Are you addicted to electronic tuners?

[FretFiend.]

I just discovered that I am.

 

I grabbed my guitar last evening to play, and out of habit, I grabbed the Snark.

 

Then it occurred to me that when I started playing many moons ago, I hit an E on the piano, or a pitch pipe, or I just made a wild ass guess, and tuned the first and sixth strings to that. I then tuned the rest of the strings using the old fifth and fourth fret method. It had been a while since I had tried tuning up that way.

 

I tuned the sixth with the Snark, and tried tuning the others to that, checking myself with the Snark. On the first try, I missed each of the other strings by a few cents. After a few more tries, I could get them almost dead on... by ear. I hadn't done that in a long time.

 

Just wondering if most players here rely on an electronic tuner.

[Yamaneck]

Cripes, there's an entire generation (or so) of players who are unable to tune a guitar by ear!

As I'm fond of saying: " A tuner will get you into the ballpark, but you still have to be able to find your seats".

For ear tuning--when possible, sometimes it just isn't--I like the 12thfret harmonic/7th fret note method, which works on a guitar with good intonation.
(8th fret, B string). This seems to induce a sort of real-world tempering to the tuning process.

[Danner]

I use my Boss all the time, but addicted? That's hyperbole.

[gitnoob]

I've been playing some of my old guitars tuned down to D. I can't even tell that I'm playing in a different key most of the time. I think I'll just toss out my tuners.

[SkippyX]

I never use an electronic tuner on my acoustics. I use a tuning fork and touch it against the top just south of the bridge. Then I use harmonics at the 5th & 7th frets to get close. Then I use the old-fashioned 5th and 4th fret thing to fine tune.

 

I spend alot of time in double drop D - so to return the high & low E to D I just hit the middle D string and tune each an octave higher or lower.

 

Works for me.

[Tartanlad]

I can tune by ear but prefer the less hassle of tuning by electronic-tuning

anyday of the week Its a great Gadget in a noisy background

[jamesp]

I still think if you're in tune, you're tuning by ear. Because my impression is that tuners don't really work all that well. I mean, they work well enough, but I usually end up 'sweetening' one string or another even after tuning with my StroboFlip - though less so with it than with clip-on tuners. So I guess what I'm saying is that you can't rely on them. Not and be in tune.

If you're worried about it you can test your pitch perception here:
http://www.tonometric.com/


That's not too bad for an old punk rocker who works with power tools.

I do much better at the tonedeaf test.

[Michael Martin]

I didn't begin using them until I started playing with others. Now they're indispensible. Much easier to get everyone together before and during a gig.

[rhancox]

I'd always used a tuning fork, tapped against my knee and then stuck between my teeth. I could hear the tone in my head while tuning the low E.

When I got my 12-string a couple of years ago (after not playing much in 10 yrs) I bought an electronic tuner. My hearing is nowhere near what it used to be so you could say I'm dependent, but not addicted.

I'm with jamesp though. I usually adjust a little after using the tuner. Usually it's the B, fretted on the third fret, and compared to the D.

[gitnoob]

I do much better at the tonedeaf test.

That means you got 34/36. I got 91.7% (33/36). I think we should require these metrics in sigs so we can properly weight guitar reviews.

[jamesp]

That means you got 34/36. I got 91.7% (33/36). I think we should require these metrics in sigs so we can properly weight guitar reviews.

Obviously the tonedeaf test measures good taste in music.

[Rekel]

Just wondering if most players here rely on an electronic tuner.

 

 

I use a tuner the get a reference for either an A or E string. The rest I tune by ear using open strings mostly.

[katopp]

Can live without them. Never got used to a pitch pipe, always used a fork and 5/7th fret harmonics, then sweetened the B-string by ear.
But I agree, the various incarnations of the electronic tuner are absolutely addictive. I'm sorta hooked to the PlanetWaves SOS tuner, which is the smallest strobotuner you can get. Absolutely lovely!

