Guitar tuners. How accurate are they ?

[kent]

a coulpe of thoughts on tuning .chuck berry tuned by ear and was flat nobody complained. ive been playing for about 50 years and some of us old dudes used to tune by a rotory phone . if u sing go for your voice to tune your a string and go from there. after all its the sound that makes music

 

[GAD]

Ignorant opinion is correct.

Uninformed people love to try and force their opinions becuase they think it makes them look smart. I call this arrogant ignorance. Put another way:

"The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the
stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent
folks are so full of doubts."

~ Bertrand Russell

 

[wileypickett]

When I'm restringing a guitar, I tune by string pressure -- what feels like the right resistance when I push the string. After I've replaced all the strings, I check myself with a tuner. I'm usually off by less than a half step.

I fine tune using a Peterson Stroboclip or a Snark, and then my ear.

On some guitars, my low E, when in tune open, is slightly sharp when fretted, so I'll slightly flatten the E to compensate.

If only I spent as much time playing as tuning!

 

[fronobulax]

If it is my intention to play all by myself then I don't need a tuner. I can get the instrument to sound fine using my ear. If I am going to play with others it is important that my A be their A. In the olden days we just needed to agree what an A was (pitch pipe, tuning fork, etc.) and then everything could be done by ear. Now, I'm lazy and most of the time just about any tuner will get close enough. But there are still times when the tuner will say things are spot on and I want to make a change anyway. Modern tuners are pretty accurate. They can measure 440 Hz accurately enough. The real issue comes when there are times when your ear really wants (say) 436Hz. Your tuner is still accurate but that is not quite what you want. Well trained singers with good ears routinely adjust they pitch they are singing for the context. Once you stop using a frequency counter, and F sharp is not always the same pitch as a G flat.

 

[GAD]

Yup - and many players "sweeten" their tunings. I tend to like the B to be a touch sharp on many guitars, for example.

 

[DThomasC]

Ignorant opinion is correct.

Uninformed people love to try and force their opinions becuase they think it makes them look smart. I call this arrogant ignorance. Put another way:

"The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the
stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent
folks are so full of doubts."

~ Bertrand Russell

Reminds me of the Kruger and Dunning paper Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.

As for tuners, I find myself reaching for a clip-on Peterson strobe tuner. As a teen I would tune the low E to the opening note in Pink Floyd's Time.

 

[GAD]

I'm definitely guilty of this.

 

[adorshki]

Reminds me of the Kruger and Dunning paper Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.

I now understand what David Byrne really meant by "Cross-eyed and Painless".

 

[DThomasC]

I now understand what David Byrne really meant by "Cross-eyed and Painless".

I'm too incompetent to understand what you mean by that. But I'll still thank you for reminding me of some good music. Anyone that says nothing good came out of the 80's is wrong.

 

[Stuball48]

Two phone apps for me --Pitchlab Pro or Pro Guitar Tuner.

 

[JohnW63]

When I learned to play, it was pitch pipe or tuning fork. Then you did you best to match the rest of the strings to the one you tuned. Most the time , it was OK. Still, I seem to recall that small errors on the second string became bigger on the third and so on. So very slight "ear errors" multiplied. I always had to adjust to taste at the end. When you're playing basic chords and strumming, exact tune doesn't matter. Once you start playing single notes and single strings, the " good enough " tuning is no longer really good enough. Unless metal rock of course. When I got a 12 string having those octave strings a little off was more than a little obvious. The old 12 string adage " 50% of the time tuning and 50% of the time playing out of tune. " was because we were not accurate. Today's modern and not very costly tuners , well the better ones, make tuning a 12 string easy.

 

[kent]

if intelligent people doubt their opinions how intelligent are they ? then again opinions are like a certain part of the anatomy , everybody got one and they all fall left of center.

 

[Cougar]

On some guitars, my low E, when in tune open, is slightly sharp when fretted, so I'll slightly flatten the E to compensate.

I always thought I had good relative pitch. I use a snark, which seems plenty accurate to me. But yeah, I might flatten the E string a hair and maybe the A if playing a lot of G and C chords.

 

[DThomasC]

if intelligent people doubt their opinions how intelligent are they ?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that, but I think doubt is a hallmark of intelligence. Let me put it a different way: Very few things are known absolutely. Being able to judge how likely a thing is true is part of what separates the intelligent people I know from the not so intelligent. Being able to construct a self-consistent "system" of understanding, all the while keeping track of which of those things we hold to be true are in fact only pretty likely, not absolutely certain... To maintain that and allow it to continually evolve without crumbling down takes intelligence.

The less intelligent mainly doubt others, rarely themselves. They need to see black/white, true/false or nothing makes sense.

 

[adorshki]

The less intelligent mainly doubt others, rarely themselves. They need to see black/white, true/false or nothing makes sense.

What I meant by "Cross-eyed and Painless", they also don't feel the pain of self doubt . Or a lot of other kinds, either.

 

[F312]

All I know is, if your flat, your not going to sound so sharp.

Ralph

 

[Velvet Phelts]

I have had these discussions with Guitar Center employees about using something like the Peterson Strobo clip. They say "it's too hard to get it to stop spinning. I like a tuner that just goes up to zero and done." Even tried to show them the difference by tuning with their preference, then checking with mine. And of course it's off. To which they reply. "Oh every tuner is a little bit different. They don't all tune the same." This just goes to prove to me that Guitar Center employees have absolutely no idea of what they are talking about. So I just register in my head DING idiot, idiot, DANGER Will Robinson.

 

[Brad Little]

I have had these discussions with Guitar Center employees about using something like the Peterson Strobo clip. They say "it's too hard to get it to stop spinning. I like a tuner that just goes up to zero and done." Even tried to show them the difference by tuning with their preference, then checking with mine. And of course it's off. To which they reply. "Oh every tuner is a little bit different. They don't all tune the same." This just goes to prove to me that Guitar Center employees have absolutely no idea of what they are talking about. So I just register in my head DING idiot, idiot, DANGER Will Robinson.

I've gotten similar responses from friends when I've lent them my Stroboclip, they can't deal with the spinning. I don't find it a problem at all.

 

[Quantum Strummer]

Since my first post in this thread, 4 1/2 years ago, I've been using Peterson's app tuner with electric guitars via cable and an adapter thingie rather than my phone's mic. I still find every guitar kinda needs its own approach…some tune up easily while others (especially the oldies) need various degrees of finessing, and some are more tolerant of discrepancies while others like to drill your ears with 'em. I've found playing guitars that I've really dialed in via the app has improved my tuning-by-ear skills too.

-Dave-

 

[Greenstar]

Two phone apps for me --Pitchlab Pro or Pro Guitar Tuner.

I agree with the Pitch Lab Pro app. I have used it for years and is a very accurate app for your phone.