help convince me to buy this tuner

[Ermz]

...and having to leave your screen open for the guitarist to sit there and tune isn't very productive!

Sure it is. Most of the time he's tracking right next to me, already plugged right into the system. All we need to do to tune him up is pull the the Gtune window. To me this beats having to unplug, plug into the rack tuner, do it there, then back into the DI. Plus it's free. I can't really fault the process.

Besides, the instrument and our own mechanical motions are imperfect. Whether or not that string holds tune as well as the instrument will possibly allow it, he will always bend it to a degree and detune it naturally. You don't need an atomic-level tuner when you're dealing with such imperfect circumstances.

As far as bass goes, from what I gather Joey melodynes the tits off it, so it doesn't even really matter in the end.

Intonation is a much more important factor. Despite how well the open strings are in, you'll be getting varying degrees of detuning any time notes are fretted. I honestly believe this sort of thing is getting pedantic on a purely neurotic/self-indulgent/useless level.

 

[joeymusicguy]

Sure it is. Most of the time he's tracking right next to me, already plugged right into the system. All we need to do to tune him up is pull the the Gtune window. To me this beats having to unplug, plug into the rack tuner, do it there, then back into the DI. Plus it's free. I can't really fault the process.

Besides, the instrument and our own mechanical motions are imperfect. Whether or not that string holds tune as well as the instrument will possibly allow it, he will always bend it to a degree and detune it naturally. You don't need an atomic-level tuner when you're dealing with such imperfect circumstances.

As far as bass goes, from what I gather Joey melodynes the tits off it, so it doesn't even really matter in the end.

Intonation is a much more important factor. Despite how well the open strings are in, you'll be getting varying degrees of detuning any time notes are fretted. I honestly believe this sort of thing is getting pedantic on a purely neurotic/self-indulgent/useless level.

correct on the bass, but its gotta be close, especially if you dont care to pay attention to what the guy is playing, you'll be sitting there fixing melodyne's guesses all night...

but it matters most on guitars, there's no fixing them really!

 

[JeffTD]

Sure it is. Most of the time he's tracking right next to me, already plugged right into the system. All we need to do to tune him up is pull the the Gtune window. To me this beats having to unplug, plug into the rack tuner, do it there, then back into the DI. Plus it's free. I can't really fault the process.

Intonation is a much more important factor. Despite how well the open strings are in, you'll be getting varying degrees of detuning any time notes are fretted. I honestly believe this sort of thing is getting pedantic on a purely neurotic/self-indulgent/useless level.

I'd much rather have the guy unplug, plug into a tuner, do his shit, and let me edit tracks or something productive, not just sit there, waiting for this guy to tune.

If intonation > accurate tuning is your argument, why not get the intonation dead on with a strobetuner in the first place?

Honestly... I tried to justify my way out of not spending close to $200 on a tuner when I had a little Korg and one on my POD already. I ended up biting the bullet after finding a good deal on the StroboStomp, and I can't understand why I never wanted one before.

I really don't see an argument for not getting your guitar as in-tune as possible. Why is that a debatable question?

 

[Ermz]

Because it will never be as in-tune as you want it to be. The Strobotuner is more perfect than the instrument and the ways we play it. Intonation will never be perfect all over the fretboard - every great guitar tech I've used has made a point to tell me this. Most of the time I struggle to tell guitarists not to bend strings entirely when they fret chords. Let's not even get into lead playing and how abysmal most guitarists' vibrato and bends are.

I've used a variety of tuners, from the stomp boxes, to the racks, to the strobes, to the LEDs to the software ones and at the end of the day none of it made a difference. We don't have the finesse to turn the tuning pegs in the tiny increments that the better tuners represent, and even if we did, we'd still be getting detuning as a natural byproduct of the instrument's construction and the strings' mechanical motions. That's why I don't see a use for it beyond satisfying a neurotic self-indulgence.

Regarding waiting for the guy to tune... if you have two monitors you can always throw Gtune off to the side and edit away in your own space. I understand that this mainly applies in PT where the plug-in window is always on top, unlike Cubase, which likes to open a myriad of them for no reason whatsoever.

If the strobe tuners do it for you, that's great, but I'd sooner buy another set of pickups, another TS, another pre, or another mic for the money. Joey asked for better suggestions in the OP, I'm merely providing them.

 

[daveotero]

kind of off topic but, if you dudes are recording DIs you should run your tuner off an aux send.

