Tuners Revisited

Subject: Tuners Revisited
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 07 Apr 01 - 12:11 PM

Some time ago (a crazy dream came to me?) I started a thread about Sabine Stick on Tuners, that turned into a lovely wee thread bout tuners in general, especially the Intellitouch clamp on...

Well, unable to find the innitial thread, I thought I'd refresh the topic this way, because I have this to add...

keep yer Intellitouchs, yer Sabine Stick Ons, Yer Dan-o-Matic Electro Chromatics... I bought myself a Boss TU-2 yesterday and it's fantastic! Money very well spent indeed!

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Gypsy
Date: 07 Apr 01 - 12:22 PM

Well, why is it fantastic? Tell us all about it! If it can beat my intellitouch, i'm all for knowing more about it.

Subject: Tuners Revisited
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 07 Apr 01 - 12:45 PM

Oh... ya... good idea...

Well... lemme see... what were my sorta beefs with the Intellitouch...

Ummm... oh ya... The headstocks on my Seagulls are, shall we say, svelt... so the Intellitouch seems always in danger of falling off... and it's ability it perform in loud rooms was overcome by the noise in the pub that I play in with some regularity... (If Patrick O'Ryans was a factory, NO one would be allowed to work there, it's so loud!) the Intellitouch simply was not up to the challenge...

The Boss TU-2 is an inline pedal tuner... it goes between the instrument and the soundboard, so it does mean needing one more chord... but the ability to mute the output while you tune is invaluable... It's a good steady read, with 2 different 'modes' of reading... And a few different presets for tuning as well, like down a semi-tone and down a full tone...

The Dan-O-Matic that a chum loaned me was similar, and I actualy perfer the sorta retro 50's look of it as a pedal, but as a tuner it was garbage... the needle NEVER stopped jumping all over the place long enough to tune...

I'm gonna be sticking with and suggesting my BOSS all over the place...

How many of us can say THAT eh!

LOL!!

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Bernard
Date: 07 Apr 01 - 02:12 PM

I use a basic standard issue lug 'ole...

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 07 Apr 01 - 03:27 PM

Actually Clinton, although the BOSS TU-2 is an excellent tuner (I have borrowed one on occasion),let's just set the record straight here with regard to the "best" tuner.

The best electronic tuner currently manufactured anywhere in the world is the Campbell PST-2 Strobe tuner. At $525.00, however, it is probably out of reach of the average strummer.

Murray

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Paul G.
Date: 07 Apr 01 - 04:19 PM

About 4 years ago my wife bought me a Maestro MA2000 guitar tuner. It has both lights to indicate sharp and flat, as well as a *real* needle which points me to an exact 440 Hz tuning on any note (its chromatic). I love the damn thing. It managed to vanish about a year ago so I tried the Qwik Tune (marketed as the best selling chromatic tuner) with its digital "needle", as well as the clamp on. Hated them both. I found neither to allow me the speed of the Maestro in changing tunings or getting that one fussy string back in line. Depresion set in. No where on the planet could I locate another Maestro. Three weeks ago my wife finds the thing in a box under the bathroom sink. Never thought a person could be so happy about relcating a lost electronic guitar tuner, but its the best thing to happen in my musical life so far this year...If you can find the thing, jump on it! Oh...it was (is?) manufactured by Gibson in Nashville Tennessee, USA.

pg

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 07 Apr 01 - 07:06 PM

PROBABLY, MURRAY?

Hoo boy, that's a pile of change. Seems to be the one they use in most lutherie shops. My good ol' Seiko has just about had the biskit, because of an odd phenomenon. EVERY person I hand it to, either tunes up and leaves it on (draining the battery) or tunes up and then drops it!

Can't deal with the LEDs, Gotta have that needle!

'Nother reminder about the old telephone: pick it up, listen to the dial tone...it's a perfect "F".

Rick

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Margo
Date: 07 Apr 01 - 07:46 PM

Boy do I feel dumb. I read the other thread name and wondered what a sabine stick was. It's here. I'm glad I clicked this one. I'm just in tears but I haven't made it to the floor yet. Leave it to me to read it wrong... Margo

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: IvanB
Date: 07 Apr 01 - 11:24 PM

Clint, can't help but ask - you mentioned the TU-2 necessitates one more "chord." Is it an easy one or hard?

