Planet Waves NS Mini Headstock Tuner

Planet Waves NS Mini Headstock Tuner Review

By Pappy

You know what I find indispensible now?  My Planet Waves headstock tuner.  It’s small, no-nonsense, looks good and it works.  All the time.  I just leave it on whatever guitar I’m using the most and whenever I pick it up to play it, I tune it first.  How could I not when it’s so easy to do?  A click of a button and then I can start turning machine heads and I always play in tune.

It’s great.

But there’s another thing I love:

Telecasters and Tele-shaped guitars.

The problem with my Planet Waves tuner is that it needs a bit of meat on the headstock for it to grab on to and my Flatline Delta 90 does not have enough real estate to make a good grab and start tuning.

And now that I’ve become so used to tuning before playing now, it feels WRONG not to.  And don’t even suggest using an old-fashioned tuner with a cord attached – do I look like some sort of animal?  I keep a Squier Tele behind the couch in my living room and I pull it out when I’m watching TV.  It’s the end of the day and I’m tired and I really don’t’ want to walk ALL the way to the other side of the house to plug into a tuner (because you want to keep your cords with your amp).  My motivation at the end of the day is… lacking.

But now it’s a complete non-issue!  Planet Waves released an even smaller clip-on tuner that clips to the bottom of the headstock and wraps around.  Basically it seems like it was made specifically for a Telecaster or headstocks without much space.  Now, if you have guitars with three tuners on a side or similar, there may be issues and the normal Planet Waves tuner is probably more up your alley, but any six-on-a-side headstock will benefit with this on it.

See how little of the headstock is taken up with the tuner?  I can still see the model name!

And you as a guitarist can improve your ear because you’ll always be playing a guitar that’s in tune.  Once you start playing in tune and tuning every time you start to play, you eventually achieve a lower tolerance for out-of-tune strings and notes.  If you are always playing out of tune, you only know you’re IN tune when you use a device but if you’re always starting out IN tune, it becomes easier to pick out strings that are a little flat or sharp.

Action shot!  Screen is easily readable in both light and dark situations.

Planet Waves has always been making cool stuff from cords to straps to locking tuning machines that automatically clip your strings and now, headstock tuners that offer quality tuning at a small price.  At a price like this, you can get one kind of tuner for each of your guitars and never have to worry about swapping out to another one.

Off the guitar, it actually looks bigger, but it still easily fits in the palm of a small hand.

Do I recommend it?  As a Tele player, I INSIST on it.  The more in tune you are as a player, the better you’ll sound and if you’re anything like me, every little bit of goodness helps.

XXX---XXX

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