Tuner troubles

Bassbat · #1 01-30-2011, 12:20 AM

I got the Boss TU-2 for christmas and love it. Its the best tuner I have used. The trouble came when I got a new bass. It still tunes but it takes a lot longer. The light shifts back and forth before landing in one place, then it goes out. My new bass is a Ibanez SR300, which has active pickups, my old bass has passive pickups, so I'm wondering if the active pick ups are causing a problem for the TU-2. Any input would be appreciated.

Pigbobman · #2 01-30-2011, 05:07 AM

I thought I was the only one. The TU-2 does exactly the same thing with me, I think it maybe an active thing, both my basses are active and come across the same problems...even when passive is selected. Too much gubbins in there causing interference? Not sure.

Bassbat · #3 01-30-2011, 09:25 AM

Yeah I have been diligently researching this on Talk Bass and the rest of the net, and your the first person I have heard of experiencing the same problem. I noticed when I plugged my bass in to the amp there was a bit of a hum, I figure this has got to have something to do with the fact that the battery is right under the pickups. I was thinking about getting a compression pedal, so I wonder if this will solve the problem

ggunn · #4 01-30-2011, 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bassbat

Yeah I have been diligently researching this on Talk Bass and the rest of the net, and your the first person I have heard of experiencing the same problem. I noticed when I plugged my bass in to the amp there was a bit of a hum, I figure this has got to have something to do with the fact that the battery is right under the pickups. I was thinking about getting a compression pedal, so I wonder if this will solve the problem

It's probably not the battery; batteries are DC, hum is AC. If your bass is humming, a compressor won't fix it and depending on how you set it could very well make it worse.

Steve · #5 01-30-2011, 10:27 AM

Back the bass and treble on the instrument down when you tune, especially the treble.

Bassbat · #6 01-30-2011, 02:58 PM

Thanks Steve I'll try that

Bassbat · #7 01-30-2011, 11:15 PM

So this is seems odd to me but I put a battery in it instead of using my 1spot and now its working fine

JTE · #8 01-31-2011, 07:52 AM

I've used TU-2 since they came out, almost always with wall-warts(Boss, 1-Spot, and generic) and I've never seen any difference in response between active or passive instruments.

Of course you have to understand how the tuner works and feed it a signal that works well for it. That means any active EQ is set flat, I use the neck PUP and read the attack of the notes. And there's nothing wrong at all with using harmonics instead of the open string. Your 12th fret harmonic IS precisely one octave above your open strings unless your strings are bad (in which case you're going to be out of tune anyway) and the higher pitch gives the tuner's counting system twice as much data (i.e. a higher sampling rate) for more accurate tuning.

John

John

Bassbat · #9 02-01-2011, 07:49 AM

thanks I started using harmonics too. I think that works best. I usually use harmonics when I tune by ear.