Tuner

[Lane Pryce]

My old PT-1 Onboard Research tuner has finally given up the ghost. I'm considering a TC polytune. Any you have experience with the PolyTune? Tks in advance. Lp

[lloving]

I use the TC Polytune Clip and am very happy with it. As the newer clip on tuners go it's a little large but easy to see and very responsive.

[Billkwando]

I'm using a Snark (the $9.99 one) and it works fine on my mando. Only issue is that sometimes I have to fully mute the A string when I'm tuning the E, because for some reason, I'll hit the E but it shows me that the A is in tune. Maybe it's just a mandolin thing.

[AlanN]

+1 to the TC Polytune Clip. Easy to use, see, clip on and off.

[lenf12]

A guitarist I play with uses the TC Polytune 3 and it's cool to watch it zero in on the strings needing attention. Strum all 6 strings at once and "voila", adjust those that need it. Very impressive indeed!!

Len B.
Clearwater, FL

[foldedpath]

I have a TC Polytune. It's a very good tuner, although I do prefer the Peterson StroboClip (the original version, I haven't tried the new one yet). I use the Polytune as a backup tuner.

The StroboClip twists and can be set to any angle, while the TC Polytune has a fixed clip that can be a little difficult to get a good visual angle on, behind the headstock. I'm also more used to the StroboClip's version of "strobe" display from using those products over the years, so I can get in tune a little faster with it. But the Polytune is still very good if you can handle the fixed angle, and I'd recommend it over anything else except the StroboClip as a clip-on tuner.

[Jill McAuley]

I have a TC Polytune and a red Snark, the Polytune is way more accurate. Gonna get another so one can live in the mandolin case and one can live in the tenor banjo case.

[mandroid]

My PT1, still ticking, but I also have their new one as well, It does the turn green when on pitch thing ...

' close enough for folk music'

[sblock]

The TC Polytune Clip, priced around $50, is a seriously overpriced device, IMO. You can get more-or-less equivalent performance from many other, lower-priced tuners (Fender, D'Addario, Snark, Fishman more). And if you're willing to go into that price range, and want the best possible precision, you might consider the Peterson Stroboclip as an alternative.

[MediumMando5722]

I love my Planet Waves NS Micro. My guitar and banjo will be getting their own in the near future.

[pops1]

The Polytune is more accurate than anything but the Peterson. I have tried them all and it is what is in two of my cases. Peterson on the bench.

[Phil Goodson]

Agree with foldedpath and sblock.

[Lane Pryce]

That Peterson is a bit much for my taste. The PT-1 was a chunk o change back in the day when they were the latest and greatest. Lp

[Ivan Kelsall]

I have 2 Red Snark tuners & 1 Polytune - all 3 work perfectly well on my mandolins. I do find that the Snarks 'lock onto' the note quicker than the P/tune,but all 3 work well,
Ivan

[Lane Pryce]

Picked up Polly last night. I'm impressed with the accuracy. It's much better than the PT1 when it was new. Lp

[mandobassman]

I love my Planet Waves NS Micro. My guitar and banjo will be getting their own in the near future.

I just started using one of these. I love it for mandolin. Stays on the headstock all the time. From the front of the instrument, you would not even know it's there. Just as fast and accurate as any of the other popular models.

I can't stand the Snark tuners. I've had two of them break at the "stem". They are impossible to see outside, and most frustrating, they go through batteries like nothing I've ever seen.

Got one for my bass as well. It doesn't seem to respond quite as well for bass. It "hunts" for the note on the E string a bit. But works well if I tune using harmonics. But for mandolin it is wonderful.

[Astro]

The new (black) snarks are great. They are made better than the old red ones and lock in very quickly. At that price I now have one in every instrument case. At gigs there is one on the headstock of each of the 3 instruments I use.

As for the accuracy question, it would be absurd(for me) to pay 5 times more for something theoretically more accurate. I mean even a Snark is more accurate than your attenuation. Unless you retune every 5 minutes, its more accurate than your tuning will be after the first song.

If you are doing a tuning experiment in a temperature controlled vacuum, better spend 50 dollars for a atomic clock tuned strobe light or something. But in any practical application, a Snark(or countless others) is more accurate than standard detectable error of real world tuning. I just made that up. The caffeine has kicked in. Someone disagree and I'll bite your scroll off.

[Paul Busman]

I'm using a Snark (the $9.99 one) and it works fine on my mando. Only issue is that sometimes I have to fully mute the A string when I'm tuning the E, because for some reason, I'll hit the E but it shows me that the A is in tune. Maybe it's just a mandolin thing.

My Planet Waves NS Micros do that too. I'm not an expert on theory, but I think that until you stop the A from vibrating after you've tuned it, the tuner is picking up the overtones of the E string, which is A. I find that once I damp the A, I don't have to keep muting it. I can let go and proceed to tune the E. This sometimes happens with other strings too.

BTW--I'll put in my vote for the Planet Waves NS Micro as a terrific little tuner. If it's not as accurate as some of the pricier ones, my ears can't hear it. It's so tiny that I just leave one on the head of my two acoustic mandolins and my tenor banjo.

