Blues Bluegrass and Beyond

Blues Bluegrass and Beyond

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Tuning Up for Your Jam or Gig


     Howdy! Welcome to Blues, Bluegrass, and Beyond! Today I want to talk about chromatic tuners. Any professional or novice blues or bluegrass musician needs a tightly tuned instrument. In fact, no matter what genre of music one plays, and no matter the instrument, a tight tune must be achieved in order to sound good. Even professional musicians need tightly tuned instruments in order to produce their best music.
     While the tuner market is flooded with an army of smartphone apps that claim to assist you in tuning your instrument, there is no exception for the traditional chromatic tuner. A chromatic tuner is a device used by musicians to detect and display the pitch of notes played on musical instruments. Usually these tuners allow all 12 notes of the scale to be tuned. This feature is especially useful if one is trying to achieve an obscure tuning to play a certain song. I have owned a plethora of chromatic tuners, but my personal two favorites are the BOSS TU-12 Digital Processing Chromatic Tuner, and the SNARK Clip-On Guitar Tuner. Therefore, let me first introduce you to the TU-12.

Thank you for visiting Blues Bluegrass and Beyond! Photo obtained from www.amazon.com . 

     The TU-12 is loaded with various features. This chromatic tuner is capable of tuning a wide range of instruments. Whether you play guitar, banjo, trumpet, or accordion, this tuner can handle the wide range of tones effectively. The TU-12 sits snuggly in a black leather case with open areas to allow for tuning through a condenser microphone, and a variety of other tasks, without ever removing the tuner from its case. Unlike many chromatic tuners, the Tu-12 features input and output ports. This allows a user to plug electric instruments into the input port, and plug an amplifier into the output port. Therefore, the tuner could easily distinguish different tones through the electric instrument’s pickups, and a musician would hear the note as it emanates from the amplifier. The tuner also contains an ac/dc power adapter to allow for use through an electrical outlet, or a user can operate the tuner via a 9volt battery. The TU-12 also features a condenser microphone to pick up acoustic tones from a wide range of instruments. Other features include special settings for use with a guitar or bass guitar, in order to tune these instruments to their respective standard tunings. While this is a great tuner, I believe that it does have a couple drawbacks. First, the tuner is very bulky, and will require a sizeable amount of space in an instrument case. Secondly, it can be difficult to use in a loud room due to noise interference. Third, this tuner offers so many options, that it can occasionally be confusing to use in a hurry. Lastly, this tuner does not feature any LED lighting, making the tuner difficult to read in a dark venue. The TU-12 retails from anywhere from $72-$100 depending on the vendor.

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Here are some of the Boss TU-12 Digital Processing Chromatic Tuner features:
    

  • Sharp/flat LED indicators, tuning meter for precise information
  • Adjustable standard pitch from 440 to 445Hz in 1Hz increments
  • Switchable between Guitar/Bass and Automatic Chromatic tuning
  • Built-in condenser microphone for acoustic instrument tuning



Thank you for visiting Blues Bluegrass and Beyond! Photo is original .

     While the TU-12 is a fantastic chromatic tuner, my personal favorite chromatic tuner is the SNARK Clip-On Guitar Tuner. This tuner is fantastic! However, this tuner is limited for use with stringed instruments. It can successfully tune instruments ranging from guitars, to banjos, to mandolins, to basses, to bouzoukis! This handy tuners is great for busy musicians specializing in music ranging from a variety of genres, including blues, to bluegrass, to rock n’ roll, to classical.  The SNARK chromatic tuner is a small simple tuner that provides easy usage. Basically, the soft but strong rubber clips of the tuner clamp safely to the headstock of your instrument without damaging your instrument’s finish. The bright, large, full-color display is easy to read quickly, even in the darkest of rooms. The SNARK tuner’s display screen is connected to an adjustable neck, which allows for full 360 degree movement. This handy tuner also features a transposing tool. This allows players to tune their instruments normally without ever removing their capos. Lastly, this tuner features a metronome device to aid musicians in keeping time. I have used this tuner for years on a variety of instruments, and at a variety of locations, and still have no complaints. My favorite features in the SNARK are its ease of use, and its ability to live on the headstock of my instruments without causing damage. Also, this tuner works incredibly well in a loud room since it relies upon vibration from your instrument to distinguish a tone. This tuner ranges from $15-$30 depending on the vendor.


Thank you for visiting Blues Bluegrass and Beyond! Photo obtained from www.amazon.com .

Here are some of the SNARK Clip-On Guitar Tuner features:

  • Full color display
  • Place anywhere on front or back of headstock (no dead spots!)
  • Display rotates 360 degrees (works for right or left handed players)
  • “Stay Put” clip
  • Tap Tempo Metronome
  • Capo compensating “Flat Tuning”
  • Pitch calibration (415-466 Hz)

Thank you for visiting Blues Bluegrass and Beyond! Photo is original .



Good luck in picking which chromatic tuner is right for you! Thanks for visiting Blues, Bluegrass, and Beyond, and come back soon! 

Photos are original and retrieved from www.amazon.com. 

2 comments:

  1. Great blog!

    I find the idea of tuners insightful even though I do not play the instruments you addressed. As I mentioned to you before, I used to play piano. I remember a tuner came to my house to tune the instrument about ten years ago. I don't think the tuner he used looked like these at all! However, it is great that the tuners have more features now. Thanks for informing me about this.

    -Rachel

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  2. Awesome blog! You provide a lot of information about each item you talk about. Tons and tons of info along with all the pictures. Maybe include some links or videos to show off the music that can be played. Links would be awesome here.

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