Topic: Guitar tuner

[Trevor from Warragul]

My 16 year old daughter is learning guitar.  We bought her a vintage acoustic Yamaha FG400A.  Can someone please recommend a good, reasonably priced guitar tuner.

Cheers

Trevor

[Retro Rocket]

Most of them are reasonably priced these days mate, I've never used a tuner but a young kid i give lessons just bought a small one that clips onto the headstock, seems to work well for him although I am not sure of the brand, I tune by ear so have never needed one....
Any music store should be able to help you....

[AJK]

Until you buy a unit, she can always use an online one for free and tune it by ear. Its good ear practice anyway & will get her underway.

http://www.gieson.com/Library/projects/utilities/tuner/

http://www.get-tuned.com/online_guitar_tuner.php

http://www.howtotuneaguitar.org/

[simon#42]

i like to use a tuner as i play in different tunings , the best one i have found is the korg aw2 , clips on the headstock is small and very accurate .

[Retro Rocket]

i like to use a tuner as i play in different tunings , the best one i have found is the korg aw2 , clips on the headstock is small and very accurate .

Thats the one...

[Trevor from Warragul]

Thanks guys! Korg AW2 on its way!

[faux fiddy]

Until you buy a unit, she can always use an online one for free and tune it by ear. Its good ear practice anyway & will get her underway.

http://www.gieson.com/Library/projects/utilities/tuner/

http://www.get-tuned.com/online_guitar_tuner.php

http://www.howtotuneaguitar.org/

Online tuner? how does that work?  Can you load it into an android phone?

[Gordon]

Online tuner? how does that work?  Can you load it into an android phone?

I use an app called Guitar-Tuna.  The free version does standard tuning.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ovelin.guitartuna

I also use a free tuning fork app for tuning by ear and non-standard tunings.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ovelin.guitartuna

[SOHC Digger]

Tuning by ear is really easy once you learn to hear harmonics in the strings. You can probably YouTube it.

[Retro Rocket]

Tuning by ear is really easy once you learn to hear harmonics in the strings. You can probably YouTube it.

I just strum the guitar and tune it now, tune the strings against each other, takes about 30 seconds to tune it.... 

[simon#42]

tuning the strings against each other is easy enough but if you play with other musicians [ piano , brass , woodwind ] it is handy if you get an accurate reference point
having a guitar that is perfectly in tune with no one else makes you look bad [ dont ask me how i know this ]

[Retro Rocket]

tuning the strings against each other is easy enough but if you play with other musicians [ piano , brass , woodwind ] it is handy if you get an accurate reference point
having a guitar that is perfectly in tune with no one else makes you look bad [ dont ask me how i know this ]

Its easy to get a reference point if you have perfect pitch , besides, its just as easy to ask one of the other muso's for an "E" and tune the whole guitar, takes less than a minute....   I have a good friend that has played and bass with me for years, when i lived up north  {about 600K's away} Danny would ring me and i'd tune his guitar over the phone, yes he thought {and probably still does}that i was a smart arse.......    Actually what makes that easy for me is playing with CD's and records all my life, records were worse because most record players were slightly out of tempo, making it a must to tune up every time you changed a record or played somewhere else, well almost anyway, CD's are much better but a lot of bands i listen to use different tunings or tune the whole guitar down a half or full step, anyway i solved the constant tuning problem by buying a pile of guitars and tuning them all differently...   What guitars do you have Simon..?

[simon#42]

i only play acoustic these days mick although i still have an american made strat and an ibanez 335 copy [ which i love ]
my main guitars are a lowden f25 and a collings . for practice i have a couple of fpx300 Yamaha's and a nylon string ovation .
also have my dads old hoffner president and am looking at a carbon fiber rainsong that could be nice for recording
how about you , i seem to remember you love a les paul ?

[JoeP]

Does she have a smartphone? If so, gStrings is a great free app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.cohortor.gstrings&hl=en

I also use it check belt tension on my Ducati! 

[Retro Rocket]

i only play acoustic these days mick although i still have an american made strat and an ibanez 335 copy [ which i love ]
my main guitars are a lowden f25 and a collings . for practice i have a couple of fpx300 Yamaha's and a nylon string ovation .
also have my dads old hoffner president and am looking at a carbon fiber rainsong that could be nice for recording
how about you , i seem to remember you love a les paul ?