Just ribbin' ya!

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 11:02 AM

Ivan...
C'm'ere! *smack*!
Goof!
LOL!!

Murray MacLeod... Best is relative... What's 'best' for you likely isn't 'best' for me... and 525 bucks is TOO much for a tuner! At that price, the thing should also play the gig for you!

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Justa Picker
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 11:17 AM

Korg DT-3 chromatic, 2 octave, digital tuner.
Incredible battery life. Love it.

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Big Mick
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 12:33 PM

I'm a little puzzled by Clinton's problems with the Intellitouch. Those problems are precisely the ones I don't have with it. Only once did it respond to club noise and that is when I was dead in front of the bass amp and he was being obnoxious with his levels. Other than that it works wonderfully under all circumstances.

I would concur on The Boss tuner in terms of it being a wonderful tuner. Used one once and found it to work very well.

Mick

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: GUEST,Harpo
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 12:59 PM

Seiko st747 chromatic accurate to 1 cent. ( one fiftieth of a semi-tone) Good enough for guitars, Tubas, tape decks, but not pianos. (three decimal places - a thousandth of a cent needed to do this!) How accurate are these other tuners?

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: IvanB
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 01:28 PM

I use my Intellitouch for tuning all my stringed instruments. For those of a 'svelte' nature, I keep some plastic shims in the case to build up the thickness. Admittedly, I've not had to tune in any excessively loud situations, but it's worked fine for me. I agree that the TU-2 is a fine tuner, but I see one drawback as being the need for a pickup. Many of us just want to keep our unamplified instruments in decent tune.

And, Guest Harpo, some years ago I had a harpsichord, which is tuned in the same fashion as a piano, although admittedly more easily since the string tensions are far less. But never did I use an electronic tuner on it. I had tuning forks for 'A's' of several different frequencies (to match the type of music being performed) and the rest of the notes were tuned in fourths and octaves from the 'A's' using beats to ascertain the correct tuning. After a time, I became quite adept at it and never had any complaints about its intonation in any performance situations.

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 01:48 PM

The only way you can get .001 cent accuracy is with a strobe tuner. It is, however, what is known in engineering as "spurious accuracy" as far as everyday guitar tuning is concerned, and although I would agree that such accuracy would be necessary for piano tuning, most piano tuners do not use electronic tuners.

The big advantage of a strobe tuner like the Campbell is the accuracy it brings to the process of compensating the saddle (and the nut) accurately. Guitars which do not have an accurately compensated nut and saddle (as in the Buzz Feiten system) , cannot play in tune, period. Maybe nobody complains, but they still don't play in tune.

Murray

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 01:52 PM

Minor thread creep. I have to wonder when someone tunes to a tuner, and puts their capo on smack in the middle between the frets...the guitar is instantly sharp! sharp! sharp! I've seen (and heard) this SO many times, that I simply expect it now. When I see someone use the capo properly, I always thank them.

Sorry for the rant.

Rick

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 03:02 PM

I wonder after people who tune and THEN capo... Shouldn't it be done the other way around??

And Rick... don't be sorry for the rant, but maybe you should enlighten those who might not know about proper capo placement...

;-)

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 03:33 PM

My Intellitouch works fine on my Seagull, only I'm never tuning in very loud situations. The pianist might be warming up, but that's all. It's so much better than my Sabine- and that one never would stick to the slightly-rough finish of my Seagull, anyway!

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 04:02 PM

Animaterra??
Wanna get rid of the Sabin that you have? PM me if yer keen...

'Cause my sabine stick-on tuner stick just fine to seagull guitars... You maybe need to wash the sticky pad on the back...

You folks just don't seem to understand exactly how LOUD Patrick O'Ryans pub is... My statement above, about if it was a factory, isn't even a slight exaduration...

Any body know where I can get a cheep decibel meter? I wouldn't even know where to start looking...

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 04:36 PM

Hey Clinton, do you remember Bourne and MacLeod? When things got really noisy, MacLeod (the tiny Scottish piper and tough guy) would pull out a .45 (with blanks thank god) and shoot it off a couple of times. Geez, did it get quiet fast!

