Official Luthiers Forum!

In the recent thread on tuning and intonation there was mention of the need for an accurate (and i hope decently damped) tuner.
Anyone in love???
I quite like my little Korg but not so quantifiable and eats battereies in its sleep!
Thanks again
Steve

The Peterson tuners are very accurate. I have their stroboflip.

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David White, Toronto

"All my favourite singers can't sing."

I agree with David about Peterson and they are indeed kind of the standard of sorts for many Luthiers.

I have Peterson's StroboSoft on my Mac with the most recent updates and I like it very well. I also have Peterson's recently released StroboSoft for the IPhone and I absolutely love this offering and also love the idea that it is always with me and not something that I have to go get when I want to tune some stinkin thing.... Thanks to Andy Zimmerman for turning us all on with a post here to the IPhone Peterson offering!

Recently I purchased Sonic Research's Turbo Tuner and I really like this tuner perhaps the best of all. I checked mine against a big honkin bench-top Peterson and it was as close as you could get which makes it good enough for anything that I would do. I use the Turbo Tuner in the shop and find the rotating, red user interface very easy to use, even easier that Peterson's but I also know this is going to be a personal preference thing for folks.

I took some not-so-good-pics for you and they are not-so-good because I was too lazy to get out the tripod since a flash would have ruined the far-out light show.....

Here are my tuners with the addition of a Korg DT-1, the world's first digital tuner that I purchased about 30 years ago and it still works great.



Here is the Turbo Tuner from Sonic Research - about $125 or so IIRC.



Here is the StroboSoft for the IPhone - really bad pic..... great tuner!



And just for kicks here is my current favorite IPhone application..... Yep it has a timer so you can place it near your victims....

Strobe Tuners are certainly by far the most accurate if you feel the need to go to that extreme and have the budget to afford them. Robbie O'Brien introduced me to this one (not a strobe) that is very affordable and accurate to +/- 1 Cent. The human ear cannot distinguish that small of a difference. So if you've got the budget for it, strobe, if not, the little clip on in the link was quite impressive to me at least.

Heeeee's baaaaaaaaack. Hey HESH!!!!!!!!

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

I've got an old Conn tuner I bought used 20+ years ago.

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I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/

My 2 cents on tuners:

Tuning your guitar in a quiet environment? Use a tuning fork to begin, and do the rest by ear. It might take years to learn to tune really well by ear, but the ear training and education you'll get out of that is worth its weight in gold.

Tuning in a noisy environment? Use a good tuner that clips on the headstock. Hopefully, you'll be able to hear your guitar well enough as you play to hear if something is still a little off (since the tuner is not as precise as your ears) and make some adjustments.

Setting the intonation on an instrument? Use a Peterson virtual strobe or a true strobe tuner. None of the regular tuners you'd use in situation number two are anywhere near precise enough for this purpose.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

I use a Boss TU-12 and I'm very happy with it.

This is third party hearsay...but I 'heard' that if you are trained in the Buzz Feinten system...the strobe tuner that Stewmac sells wasn't good enough.

Not trying to start something here but I am looking for information.

Chris

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There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

I completely agree. I have the stomp box version since my primary use is plugging in. I don't know if it'll work for intonation purposes yet, but these tuners are extremely user friendly and I can't imagine the strobe version being any different. Not to mention being significantly less expensive than the Petersons.

James, is the bypass switch on Sonic Research's Turbo Tuner quiet? I have a Korg PB-01 that tunes well on stage but when I hit the switch to go from tuner mode to bypass mode it makes a big pop in the audio system; so I need to find a different tuner for the stage.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

LOL, I got the tuner because I was having the same issue with a Planet Waves! The stomp box version is absolutely what you would hope it to be. There aren't any pops or buzzes, it's extremely accurate, very very easy to read, etc.

Great! Guess that one goes on top of my wish list.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Steve, I too would recommend The Turbo Tuner from Sonic Research.

Very accurate and the price just can't be beat

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

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im quite happy with my piano. cant imagine anything better really, its a tuner, and an instrument in its own right

...

and its electric so you dont need to tune it, and it has a metronome to help keep drummers in time with the musicians

what more could you want?

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"Anything that happens, happens. Anything that in happening causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that in happening happens again, happens again. Though not necessarily in that order." Douglas Adams

Hey, that Turbo Tuner does look very interesting. I'll have to check it out further.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

I bought one of the Turbo Tuners too. Not only is it accurate, it's fast - fast enough to catch the note of a tap on the top. It takes some fiddling to find out how meny cents off the note it is, but it's not hard.

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Waddy

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