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Hi folks, Just wondering what stand alone tuner do you use for your guitar (other than the clip on headstock type) I have been using this one for last 20 years, same as this one advertised on ebay, Wouldn't mind a second. |Lock on guitar Tuner I do a search now and again but very few available in UK and the US ones are usually a good price if I was to pay the cost to ship to here. I have found it to be a great little tuner and so easy on batteries, usually I just reuse the smoke alarm battery (when it starts beeping in alarm) and get many more months of use out of it in tuner. Tuner was really expensive 20 years ago £50 probably that equates to $70-80 at the time. Musiclover
Last edited by musiclover; 01/23/17 07:05 AM.
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Rarely need a standalone tuner. Would not recommend Snark. Mine would read bad before the battery warning light said batteries needed replacing. My intellitouch works well. That brand started the clip on tuner market. Mine has worked since I got it in 2003 or so. These days I use the built in tuning function of my amp simulators or a couple different iPhone apps that work great and are free. Apps to check out are nTrack tuner and PitchLab tuners
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I'm going to weigh in favorably on SNARK for a couple of reasons:
1) Price. They are very inexpensive
2) They're clip-on, so you can use them for acoustic instruments too
3) some of my other tuners only show EBGDAE... which is great for guitar, but useless for other instruments or for special tunings. Snark reports all of the notes
4) some tuners are 'jumpy", meaning when you pluck a string, the display rapidly reports a bunch of different notes, maybe getting confused by harmonics. I've found the Snarks to be pretty stable in that way.
In summary, snark works on all my instruments, and its cheap enough to keep one (or two) in each instrument case. They have an on-off switch and they don't draw much current, so if you remember to turn it off after you tune, the batteries last a long time. They use a common battery that's found everywhere. I absolutely love these little tuners!
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Mine is a Korg GT-1 dating from around 1992. Hilarious to find that it is now classed as "Vintage". Whatever, it still does a good job despite its age. Just for the fun of it - here is a pic -  Ian
Last edited by sixchannel; 01/23/17 09:12 AM.
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I use a Boss TU2 tuner. It can plug in to my volume pedal so not in the pedal chain. For my acoustic an Apex AT7.
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All certainly beat the pitch pipes.
Don't know about everyone else but sometimes my guitar seems better in tune than other times and that's even after using a tuner.
Musiclover
Last edited by musiclover; 01/23/17 10:56 AM.
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Since 1979: Korg WT-12 I had to have something like this to tune a pedal steel guitar.
Last edited by GHinCH; 01/23/17 11:10 AM.
Desktop; i7-2600k, 8 GB mem., Win 10 Pro, BIAB 2017; RB 2017 - latest build
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Just to be different...
I've been using a Seiko ST757 for years.
It's fully chromatic, has the facility to change key and to set the tuner's pitch to a particular Hz.
Batteries seem to last forever and it's been as reliable as you might expect from a watch-maker.
ROG.
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I have 3 that I use. I bought a Conn Strobe tuner many years back. I used that tuner through so many different bands. I had it plugged in to the line out of my amp so I could check and fix things in the middle of a song if needed. One night, we were hosting a music competition at the club where we were the house band. One of the contestants left a cheap tuner backstage and never returned to get it. After a few weeks, I carried it home. It's in one of my guitar cases. Finally, the POD2 has a built in tuner. All 3 work exceptionally well. Music Lover said: Don't know about everyone else but sometimes my guitar seems better in tune than other times and that's even after using a tuner. You should recheck your tuning because it's likely that one string slipped or never got to pitch properly. When that happens to me, I rework the tuning and always find one string slightly off.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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"Don't know about everyone else but sometimes my guitar seems better in tune than other times and that's even after using a tuner."
I don't want to tell you something you already know, but are you stretching your strings properly?
Regards,
Bob
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"Don't know about everyone else but sometimes my guitar seems better in tune than other times and that's even after using a tuner."
I don't want to tell you something you already know, but are you stretching your strings properly?
Regards,
Bob Believe you me Bob they are well stretched because they are never changed too often  Maybe that's the reason they go out of tune. On the subject of strings I use Martin custom light, usually three packs for £10 on ebay. Musiclover
Last edited by musiclover; 01/23/17 09:54 PM.
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I'm using a Boss TU-80 here, bought it around five years ago to replace a Boss TU-12H that I had had for the previous 20 years. Nice thing about the TU-80 is the batteries last forever, compared to the TU-12H.
When recording I mostly use the tuner built into my S-GEAR amp sim, and before that I used the one built into my Pod XT.
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"Don't know about everyone else but sometimes my guitar seems better in tune than other times and that's even after using a tuner."
I don't want to tell you something you already know, but are you stretching your strings properly?
Regards,
Bob Believe you me Bob they are well stretched because they are never changed too often Maybe that's the reason they go out of tune. On the subject of strings I use Martin custom light, usually three packs for £10 on ebay. Musiclover Yep, old strings are harder to keep in tune than new ones. I know this for a fact as most of my guitars have old strings on them!
Love is grand.
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Believe you me Bob they are well stretched because they are never changed too often Maybe that's the reason they go out of tune. That IS the reason. Tell me if this isn't the case. You tune up and the open strings are perfectly tuned. Then as soon as you start to play, especially up the neck, the chords and notes sound slightly off pitch and out of tune. If that's what you are experiencing, change the strings. As you play on a set of strings you are pressing them against the frets and with time, the underside of the strings develop grooves. You can actually feel these grooves on the lower strings as you run your finger under the string and up or down the fretboard. Those dents or grooves change the physics of the string. and therefore the intonation of the string. The string has less mass when it's old and with grooves worn in it than it did when it was new and still perfectly round along it's length. As the mass changes, so does the rate at which it vibrates at a given distance. You hear a slightly off pitch note as a result. When I was playing for a living, I changed my strings every 2 weeks on average. Now that I don't play for a living, I change the strings only when I think they need it. And if I have a song I'm plugging to a publisher I will invest in new strings before I record because everyone knows 2 facts about new strings.... 1. they sound better 2. they inspire you with that sound. Now, go change your strings.
Last edited by Guitarhacker; 01/24/17 03:34 AM.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Yep you're right Herb, as I play up the neck they go of tune, so must try to change them a little more often.
I have an old ES 335 copy which doesn't hold the tuning very well, even though I have put on Grover machine heads and got it setup by a luthier. I have put it down to either the wood in guitar reacting to room temperature or me being a bit heavy handed when playing it without using an amp.
The Martin custom light strings I use on the acoustic are very inexpensive, but don't know if using cheaper strings is a false economy in the long run.
Now for some string changing......Thanks for the Sweetwater link Bob.
Musiclover
Last edited by musiclover; 01/24/17 04:32 AM.
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I have a bunch of various tuners from over the years in different horn cases, but the one I prefer now is the small clip-on polytuner by TC Electronic. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PolyTuneClip
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I use a Boss TU2 tuner. It can plug in to my volume pedal so not in the pedal chain. For my acoustic an Apex AT7. Yep, another vote for the TU-2 here. Great for stereo FX chains and all that stuff, too.
Will - PG Music
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As a lowly keyboard player may I add the IOS/Android app Cleartune? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bitcount.cleartune&hl=enI used this to tune my piano and it's really good. Some time ago the bass player on a gig was having a problem with his tuner so I opened the app and handed him my phone. He loved it so much he put it on his phone on the break. The guitarist thought it was pretty cool too. I know you guys can plug directly into the hardware ones so it's silent but still, you can put the phone next to your amp and play quietly. Even in a noisy venue, it works well. Bob
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