No need to tune after you put your capo on, if you simply place it right next to the fret. It won't stretch the strings that way. The best capos for keeping in perfect tune are Shubbs and Dunlop C clamps. Keysers are the simplest to use, but because you can't adjust the tension, are a bit iffy for keepiing the guitar in tune. Another trick that is INCREDIBLY useful (if you care about perfect tuning) is to cut two tiny "V" shapes in the rubber, under the two bass strings. This REALLY WORKS! I've been doing on capos for 12 strings for twenty five years, but it works great on Kaysers (if I keep spelling it differently eventually I'll get it right), and with the grooves, the capo doesn't have to be as close to the fret.

Rick

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 04:42 PM

Rick...

I'm up and down the neck so much with capo placement, that I just find it easier to move the capo and now, use ther Boss pedal to check the tuning real quick and hit the next song...

But I do have an extra Kyser around here, or 2 actually... maybe I'll give yer V-cut suggestion a whirl!

As far as perfect tuning goes though, close enough for folk music is close enough for me...

;-)

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Margo
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 06:27 PM

Gee Rick, my teacher concurs with you about capo placement. But if I have light gague strings on my banjo it goes out of tune no matter where the capo is placed. I'm back to medium gague strings and I'm glad... Margo

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Gary T
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 06:41 PM

I use my Boss TU-12H as my "gold standard" tuner--with its analog needle, I feel I can get the strings exactly right. For a pure acoustic situation (no pickup in the instrument) though, the Intellitouch is the most resistant to background noise of any I've seen. This is because it picks up vibrations through the body of the instrument and not at all through the air. If it's loud enough where you are, like in the aforementioned pub, the instrument itself will vibrate in response to the noise--and yes, I believe you when you say that is a LOUD place!

Just to "pick the nit", "accuracy" is being right, "precision" is making a measurement down to a gnat's whisker. Ideally the two qualities are coupled. It is possible, however, to have a measuring device that has high precision but poor accuracy. You can make one by taking a machinist's rule that is marked in 64ths of an inch and cutting, say, an eighth of an inch off of it. You now have a ruler that is PRECISE to one 64th of an inch, but about 1/8th inch away from being ACCURATE. A crude ruler marked in 8ths of an inch will be more ACCURATE, though less PRECISE. I mention this because I have seen some stick-on tuners (don't recall the brand) that varied with my Boss tuner on some (not all) strings of my guitar. One of those tuners had to be inaccurate, and I don't believe it was the Boss.

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Mark Clark
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 09:36 PM

I'm as big a gadget freak as the next person, maybe more so, and I do understand that the one who dies with the most toys wins. I actually have a Seiko tuner left to me by my youngest daughter when she moved out but I never use it. On the other hand, I've been tuning stringed instruments for about fifty years—accurately for about forty—and don't recall any particular problems with the process. Exactly what problem is solved by an electronic tuner?

Thanks,

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Mooh
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 10:00 PM

I've tried dozens of cheap tuners. No luck. The Intellitouch is my fave among the less expensive ones and the one I use the most. I've got a cheap Yamaha one for student use, but it's fussy. I sold my Danelectro recently 'cause it was too erratic. The tuner in my Digitech RP200 multi-effects unit is excellent but I tend to use it mostly for the electric rig, and only occassionally with acoustics if I'm plugged in. I've often wished I had that Boss tuner, fellow Mudcat guy JoKing has one I like, because I prefer the needle to lights or LEDs. Some day, some way.

Peace. Mooh.

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Philibuster
Date: 08 Apr 01 - 10:11 PM

Pitch pipes, 'nuff said.

I'm so very very poor...

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Gary T
Date: 09 Apr 01 - 12:43 AM

Mark, in answer to this question: "Exactly what problem is solved by an electronic tuner?"...

The problem of taking ten years to get it right; and the problem of having six people get together to play and finding that their instruments, all perfectly tuned to themselves, are not perfectly tuned to each other.

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Mark Clark
Date: 09 Apr 01 - 01:41 AM

Well, the first ten years for me was the time between a short bout of violin lessons at age 9 and learning to tune a guitar at age 19. I had no contact with stringed instruments between those times. After that, any time I heard a group of instruments out of tune it was because their owners didn't value being in tune. I doubt that a modern electronic tuner would have solved the attitudinal problem. I don't recall being with a group of people that actually wanted to be in tune and couldn't get there in short order—autoharp players not included.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 09 Apr 01 - 08:28 AM

Mark, I think the real advantage of tuners is that they allow you to tune your instrument in a noisy environment, without adding to the noise yourself. For playing around the house, I'll tune by ear. But at a gig, while the drummer's tuning his drums, the bass player is tuning his bass, the sound man is setting levels/eq's/etc., and a million other things are happening, a tuner is a necessity.

