what is the most accurate guitar tuner i can buy?

Question

what is the most accurate guitar tuner i can buy?

Answer 1

A Peterson Strobe tuner like the 490ST will be the most accurate tuner you can purchase, but as someone else mentioned, they're not the most practical. They have a little bit of a learning curve and best for use in guitar setups.



The Peterson will be accurate to about 0.001 cent. Whereas most other chromatic tuners are accurate to about 1-2 cents.



If you're playing electric, the good ol' standard is the Boss TU2/3 although the TC Electronic PolyTune is pretty nice.



If you're playing acoustic, I recommend either the IntelliTouch or the Planet Waves clip on tuners that use a small piezo pickup to measure the vibrations of the strings rather than rely on a mic, which can pick up background room noise. Get one with a backlight for low light conditions.

Answer 2

I haven't experienced the "clip-on" tuners myself, but they don't exactly get rave reviews. My favorite brand is Korg...buy the cheapest tuner they make and it will do a fine job. To tune accurately it's best to plug the guitar into the tuner, although all of them come with little condensor mikes these days for tuning an unplugged acoustic. Whenever you use a tuner for the guitar, try to play the harmonics at the 12th fret for each string and you'll get better results. I had a Korg tuner for years...it had beer spilled all over it, it was dropped numerous times on concrete floors, and spent countless hours in smoke filled environments and it never failed me. The only reason I bought a new Korg was because the old one forced you to slide a little switch to tune each of the 6 strings...the new tuners recognize what string you're trying to tune, (if you're in the ball park) so there's no need to move a little switch constantly. It's commonly referred to as "hands free tuning) I still have my original Korg....over 25 years old and it still works great.

Answer 3

One of these:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/StroboRack/



A big rackmount strobe tuner isn't exactly the most practical thing though. A $20 digital tuner is perfectly acceptable, but if you're looking for something a little fancier, I recommend the BOSS TU-12

Answer 4

even one on the range of 17 dlls is almost perfect

you don't need an expensive one