The first tuner I ever received was from a girlfriend of my father’s. Up until then, I ALWAYS had a guitar with me and it was almost always out of tune. This makes me think that perhaps it was just as much a gift for her as it was to me. It doesn’t matter, either ay because I LOVED that tuner. Finally, I was able to sound good (or at least sound better) and more on par with the music I was playing along with.
It’s not like I was oblivious to the fact I was out of tune. It caused me to wince and frown just as often as it did everyone else when a string was out of tune. I’m just tone deaf to the level of not being able to tune by myself.
I still have that tuner and it is my main one. I have a pocket tuner that I accidentally acquired from a bassist friend that I hope to one day give back and I have a pretty nice looking Fender floor tuner but I always end up bringing along my old trusty one. It’s durable and it’s lasted for eleven years. Eleven years of being thrown in guitar cases or across the room by a teenager as well as withstanding multiple moves and packing jobs all while losing only the cover for the battery compartment is pretty good.
But it turns out that is isn’t all that accurate. I mean, it gets the job done, but I was shocked at how far off it was once I compared it to Planet Waves’ Strobe Tuner which is a pedal of the coolest-looking variety with a dark chrome finish to the pedal, a super easy to access battery compartment and a backlit (that can be toggled on or off) display as well as two out jacks for audible and inaudible tuning.
I tried to tune my Telecaster and what my old tuner would say is right on par, the PW tuner would say is sharp or flat. There was ZERO instances where my guitar was in tune which made me hate my guitar’s tuners and appreciate a higher turn ratio – something I never cared about in the past. But even when the strings were tuned just a little sharp the guitar sounded better than it ever did when tuned to pitch with my other tuner.
It’s been quite the revelation, from me wanting to get new tuners that can get my strings that apparently oh-so-gray line of being in tune, to me looking at my old tuner with a distrusting face. It’s been worth it though. I feel like this is a lesson that I was bound to learn eventually and what better, less arguable way to learn it than by having your tuner pedal tell you?
I recommend it if you’re looking for a tuner for home or stage use or even if you think you can do better than your current one because if you’re anything like me you can and in a big way.
-Pappy
4 comments:
That's terrific news: the one thing that I require in a tuner (besides accuracy) is the "BYPASS" mode, or what I presume you're referring to here as "Audible Tuning". My Boss TU-2 has the two output jacks, but most tuners do NOT.
I have a Tuner output from my amp that runs into my Tuner - my guitar doesn't go through the tuner to the amp. But my guitar DOES go from the tuner to our vocalists Digitech Vocalist Live 4 as a reference frequency so that the Digitech piece can choose the right harmony pitch. By having the bypass mode I can leave my tuner on all the time, but the pure (un-effected, since all effects are generated by the amp) guitar goes to the Vocalist processor.
Now I need to try an A/B shootout of the TU-2 versus the PW Strobe. (Sadly I haven't found a Petersen that includes the necessary bypass, or it would have been a no-brainer.)
Incidentally, Boss has a new TU-3 that they claim is superior to the TU-2, so if I find the PW to not be an upgrade, I may just try the TU-3. Right now I'm not sure ANY of these are in the budget, but at least there are options!
Thanks Pappy!
I mostly tune up through Guitar Rig these days. It's a shame I don't have something I know to be super accurate; I'd be interested to see how well GR does the job.
Interesting. My question is how accurate do you need the tuner to be? If you think about it, even if you tune the strings perfectly, as soon as you fret a note it will be slightly out of tune. - Steve Vai explains this very well in a video I saw. He has custom made necks with 'bent' frets that correct this problem. Very interesting to see him play it.
But for the rest of us, there is a point where you need to say to yourself "its close enough". Just food for thought for everybody.
VERY good point, Aaron. As a fan of bar bridges that float, it would be hypocritical of me to claim devout loyalty to tuning and intonation and this is guitar playing we're talking about, not surgery. There's room for slightly out of tune in this world of rock and roll.
However, the general sound I was getting from my Telecaster after using this tuner kind of opened my eyes to the possibility and while being perfectly in tune can be fruitless without crazy things like bent frets like you pointed out, I would like it to be as close as possible without it becoming a hinderance to my playing.
Just like how a guitarist wants to play to the best of their ability, most would like their guitars to do the same.
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