Can anyone suggest a guitar tuner that works? I have used the one with Power Tracks, a standalone Snark, and others, and have yet to find one that works well. The meter moves around the note I'm trying to tune to and can never seem to settle. Help appreciated!
Bernie

Over the years I have found that tuners bounce about a little. If however you have very new strings or very old strings this gets worse. Also if your strings are very light the meters bounce about a bit more. A strings natural vibration is not the same all the way from being hit to die down. If you tune to where the meter is about the middle you'll be close. As soon as you put your fingers on the string there will be slight variations anyhow. Most people tend to pull strings a little as they play ( by that I mean there is a slight shift in the way fingering is done).

My thoughts and experiences

Tony

Hi Bernier,

I love the Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner pedal. Easy to use, well-built, and can handle instrument or line-level signals. I've never had great luck with software tuners.

I have mine hooked up to a pre-fader send on my mixer, so I can use it to tune synths, guitars, bass drum on my drum machine, etc, by just turning the send knob on that instrument's channel. Can also just plug a guitar into it normally, I suppose.

https://www.boss.info/us/products/tu-3/

Cheers
Kent
PG Music

Hey brother,

Good advice here already given, so can only comment on what respected sages have already advised.

Short end of the stick is that you will never get your guitar tuned, no matter what software or hardware you use. Can't be done.

Problem is as already advised is that tuning wanders, made worse by lighter gage strings. When you first hit a note, the attack twang raises the string stress artificially making it like your guitar is tuned too sharp. Tune to this and your string is already fake news tuned flat. Note dies down and the tuning is different. There is no cure for this artifact but maybe part of the beauty of it all.

May be a blessing that your tuner flickers. Means it is sensitive enough to detect the wandering.

There are tuners software that are buffered to give a better estimation of where you need to be.

This is what I would advise as just another path dealing with the problem. You have already gotten good advice.

Reaper, a killer DAW. Not jump to Reaper from this venerable program, but download and install the free vst package they offer. This is the access:

https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/

Mind blowing in the extent of the offering. Fully compatible with PowerTracks. The package includes state of the art noise reduction, compressors, ReaControlMidi a revolution in midi tuning without artifacts. List goes on.

What you are looking at is ReaTune. Only thing I use, and it does flicker. For info only, Reatune is a full pro tone correction unit if you need it to do this. Like Melodyne only free.

Best,
John

Thanks John -looked at it and did not see Reatune. Please advise.
Thanks!

Bernier,

This took me by surprise because was sure that ReaTune was included. Possibly in an older release of the pack. Reaper of course has an unexpiring demo and can be used to access ReaTune. Though the demo is full function, there is the moral obligation to purchase after 60 days, so not really free.

Will get back a bit later, but as long as you got the free ReaPlugs vst suite, would add a couple comments on the included plugins. My opinion, anyone running PowerTracks should have these tools in their kit.

Will also get a couple links to the buffered tuners available that filter out some of the jitter. Part of some teaser demos that give you a lot more than just the tuner as well.

John

Bernier,

It’s not that all of the Reaplugs are great. The delay can be found better elsewhere for free. There are however some keepers, vst and fully compatible with PowerTracks.

Reaeq, my go to parametric especially for guitar. Just seems to make the visualization sound connection clear. Very clean and transparent with a lot of customization.

The two compressors (single and multiband) are excellent.

ReaFir FFT unit, lot of which I don’t understand, but can analyze background noise to take the pattern out of an audio file. Lots of other functions but this is what I use it for. Same quality as something like Adobe Audition.

ReaGate, an excellent and versatile noise gate.

ReaStream so you can jam live with an international community.

ReaJS is a feast of plugins and ability to tweek and write your own, but just for their JS extension.

ReaControlMidi is a go to for anything dealing with keyboard tuning or CC messages. Hi point for me is the tuning by pitch wheel slider. Far better precision than a cents control. No resampling artifacts.

Sorry about ReaTune. Checked their forum and someone else also remembered that ReaTune was included in the suite at some point.

Here are a couple good tuners available in lite versions or demos.

Amplitube 4 (or the Custom Shop)

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/amplitubecs/

Jamorigin Midi Guitar has a demo (note recognition cuts out occasionally) but has a great tuner with the option of several different tuning modes or your custom tunings. This is about your best bet for reduced jittering and closer to what you are looking for.

https://www.jamorigin.com/

Best,
John

Thanks so much for your wisdom John!

Thanks Bernier,

Less wisdom than crude street smarts. Only thing I should add is about the Jamorigin tuner. The thing is nice, precise, buffered, about the best offering out there regarding stability and versatility. Just hard to locate in the program.

The main page tuner setup opens up a lot of different tunings and the ability to create your own spec outside of standard EADGBE, beyond the generous presets.

Getting to the actual tuner is a bit obscure though. Simple but hidden. You have to go to the Tool tab and select Poly Tuner. Should all be a downhill skate from there.

The Amplitube tuner boasts precision of 1/100 cent and claims they are the best on the market. Maybe until when we get to that level of precision versus the wandering of strings will it be of any added benefit. Like trying to thread a needle with a sledge hammer. Heavier gage strings on the guitar cut out more of the wandering while trying to tune. Looking at the different vst tuners, and the Midi Guitar from Jamorigin is about as good as good as physics allows it to get. Best to you.

John