My old Sabine rack tuner finally died and I'm looking for a good pedal tuner to replace it with. The only one I've used recently is a Boss TU-3. Is there a better alternative or is that the consensus best reasonably priced one out there at the moment?
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Best Pedal Tuner
- Thread starter robbieaz62
- Start date
My TU-3 does everything I need it to. Accurate and road worthy. Well by road worthy I mean when I play a local bar and a drunk idiot trips on it and spills a drink on it, it still works.
The pitchblack is a great tuner if you want true bypass, I love how all it is and how big the display is. I have some pedals that work better with a buffer in front of them so I use the TU-3 (it has a really good buffer). From what I've read here though the Sonic Research Turbo Tuner is supposed to be the be all end all pedal tuner (I haven't tried one yet but I would really like to).
TurboTuner and Pitchblack are both nice. Pitchblack+ also serves as an A/B switch.
However, both of them have one "feature" which I find to be a drawback - they always mute while tuning. The up side is that they don't use power while not tuning, and they are both true bypass. But I really wish they had an option to keep the tuner active and pass the signal through at the same time. I get around this at the moment by using the Pitchblack+ as my A/B switch and "muted" tuner, while feeding the TurboTuner from the tuner out on my amp (so it's always on).
I believe the Peterson pedal tuners (StroboStomp 2 / Stomp Classic) can be configured as either true bypass OR constant tuning (with signal passed through). I probably would have just gone with a Peterson if they had a model with the A/B switch built in like the Pitchblack+. Oh, and I think the Peterson's have better support for Buzz Feiten tuning - which would be more of an issue if my MTD z6 wasn't fretless...
Petersons have had a lot of positive feedback on TB, although there have been some durability issues with the displays on older models. TurboTuner and PitchBlack have also been well received and deservedly so. IMHO, any of these three would be a substantial improvement over a non-strobe tuner.
However, both of them have one "feature" which I find to be a drawback - they always mute while tuning. The up side is that they don't use power while not tuning, and they are both true bypass. But I really wish they had an option to keep the tuner active and pass the signal through at the same time. I get around this at the moment by using the Pitchblack+ as my A/B switch and "muted" tuner, while feeding the TurboTuner from the tuner out on my amp (so it's always on).
I believe the Peterson pedal tuners (StroboStomp 2 / Stomp Classic) can be configured as either true bypass OR constant tuning (with signal passed through). I probably would have just gone with a Peterson if they had a model with the A/B switch built in like the Pitchblack+. Oh, and I think the Peterson's have better support for Buzz Feiten tuning - which would be more of an issue if my MTD z6 wasn't fretless...
Petersons have had a lot of positive feedback on TB, although there have been some durability issues with the displays on older models. TurboTuner and PitchBlack have also been well received and deservedly so. IMHO, any of these three would be a substantial improvement over a non-strobe tuner.
I love my Pitchblack, both because it's accurate (though I have not used any common tuner that wasn't at least accurate) and mostly because of how damn easy it is to use and read on stage.
TU-3 seems to work for me. I have used both indoors and outdoors and no problems. Pretty accurate imo as well.
Belcat do one, and it's cheap, It has the advantage of being in tuning mode all the time, whether it's in mute or not. Also it has a large, bright display that I think would be visible on an outdoor stage. Model # is FTN525.
Thanks for all the input everyone. I think I'm going to go with the Korg. I'm currently using a friend's TU-3, which works perfectly fine, but I think I want to try something different just because ...
This is cool--you can play all strings at once then tune accordingly.
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On the flip side I have had great results with my little snark clip on and I wont use a pedal after using this. Its too easy and only 15 bucks! Goodluck!
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On the flip side I have had great results with my little snark clip on and I wont use a pedal after using this. Its too easy and only 15 bucks! Goodluck!
I have one and like it... but so long as you can SEE it, it's true bypass and it works - it's all the same. Pitchblack, Turbotuner, TC-tuner... I'm not wild about the Boss or DOD one's...
The Boss TU-3 finds pitch faster than the Korg PitchBlack and the display is better than the TU-2. I sold my Korg a few months after I bought it.
TU2/3 is a fairly bulletproof standard - recommended - and the 3 is a real improvment over the 2: faster, better visibility, more definitive 'in tune' indication. It also acts as a nifty Y splitter when you need one.