Cubendo walkthough: Setup up your tracks like normal but create an extra track called "to tuner" or something. Set the input of that channel to wherever your DI is coming in. Click the monitor button and drop the fader all the way down. setup an aux send to an extra output and set to pre fader. Run that output to a tuner. If you're tracking bass or something later from a different input just change the input on the "to tuner" channel.

Now you're always feeding the tuner but there's nothing extra in the guitar signal path.

 

[ahjteam]

To me this beats having to unplug, plug into the rack tuner, do it there, then back into the DI.

I have my tuner permanently connected to the last output of my RME card and I have routed the input signal of the first channel in the RME channel matrix so that the signal also goes to the tuner.

 

[exoslime]

GO FOR IT!!!

 

[Metaltastic]

kind of off topic but, if you dudes are recording DIs you should run your tuner off an aux send.

Cubendo walkthough: Setup up your tracks like normal but create an extra track called "to tuner" or something. Set the input of that channel to wherever your DI is coming in. Click the monitor button and drop the fader all the way down. setup an aux send to an extra output and set to pre fader. Run that output to a tuner. If you're tracking bass or something later from a different input just change the input on the "to tuner" channel.

Now you're always feeding the tuner but there's nothing extra in the guitar signal path.

Good idea dude; hopefully the latency wouldn't add up too much though!

 

[AudioGeekZine]

Having it on an aux is a very good idea whether its a hardware or software tuner. You don't have to have the tuner in the signal path so latency isn't an issue.

 

[guitarded88]

Just gonna throw this out there... I once heard that piano tuners purposely don't tune it PERFECTLY, because it doesn't sound right.

Mind you... I heard this from my high school music teacher. And he's... you know... a high school music teacher.

 

[Metaltastic]

Having it on an aux is a very good idea whether its a hardware or software tuner. You don't have to have the tuner in the signal path so latency isn't an issue.

Isn't it though? Cuz if it's a hardware tuner, the guitar signal goes in, gets converted to digital, and then has to be converted back to analog to be sent out to the tuner... (unless you have an interface that lets you create zero-latency analog routing options, such as the RME stuff)

 

[AudioGeekZine]

well, since it's in the tracking phase of the process, he'll have the latency really low anyway.
And if your tuner shows the note a few ms later than you play it does that matter?

 

[Metaltastic]

I'd say so, since when you're trying to tune up to a note, by the time the tuner says you're in tune you'll already be sharp But of course it depends how low you have the latency set (still, if we're obsessing over accuracy in tuning, I'd think this would be a pretty important factor as well)

 

[if6was9]

yeah but if you're gonna be anal about tuning your gonna pick the string a few times after you've tuned up to make sure you're right on the money, i don't think I've ever seen someone tune up to a note and move on without double checking its in tune by picking it again

 

[LydonB]

Just gonna throw this out there... I once heard that piano tuners purposely don't tune it PERFECTLY, because it doesn't sound right.

Mind you... I heard this from my high school music teacher. And he's... you know... a high school music teacher.

I have heard that many times as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_tuning

That is pretty informative.

 

[darth_cupboardy]

Just gonna throw this out there... I once heard that piano tuners purposely don't tune it PERFECTLY, because it doesn't sound right.

Mind you... I heard this from my high school music teacher. And he's... you know... a high school music teacher.

I think a guitar tuner does the same thing piano tuner does , it's called well-tempered tuning. and my guitar teacher showed how it would sound if you tune a chord (for example e minor) on a guitar perfectly. the chord sounds fine, but every other chords just sounds like pure shit.

 

[NickL]

Yeah I was going to post about equal-tempered tuning as well.This applies more to a piano than a guitar, as a guitar's frets are organized in such a way that it is not equally tempered. However, on a piano each note must be tuned individually and the pitches must be a certain distance away from one another so that no two octaves are actually perfect octaves.

 

[Saculus]

Just don't get their pedal that looks like a race car. The input jack doesn't seat cable properly and it becomes intermittent which makes it useless for live use.

 

[Metaltastic]

Just don't get their pedal that looks like a race car.

Hahahahahahahahah, excellent analogy

 

[lolzgreg]

I think a guitar tuner does the same thing piano tuner does , it's called well-tempered tuning. and my guitar teacher showed how it would sound if you tune a chord (for example e minor) on a guitar perfectly. the chord sounds fine, but every other chords just sounds like pure shit.

+1000 for Buzz Feiten tuning (wah). Too bad none of my guitars have it, but I "sweeten" a few of the open strings to make chording a little more in-tune.