Beginner tip: tuning acoustic guitars with high-end pedal tuners

[jacksroadhouse]

Tuning acoustic guitar can be a bit of a pain, gear-wise. The clip-on tuners are mostly rather inaccurate, and if you don't have a pickup systen in your guitar, the really good tuners (like a Boss TU-2 or TU-3 among several) won't work, since they don't have a built-in mic.

The solution is simple: there are contact mics specifically designed for this purpose. You can plug them into the tuner (1/4" jack) on one end and clip onto your guitar on the other, and they allow you to use any tuner you like with an acoustic guitar (or a classical guitar, or any other acoustic instrument for that matter).

There are several models on the market. I use a "Harley Benton CM-1000" (which cost me € 4.90) on a Boss TU-3 (which cost me slightly more), and it works great - very quick, very accurate. There's also the "Planet Waves PW-PTC-01 Piezi Clip", but I haven't tried that one.

Btw: even if you have a pickup on your acoustic, this little gadget saves you from constantly plugging in/unplugging, for which your beloved instrument might be grateful in the long run. It also saves batteries.

[Ragz]

Or if you have a smartphone, just get one of the many tuner apps and tune it with that

[steveo2]

I have no idea what Clip on the Op is using every one I have used was pretty cool.

I have two snarks and they work very well, when the battery dies they don't work.
But the battery's last longer than the 9 volts and if you forget to turn it off while it turn on by itself.
 I have a boss Tu 2
 I think,
 it is old and had a mic built in that worked pretty good.
It may be a TU 1 it was the very first tuner made by boss, it was stepped on, many the bottom that say Chromatic are smash down inside it and it still work fine.

I also have the BOSS TU 100 which is also very old.
The snarks or any clip on seem pretty good for teaching people to bend in tune.
Again ears are best but it does help to have something to check and see you are bending flat,
if you bend sharp your ear should tell you that's really wrong or it should tell you it sharp anyway.

Tuning the guitar by ear is part of learning and should be done, Acoustic always sound better when tune by my ear than with the tuner.

[jacksroadhouse]

I've been through four tuners by now: 3 clip-pns, which weren't nearly as precise as they claimed to be, and one Ibanez LU10, which goes bananas with both my main acoustics and my PAC112. It's bad with the pick-ups, and worse with the mic (it even gets distracted by faint traffic noise). And a tuner, that half the time can't make up it's bloody mind wether a string is sharp or flat, isn't much use.

Now that I'm using the TU-3 and the CM1000, I'm really happy. Tuning is literally twice as fast and I now have a tuner that actually indicates "in tune", which the LU10 almost never does, and it's better than my ears, so my ears can learn again.

[steveo2]

Yeah I have the Snark, it last but it stay on a guitar or case and it's design may help it.
I could see them breaking or being lost, they are tiny.
When I see something that works well I will promote it, Tuners are really for live performances and maybe ear trainings. when you tune by ear you get two on the 7 main interval in your head or ear as well.
 
The boss stuff may last forever, mine are very old.

A tuning fork that will produce and A 5 bucks, learning that something is out by ear well that's priceless

[monabean]

Anyone have an iPhone?  Have you tried the guitar tuner "Tun-d" from the itunes store?
There is a free version.

http://itunes.apple.com/th/app/tun-d-free/id486122715?mt=8

[Scooter Trash]

Good tip Jacks!

I have a Peterson stroboflip tuner. I love it! It has a built-in mic, and also comes with a clip-on transducer, and there's a loop-through on the input, and a mic stand/guitar stand mounting bracket. It also has nice drop-key, and other features. They're a bit expensive but I've had this one for over a year, and have been very happy with it.

http://www.petersontuners.com/index.cfm?category=37&sub=21

[Scooter Trash]

I just learned a useful tip:

If you have an acoustic guitar with no pickup, and a tuner with no pickup you can put your headphones on the guitar and plug the headphones into your tuner. The headphones will work as a pickup.

[jacksroadhouse]

Nice idea, though I'm wondering about accuracy when you turn a loudspeaker into a mic

Speaking of mics: since I stepped on my contact mic a while back I now have an ordinary mic (silly old thing with 1/4" plug) plugged into my tuner, and I like that even better - no fuss with the clip, just playing. Wouldn't work in a noisy environment, but at home it's okay

[Scooter Trash]

Nice idea, though I'm wondering about accuracy when you turn a loudspeaker into a mic

Just plug your headphones into the mic input of your PC and record with Audacity. You might be surprised.
A loudspeaker and a dynamic microphone are basically the same thing. The primary difference is that the microphone diaphragm is smaller and more sensitive. The tuner doesn't need flat frequency response. It just needs to sense how many times per second the current alternates from positive to negative.

[Wishbone]

Korg supply a contact mic for their tuner range, the CM-100L. They're only a tenner or so and work just fine.

When you can remember where you left them, that is