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Bedubya
Date: 09 Apr 01 - 10:07 AM

Mark

Over the last thirty years I have spent a fair number of hours at folk and bluegrass festivals, wandering from session to session with guitar in hand. Years ago, walking up on a new session involved spending several minutes retuning to whatever variation of "standard" tuning that session had arbitrarilly decided on. The big advantage of electronic tuners is that you can wander the whole damned campground and walk up to any session in progress and just start playing with them! Amazing!

Also, electronic tuners allow you to get severely f*****d up without having to ask your friend to tune your guitar for you. If you can still read, you can tune (though not necessarilly play).

BTW the Intellitouch is by far the most popular tuner among parking-lot pickers because it's the hardest one to lose. Sabine stick-ons DON'T always stick. Intellitouches DO always clamp. Unless you ram the headstock of your guitar into a tree and break the tuner (and probably the headstock as well) off, it's not going anywhere.

Cheers

bwl

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 09 Apr 01 - 12:35 PM

ya... see bwl? I found the exact opposit to be true in my case... The Intellitouch's grip was really on the precarious side, but I can put a Sabine on and it'll be there until I take it off... If only the Sabine was back lit like the Int-touch...

I also found the clamp mechanisim to be annoyingly fiddly... If the Int-touch folks could get it together with the Kyser capo folks and make the Int-touch THAT easy and that secure, it'd be a much better beast...

But now, gimme my BOSS stomp peddle! I'm a very happy tuner!

;-)

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Bedubya
Date: 09 Apr 01 - 02:28 PM

Clinton

Okay, I'll grant that there are some areas for design improvements on the Intellitouch. I've only had mine a few weeks so the spring is nice and strong, but may weaken with age. Yes, compressing the spring would be easier if the slider mechanism was more ergonomically designed. A miniature version of a mikestand style gooseneck would be superior to the pivot system they're using now.

I bought the Intellitouch primarilly because I wanted one I could use on guitar or banjo, and you can't stick the Sabine on a banjo head.

bwl

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 09 Apr 01 - 04:06 PM

LOL!

No... no you can't eh!

;-)

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Mark Clark
Date: 09 Apr 01 - 09:54 PM

W.S., I think you've put your finger on the justification for an electronic tuner. I've never had to play in an electric band with drummer and sound crew. I've always tuned in a noisy club by pressing my left ear against the side of the guitar as I tune. Ambient noise doesn't get in the way and I can tune very quickly to my A440 fork.

Bedubya, Oh yeah, the festival thing. Of course no two groups will be at exactly the same pitch. Unfortunately, in a particular festival jam, no two musicians may be at exactly the same pitch. I'm not sure that any pitch reference—accoustic or electronic—is helpful in that situation. If I'm invited to join the group, I just stand back a few feet while they're playing, tune my A string to an average of the best lead players and quickly tune my guitar to that. I don't think it's polite to walk into a session and ask for pitch and it's usually the most out-of-tune player who will offer to help first.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 09 Apr 01 - 10:16 PM

Have you ever noticed when tuning your instrument outside and a plane flies overhead, your tuner doesn't work?

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Mark Clark
Date: 09 Apr 01 - 10:29 PM

Hi, Bonnie. No, I've never had that happen. I can think of two possible reasons for that. One is that my tuner isn't electronic, the other is that planes only come here in an election year.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Gypsy
Date: 10 Apr 01 - 02:19 AM

More power to ye, Clinton. But the intellitouch is still first choice for my hammer dulcimer. Dunno how i'de use your gizmo on my bridges

Subject: RE: Tuners Revisited
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 10 Apr 01 - 02:04 PM

Mmmmmm... Hammer Dulcimer... Swwwwwweeeeeeeeeet!

I think I saw Ian Tamblin put a Sabine Stick on on his, and he mighta put it UNDER the strings, cause it's small enough... I don't really recall where he placed it...

This is gonna inspire a whole nother thread that my wife is gonne HATE!

Ta' gypsy!

;-)