Dobro tuner

The strings in Hz

High-bass G (G B D G B D)

Other tunings

At A4 = 440 Hz; the reference switch above moves them all.

How to tune a dobro with this tuner

Tap Start tuning and allow the microphone. The tuner asks for the low G on the sixth string first: pick it with the bar off the strings and let it ring. Turn the key until the needle stands in the middle; at five cents or closer the tick comes and the tuner asks for the next string. To go in another order, tap a string's note or just play that string: the tuner follows the one you play. It runs in the phone's browser, Android or iPhone: no app to install, no account. With the microphone off, a tap plays the note; on a phone's speaker the low G (in open D the low D) sounds an octave up.

Bluegrass players tune the Gs and Ds first and the Bs last, in Andy Hall's order: the third string (G3), the first (D4), the fourth (D3), the sixth (G2), then both Bs against the chord they make. A dobro is tuned to a chord, so a string that's off shows the moment you lay the bar across all six. Strum the open strings at the end and listen.

Why the B strings go a little flat

An open-tuned dobro plays its chords with a straight bar, so every chord carries the tuning's major third, the B over the G. In equal temperament, which the needle shows, that third is 400 cents wide; a pure third, the one that rings without a wobble, is 386. That's why players tune the Bs "one or two notches flat" (Andy Hall): about 7 cents low is the halfway compromise, 14 cents low a pure third. The cents on this tuner show it: stop the B at around 7 under, ignore the missing tick, and tap the next string. Playing with a piano or a keyboard, stay closer to zero; their B is the equal-tempered one.

Dobro open G is not guitar open G

Two tunings are called open G, and they disagree at the bottom. The round-neck slide guitar's open G is D G D G B D, low bass (Keith Richards plays it with the sixth string left off). The square-neck dobro's is G B D G B D, high bass: the sixth string goes up a fourth, from D2 to G2, and the fifth up a third, from G2 to B2. Tune a dobro from a guitar's open G chart and those two strings end up a fourth and a third too low, slack on the heavy bass strings a dobro set has. A round-neck resonator played with a bottleneck usually takes the low-bass version; that one is on the guitar tuner's open G switch.

Dobro tunings: open G, open D, open E

Open D is the second switch above, the blues and old-time sound. From high-bass G, the fourth and first strings stay where they are; the sixth drops a fourth to D, the fifth and second a whole tone to A, the third a semitone to F♯. Open E, from high-bass G: the sixth drops a minor third to E, the fourth and first go up a whole tone to E, the third up a semitone to G♯, and the two Bs stay. The strings raised a whole tone carry about 26 % more tension on a set made for G, so many players stay in open D and put a capo at the second fret, which gives the same open E chord. Open E and low-bass G tune on the chromatic tuner, which names any note.

With a capo on, the strings sound higher than the switch's notes: check them on the chromatic tuner, which names what it hears (capo 2 on high-bass G reads A C♯ E A C♯ E). A square-neck capo sits over the fret line like the bar, so it barely pulls the strings sharp.

Strings and setup that keep a dobro in tune

A square-neck dobro takes a resophonic set, heavier than an acoustic guitar's: a typical one runs .016 .018 .028 .036 .046 .056, made for high-bass G. Light guitar strings buzz under the bar and drive the cone less.

Change strings one at a time. The strings' pressure holds the bridge (the biscuit or the spider) and the cone in place; take all six off and the cone can shift, and the dobro won't sound or play in tune the same until it's seated again. New strings stretch: after tuning, pull each one gently away from the cover plate, tune again, and repeat three or four times.

A square neck has a raised nut, and the strings never touch the frets: the bar is the fret. In tune means the bar sits right over the fret line, not behind it the way a finger would. To check yourself, lay the bar over the 12th fret line and pick the sixth string: the tuner reads that G3 as the open G and shows how far the bar is off.

Dobro, resonator guitar, slide guitar

A resonator guitar has a spun aluminium cone in its body that the bridge drives like a loudspeaker; it was built for volume before amplifiers. Dobro is a brand: the Dopyera brothers started it in the late 1920s, and the name is both dobro, "good" in Slovak, and short for Dopyera brothers. Gibson has owned the name since 1993, and everyone uses it for the wood-bodied, single-cone resonator anyway. A square-neck dobro is played flat, face up, with a steel bar; a round-neck resonator can be fretted like a guitar or played with a slide. Slide guitar is a way of playing, on any guitar; the dobro is built for it. Its electric cousin is the lap steel, usually in C6 (lap steel tuner).

Jerry Douglas's tuning, and is dobro harder than guitar?

Jerry Douglas plays high-bass G, G B D G B D, for nearly everything, as Josh Graves and Mike Auldridge did before him; it's the tuning bluegrass dobro is taught in. Is it harder than guitar? The first steps are easier: in open G a straight bar across the strings is a major chord, so the bar over the 5th fret is C and over the 7th is D, and a three-chord song needs no fingering at all. What takes years is the bar: with nothing to press against, every note's pitch is your eye and your ear.

The notes you tuned go into Brumm as a short melody over a beat.