[DeepEnd]

I used a tuning fork tuned the rest by harmonics and intervals for years, then finally bought an electronic tuner a while back. First thing I ever bought on eBay. I still use it but I generally sweeten the G string. A gal who used to play guitar in the "praise band" at church could never leave an in-tune guitar alone. We had a guy who played electric at that time and her Guild classical wasn't loud enough so I'd bring my Alvarez dread beater for her. I'd hand it to her perfectly in tune and she'd start fiddling with the tuning. When she got done it would sound like crap. I'd retune it as soon as I could get it away from her. Fortunately for me, she's blind so she couldn't see me fixing the "damage" she caused.

[61x49]

I have toured for 15 years as a guitar tech.
I wouldn't dream of handing a guitar to a client that I didn't tune with the strobe. *shudder*
I have 2 Peterson strobes. Accurate to 1/1000 of a semi tone.
No ear can do that.

[Jimmy Chaos]

I still think if you're in tune, you're tuning by ear. Because my impression is that tuners don't really work all that well. I mean, they work well enough, but I usually end up 'sweetening' one string or another even after tuning with my StroboFlip - though less so with it than with clip-on tuners. So I guess what I'm saying is that you can't rely on them. Not and be in tune. If you're worried about it you can test your pitch perception here: http://www.tonometric.com/ That's not too bad for an old punk rocker who works with power tools. I do much better at the tonedeaf test.

That's real interesting.

I was .94 Hz out on the 1st test and got 80% on the tone deaf one.

Thanks for posting that. It's a pretty cool test

[panhandler]

I'm hopeless without them. Never could use a pitch pipe or tuning fork. Tuners are the best thing since sliced bread!

[Terry Allan Hall]

Carry one in each case, but prefer (if in a quiet environment) to tune with one of my harmonicas...the electronic tuner gets me reasonably close if I'm in a noisy environment.

[Tartanlad]

I'm hopeless without them. Never could use a pitch pipe or tuning fork. Tuners are the best thing since sliced bread!

I agree although a can tune by ear the clip-on-tuners are the best thing since

sliced bread in my honest opinion and the one i have is a cheap one

but it tunes perfectly without any hassle

[garthman]

Then it occurred to me that when I started playing many moons ago, I hit an E on the piano, or a pitch pipe, or I just made a wild ass guess, and tuned the first and sixth strings to that. I then tuned the rest of the strings using the old fifth and fourth fret method. It had been a while since I had tried tuning up that way.

 

 

Yes, that's the way I did it for years. Either from a note on a pinao or to someone elses guitar. I can still tune pretty well by ear using the 4th and 5th fret method and I double check by playing do me so do chord arpeggios:

 

Fret a G. Play the 6th, 5th, 4th and 3rd string - gives do me so do

 

C chord on 5th 4th 3rd 2nd ditto

 

E chord on 4th 3rd 2nd 1st ditto

 

It's easy to spot a string that's a bit out using this method.

 

I've tested myself against an electronic tuner and I'm right to within 5% - which is the error range of the tuners anyway.

[poppytater]

I'd be lost without my Snark








snark

[geek_usa]

I have a convenient built-in tuner on my Yamaha FGX720SCA. Depending on if there's other music going on around me or not (other musicians, house music, etc) generally it tunes pretty fast.

 

In a pinch I can generally find the low E on a guitar within a few snaps of the string and then tune from there using the harmonics. That's what I usually do for electric guitar, even if I'm recording (I don't have a tuner for electric anymore).

 

Tuners are very handy, though.

[geek_usa]

I scored pretty good on a rhythm test from there.

