Has anyone got any recommendations for an electric tuner for guitar/piano ? - I see that they start at around £4 now. Would appreciate any help here.
Chris, if you have a "posh" phone you can use a tuning app......or if youre buying one something like a Korg CA1 chromatic is decent enough for not a lot of dosh, Funky and Glidd will be along shortly with further advice......
Hi chris, you can pick up a a guitar tuner for a few quid. i would avoid the very cheap ones and personally, i do not like the type that attach to the headstock of the guitar..these work by sensing the vibration through the wood but are not particularly accurate and cannot help you set the intonation (which you will need to periodically)...the intonation is the length of each individual string..if the string length is incorrect the guitar will never be in tune..ie you can play a C chord and it will sound fine, then play a G and it sounds awful...also the further up the neck you go, the worse the tuning becomes. I would suggest buying a chromatic tuner than can sense any note. Go for a model with both an input for an electric guitar and also a microphone..Something of this type should be around a tenner. You cannot buy a tuner for a piano. If you have a piano that requires tuning, you will need to hire a qualified piano tuner..this is because each key you play on the piano is actually a mini chord..several strings are struck by the hammer and your ear interprets the harmonic overtones as a single note..Also a piano is 'tempered' tuning..this means that each note is actually a compromise between the one that precedes it and the one that follows it... Its easy to tell if your piano requires tuning because it will have a 'honky tonk' sound, like that played on the theme of pot black..this is because the harmonics of each key are clashing..essentially like playing a guitar chord that is a tiny bit out of tune...only worse. Hope this helps.
Hate to disagree but you can get an electronic piano tuner. The Steinway approved tuner I know uses a very sophisticated piano tuning app on his tablet which can be set to take care of all the temperament issues etc when tuning a Steinway concert grand. It does cost slightly more that £4 though!
Thanks midlife - you couldn't know Funky but have been tuning pianos for about 20 years now. It's only because i'm starting to doubt my ability that I thought I would seek out some form of confirmation.
cheers for the update on the app...sounds intriguing...chris, a guitar should be a doddle for you to tune by ear, although you'll have a bit of sport with the g-string (no pun intended) as its a compromise with all guitars, unless you have the Buzz Feiten curved fret set up.