At the moment I have 5 Les Pauls, All Japanese made, 2 are custom order all Honduras mahogany made by Kanishi Furahashi {master luthier}for Tokai and Bacchus, exceptionally well made guitars, one Greco LP custom in vintage white that is the best sounding LP I have ever played, a Burny LP and a Bacchus LP,  All the LP's have long tenon neck joints like the original 1950's LP's, I also have a superstrat custom all mahogany, I have a vintage Tokai strat that is absolutely amazing and an old Vantage bass. I just recently was given an old Yamaha CP70B electric baby grand piano, same model Led Zepplin and the Rolling stones used for touring in the 70's, I'm in the middle of tuning it at the moment, its a bit harder than tuning a guitar...   I need to sell a couple of the electrics and get a good acoustic...

[Killer Canary]

I originally learned "For whom the bell tolls" in F because that's how badly the speed was off on my beater cassette player and nobody in my backwater village had heard of Metallica to clue me in.
I finally bought my first tuner 2 years ago because I'd always considered them a luxury, not a strict necessity. Now that I'm repairing and re-finishing, I need a tuner for fine intonation adjustments.

[Don R]

 I use a snark tuner, inexpensive and has a few added features I don't use much, like a metronome.

[simon#42]

the metronome is a useful extra  , i use one quite often when im practicing .

[Retro Rocket]

I originally learned "For whom the bell tolls" in F because that's how badly the speed was off on my beater cassette player and nobody in my backwater village had heard of Metallica to clue me in.
I finally bought my first tuner 2 years ago because I'd always considered them a luxury, not a strict necessity. Now that I'm repairing and re-finishing, I need a tuner for fine intonation adjustments.

You can tell the difference in tone between an open string and a fretted string, thats how i usually work out the record player was a bit fast or the tuning was a semitone down . I played in a covers band for a while in the 90's, the other guitarist had all these weird ways of playing songs, after going through the song list with him I soon worked out that he didn't know that some of the bands were usually tuned down a semitone, I could tell the difference by the way the chords sounded , he didn't here the same things I did... He was a very good guitarist though.... I suppose we all hear things differently....

[simon#42]

I originally learned "For whom the bell tolls" in F because that's how badly the speed was off on my beater cassette player and nobody in my backwater village had heard of Metallica to clue me in.
I finally bought my first tuner 2 years ago because I'd always considered them a luxury, not a strict necessity. Now that I'm repairing and re-finishing, I need a tuner for fine intonation adjustments.

You can tell the difference in tone between an open string and a fretted string, thats how i usually work out the record player was a bit fast or the tuning was a semitone down . I played in a covers band for a while in the 90's, the other guitarist had all these weird ways of playing songs, after going through the song list with him I soon worked out that he didn't know that some of the bands were usually tuned down a semitone, I could tell the difference by the way the chords sounded , he didn't here the same things I did... He was a very good guitarist though.... I suppose we all hear things differently....

thankfully we do all hear things a bit differently , the world would be a much duller place if we all played the same . as the french say ' vive la difference '

[Retro Rocket]

I originally learned "For whom the bell tolls" in F because that's how badly the speed was off on my beater cassette player and nobody in my backwater village had heard of Metallica to clue me in.
I finally bought my first tuner 2 years ago because I'd always considered them a luxury, not a strict necessity. Now that I'm repairing and re-finishing, I need a tuner for fine intonation adjustments.

You can tell the difference in tone between an open string and a fretted string, thats how i usually work out the record player was a bit fast or the tuning was a semitone down . I played in a covers band for a while in the 90's, the other guitarist had all these weird ways of playing songs, after going through the song list with him I soon worked out that he didn't know that some of the bands were usually tuned down a semitone, I could tell the difference by the way the chords sounded , he didn't here the same things I did... He was a very good guitarist though.... I suppose we all hear things differently....

thankfully we do all hear things a bit differently , the world would be a much duller place if we all played the same . as the french say ' vive la difference '

I agree 100%, I got much better once i stopped trying to play like everyone else....

[Don R]

My guitar tuner will be here in the AM. She's 2 and my granddaughter, whenever I baby sit her she loves sit on my lap and play the guitar. She prefers alternate tunings of course and loves to turn knobs.

[faux fiddy]

My guitar tuner will be here in the AM. She's 2 and my granddaughter, whenever I baby sit her she loves sit on my lap and play the guitar. She prefers alternate tunings of course and loves to turn knobs.

Keep her into it. A lot of things happen better later if they start at a young age like 2. Music and language are similar in that way.   She'll be rockin by six.

[bert96]

 I have this model for almost 20 years now.You can't get better for the price IMO.


http://www.soundexchange2.com/browseproducts/Sabine-AX-2000-Chromatic-Contact-Instrument--Auto-Tuner.html


Bert

[Grnrngr]

I downloaded a couple tuning apps to my iPhone, one for guitar and one for bass, both free and work great.