Tuners were a God-send. We tuned to the keyboard. Usually the guitar tuned first and then we tuned to the guitar, poorly. I used to play with a guitarist who had perfect pitch, and he would glare at anyone who fell out of tune.
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Does anyone else still use one of these?
- Thread starter ReidK
- Start date
Korg DT-1. A pocket-sized version of their DT-1 Pro rack tuner with all features intact other than being made for a single channel rather than a bunch.
From the mid-80s. It's exactly the same size as an audio cassette tape's jewel box, one of those things that made a lot of sense at the time but is of absolutely no use to anyone any more. Even came with a jewelbox-like plastic cover you could swing back to use as a stand but mine broke without having been used hard. I doubt any covers survive unless Korg kept a DT-1 as a museum piece.
The 1/4" sockets for audio passthrough weren't as useful as I'd hoped because the tuner is really light (so it'd just whip around on the end of the cable) and too delicate to keep with the pedals. On the other hand the pinhole-size LEDs are bright enough for use in daylight so it's more useful than I'm making it sound, and being able to control the responsiveness of the "needle" is great when you've got floppy strings that sound fine but make tuners wander. The above is a pic of someone else's but I still have mine and keep it handy, although these days I mostly use a clip-on or the tuner built into the DAW.
I used one for years. Eventually the plastic input jack wore out. Great inexpensive tuner. I was playing a "jam day" gig when a local crackhead got up to sit in. He used his bass into my amp. My tuner was on top of my amp. The crackhead was a smoker too. He lit up a cigarette and after a few puffs put it out in the ash tray on my amp. The melted burn marks on my tuner remained for years but the tuner worked fine. I dislike "jam days".
I have that exact model - the BT-2 has been getting the job done for me since the early 90s.
For setting intonation, I find my pedals (TurboTuner or the tuner in my POD Go) more accurate and they're easier to use at gigs.
For pedal-free gigs or rehearsals, I plug a Korg PitchJack into the "tuner out' on my amp.
But the BT-2 is still faithfully serving on my bench for string changes.
Clip-on tuners are handy, but I'm consistently amazed/appalled by how many people don't mute their instrument to tune.
It's a pet peeve of mine: IMO full-volume tuning is just about as unprofessional as bending over on stage when your back is to the crowd.
Yup. I have a couple of them and why not. They work just fine and I hate headstock tuners.
That's awesome! Like some others here, that was my first tuner as well. No idea what ever happened to it, but it's cool to see them still in use!
Not that one, but I have 2 boss tu-12h units that see frequent use as well as a couple of the little white korg ca-40 chromatic tuners
I was a guitar/bass/backline tech with a national act southern rock band in the late 90's/ early 2000's.
I used Boss TU-12 tuners as did almost everyone else that we toured with.
These were really great tuners. They held up to a lot of use, but eventually quit reading the note being played. When that happened, they usually got tossed into the trash (we had several on hand). One time I took one apart and saw that the solder connection that grounded the input jack to the circuit board had broken. We only used the input jack at guitar world, and the ground solder joint was the only thing that attached the jack to the circuit board. After repeated use, the solder joint would fail.
All I had to do was take a soldering iron and reheat the broken joint. Instant fix. I recovered several from the trash. I still have a few of them on hand.
I never use them anymore. I have a peterson strobe pedal on my bench, plus assorted clip ons. I also have a rack mounted tuner built into my bench. I never use it.
I have a Korg Pitchblack on my pedalboard for gigs.
I used Boss TU-12 tuners as did almost everyone else that we toured with.
These were really great tuners. They held up to a lot of use, but eventually quit reading the note being played. When that happened, they usually got tossed into the trash (we had several on hand). One time I took one apart and saw that the solder connection that grounded the input jack to the circuit board had broken. We only used the input jack at guitar world, and the ground solder joint was the only thing that attached the jack to the circuit board. After repeated use, the solder joint would fail.
All I had to do was take a soldering iron and reheat the broken joint. Instant fix. I recovered several from the trash. I still have a few of them on hand.
I never use them anymore. I have a peterson strobe pedal on my bench, plus assorted clip ons. I also have a rack mounted tuner built into my bench. I never use it.
I have a Korg Pitchblack on my pedalboard for gigs.
After fighting the old Conn Strobe Tuners back in the day, I started using either KORG or BOSS tuners, and still do (this is my current fave). Early on after five-strings became common, they wouldn't read open B and you'd have to tune it off the 12 fret octave harmonic. This doesn't have that shortcoming, and I prefer the cent +/- scale plus the arrow LED's to nail pitch. And there's a pitch generator to get me to rough tune when I change all strings at once.
I've never had much luck with the clip-ons, and besides, knowing me, I'm sure I'd be knocking them off the head fairly often !
This, 100%!!!
And, no, I don't use it any more. My tuners are floor pedals because I want the mute switch. At home I have a clip on.
I sometimes simply prefer using the tuning fork I got when I bought my very nice Aria acoustic guitar (basically a Martin D28 copy) in ‘78. Kinder, gentler times. The guitar still plays and sounds great.
My uncle bought me that exact same tuning fork as well for me in 1975.
It came in a grey small paper sliding box with A440 written on the side and A440 Made in Germany also stamped on the tiny handle.
I was 11 years old.
Oddly enough I cherish that little tuner.