[pops1]

Picked up Polly last night. I'm impressed with the accuracy. It's much better than the PT1 when it was new. Lp

I think you will also find you will change batteries far less. I have changed batteries in my wife's micro two or three times and still going with the poly.

[MediumMando5722]

Got one for my bass as well. It doesn't seem to respond quite as well for bass. It "hunts" for the note on the E string a bit. But works well if I tune using harmonics. But for mandolin it is wonderful.

Try moving it around. When I first installed mine, it worked fairly well, but I found a better location which gives a much quicker, solid response.

[sblock]

Astro raises an important point about tuners, and one that's not widely enough appreciated, in my opinion. The harsh truth is that no mandolin cannot truly hold its tune perfectly for any reasonable length of time. (And old strings will change pitch almost continuously from the moment they're hit, never quite settling in, which is why many of us get annoyed and change them out regularly). You might get through a song or two, but then you will inevitably drift away from any pitch where the string was set when you first tuned up. That drift might be so small as to be almost imperceptible, or it might be significant. The amount of tuning drift depends upon many things, including the ambient temperature (and any temp. change), the humidity (and your own body moisture, too!), the type and age of the strings, the mechanical performance of the tuners, any small amounts of friction at the nut or bridge, any playing that was done (how long, how hard, etc.), and more.

It does not really make much sense to insist on using a tuner whose readout is so accurate -- or conversely, tuning the mandolin so very accurately -- that it appears to go "out of tune," at least at the level of precision demanded, within moments as you start to play a tune! In fact, a tuner with fabulous accuracy (say, to +/- 0.1 cent), for example, a bench-type strobe tuner, will never quite settle down stably on any plucked note, regardless, because that note's frequency is continuously changing in small, but quite measurable, ways.

Furthermore, as others have pointed out, the use of the equal-tempered scale (12TET) on fretted instruments means that most notes will never be perfectly on pitch, anyway, even if the open strings happen to be tuned to some "sweetened" intervals, and not the ones that most tuners will suggest. Our ears accept a certain amount of "out of tune" in order to play equally well in all musical keys, i.e., chromatically, in Western music. This tuning irregularity is intrinsic to the music and cannot be fixed on any normal 12TET instrument, including the organ, piano, and virtually all fretted instruments. All notes can usually be off by a few cents and still be considered "OK." That's just the way it is.

I know that some of you with very well-trained/sensitive ears have come to think that, somehow, routinely using a tuner with incredible accuracy is better. But it's not! There is a practical limit to exactly how much better a tuner really needs to be. If you play with other musicians, you may not be within a few cents of their tuned notes, no matter what you do. If you play for any length of time, your tuning will inevitably drift by a few cents from wherever you happen to set it. If you change musical keys in 12TET, your tuning on certain notes will always be off by a few cents. If you play higher up the neck, or press down tightly with you fingers, or sideways even by a little, you will also be off by a few cents. This cannot be helped. Thankfully, our ears usually forgive this -- and the audience is usually even more forgiving than the musician!

In practice, what matters more in a tuner, I'd contend, is its ability to capture notes rapidly and sensitively, and not to home in on the wrong harmonics/overtones, or on adjacent notes, or on notes from other instruments (if mic'ed). A good tuner will capture a softly-played note, and not demand that you pluck the string extra hard. A good tuner will not get confused. A good tuner will register the the note quickly and stably. And being correct to within a couple of cents is plenty good for nearly all performance purposes. There really is such a thing as "too much accuracy," because you will often waste time trying to get one more decimal place than you really require, and you wind up fruitlessly chasing jitter and noise.

There, I said it. That's my "two cents' worth". Get it?

[Mark Wilson]

Picked up Polly last night. I'm impressed with the accuracy. It's much better than the PT1 when it was new. Lp

Yep. They work great. Takes some patience if you've not used strobe tuners. With increased accuracy there's way less dead band and the tuning technique requires lighter touch imo.

I see they make it in black now. Still hoping they will make a smaller one with a clip that works better with mandolin. Til then i'm happy with mine

[Mark Wilson]

I know that some of you with very well-trained/sensitive ears have come to think that, somehow, routinely using a tuner with incredible accuracy is better. But it's not!

I felt the same way until I started recording at home with good gear. The tuner I'd used to gig with for years and thought was fine didn't cut it on playback. After 3-4 years of using a stobe I got pretty sensitive to slight differences that a snark can't display.

For live performance or in constant changing conditions - I agree - a snark is all you probably want.

[pops1]

If you let your string ring it will change on any tuner on any instrument. I want it to be in tune immediately, and the tuner to read that. When I play I am usually playing 16th notes, or fiddle tunes, and that's what I want in tune. If I have to wait 2 seconds for the tuner to read my string I have already played a dozen notes in real performance. The faster and more accurate my tuner does that the happier I am. The poly is more expensive, but I save the extra in batteries many times over, and enjoy the tuner. To each his own.

[Mark Wilson]

To each his own.

You would think but I guess not