[blue2blue]

I just discovered that I am. I grabbed my guitar last evening to play, and out of habit, I grabbed the Snark. Then it occurred to me that when I started playing many moons ago, I hit an E on the piano, or a pitch pipe, or I just made a wild ass guess, and tuned the first and sixth strings to that. I then tuned the rest of the strings using the old fifth and fourth fret method. It had been a while since I had tried tuning up that way. I tuned the sixth with the Snark, and tried tuning the others to that, checking myself with the Snark. On the first try, I missed each of the other strings by a few cents. After a few more tries, I could get them almost dead on... by ear. I hadn't done that in a long time. Just wondering if most players here rely on an electronic tuner.

I find electronic tuners can be useful but, frankly, the very fastest way for me to tune, given the right conditions, is with an in tune digital keyboard, playing the note, holding the sustain pedal and tuning to that. It's the fastest way for me to get my guitar smack in tune. And there's the benefit of the keyboard not responding to sympathetic resonance. (Better still, is tuning with the reference tones in headphones so they don't light up the resonances of the guitar.)

 

Next best way is to use a reference tone (a tuning fork but I don't have an Eb, and all my accompaniment guitars are downtuned a half step) and then do relative tuning -- but remembering to use the crucial trick I only recently stumbled on of killing all ring and sympathetic vibration along with the relative reference and then just remembering the relative reference using a sort of mental loopback to my short term auditory memory (the brain has dedicated auditory memory that can play back brief sections -- you can bucket brigade refresh it to some extent, but it fades fast -- which is normally what you want but not so much in this case; BTW, it's my thinking that people talk to themselves in large part to enter information into this small memory buffer for short term purposes, often because they're using other parts of the brain for extended processing and need to sort of jot a mental note down into handy memory.)

 

Anyhow, using relative tuning (and remembering to work from memory -- which doesn't go into sympathetic reference), I can generally get my guitar in tighter tuning than with a tuner, either my old Roland (which always has a dead battery and which requires an expensive Roland brand wall wart otherwise) or the high precision (and very configurable AT tuner software that I have a link to on my desktop).

 

Of course, with crystal chipped tuners, you have to hope that they're actually precisely self-tuned, and that's not always the case with cheap crystals. Ditto for computer or phone based software tuners.

 

For instance, when I first started using the AT tuner, I quickly realized that not only is the built-in cheapo audio chip on my motherboard's crystal clock out of time/tune with the clock on my 'pro' audio interface (a MOTU Firewire box) -- it's wildly out of tune. I mean, I already knew it was out because I'd tried to track audio from v-synths playing on the mobo interface and they were out of pitch with v-synths playing on the MOTU -- but I didn't realize they were a whopping 35 cents out of tune! Happily, the AT tuner, which I wanted to use with the mobo soundcard, since it's more convenient, has pretty sophisticated pitch calibration, so once I did the cent math it was easy to get things to agree.

 

 

After digital tuners comes pitch pipes. But if I use a pitch pipe, I only use one tone and then ref-tune the rest of the strings because most pitch pipes I've ever come across were out of tune with themselves to some extent.

 

Of course, the equal temperament system imposes out-of-tune intervals across the scale [except for octaves, of course], so it's a bit of relativistic nightmare -- which is why you can't just blithely use harmonics without slight accomodation to the fact that an equal tempered fourth/fifth is about 2 cents out of tune from the true harmonic interval.

 

That said, I used to have a multi-faceted approach using both pitch memory (for years I had A440 memorized, specifically, the specific sound of my A440 fork -- but when I shifted down a step, that blew up in my face and I'll have to wait 'til I get an Eb and live with it for probably a lont time before I can re-memorize it as a reference).

 

So, in those days, I'd tune to my memorized A440 (as long as there weren't too many distractions, anyhow) and then, using a weird blend of slightly adjusted harmonic tuning and fretted relative as well as memorized pitch relationships on the guitar, I could pretty quickly get the guitar in tune without a reference (and it was usually quite close when I'd check.)

 

 

Anyhow, tuning... it was the bane of my first 4 months of trying to play. I swear it took me about that long to learn how to do it. The closer two notes are, the less sense I had of which was higher and which was lower. I busted a lot of strings.