Jeff Newman measured the instruments of working professionals and averaged them into the system taught at Jeffran College.
On a classic hardware strobe (Peterson, Conn), a black-and-white patterned wheel spins at a reference rate while a signal-driven strobe lamp fires once per cycle of the played note. To sweeten a string you changed the tuner's internal reference frequency before tuning that string, which changed the rate the wheel spun, until the pattern froze at the sweetened pitch - one reference change per string.
StroboPro computes each string's exact target frequency directly from its cents offset against a single A4 = 440 Hz reference, then locks its multi-harmonic strobe rings to that exact frequency. There is no reference to juggle and no wheel to re-rate - the sweetening is built into the target, per string, automatically.
Offsets are derived from Newman's per-string chart, which lists each note as a tuner-calibration Hz value relative to A4 = 440 (not the note's absolute frequency). Exact conversion: cents = 1200 * log2(calibration_Hz / 440). The widely-circulated "1 Hz = 4 cents" chart is a rounded approximation of these same values.
Source: Jeff Newman's tuning charts (jeffran.com, Wayback Machine).
SE9 is Newman's later E9 temperament. The E strings are pre-compensated +9.8 cents sharp to offset cabinet drop (the slight pitch sag when pedals and levers engage); thirds and fifths are sweetened toward beatless just intervals.
| String | Note | Newman calibration Hz | Cents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | F#4 | 441.5 | +5.9 |
| 2 | D#4 | 439.0 | -3.9 |
| 3 | G#4 | 439.0 | -3.9 |
| 4 | E4 | 442.5 | +9.8 |
| 5 | B3 | 442.0 | +7.9 |
| 6 | G#3 | 439.0 | -3.9 |
| 7 | F#3 | 441.5 | +5.9 |
| 8 | E3 | 442.5 | +9.8 |
| 9 | D3 | 441.5 | +5.9 |
| 10 | B2 | 442.0 | +7.9 |
A needle answers "what is the average pitch right now?" A multi-harmonic strobe adds an extra layer to the tuning visualization by showing several harmonics at once, so you can fine-tune more confidently to fractions of a cent.
Published by Applicaudia, the maker of StroboPro. The less than 0.1 cent figure describes the tuner's display resolution, not a lab-measured accuracy specification. Frequency values are equal-temperament approximations.