I use a Sonic Research Turbo Tuner for my bass, which I've had for a bit over a year and have absolutely no complaints about. As a sales pitch: it's perfect. Better and more accurate than a Korg Pitchblack, Boss TU2 and TU3, and even the Peterson Strobostomp. If you care about the precision of your tuning, just go buy one asap.
So, back on topic: Today at a rehearsal, my guitarist sounded kind of out of tune so I took his guitar and reintonated it quickly, using my Turbo Tuner. Strumming chords up and down the fretboard, sounds perfect, no issues. However, we plugged the guitar back into his TC Electronic Polytune pedal and three of the six things were coming up almost a quarter sharp, where as they were perfect on my Turbo Tuner. Upon close inspection, it appears the Polytune pedal was set on completely stock settings in chromatic mode so I have no idea why it would read so far off.
I started thinking about how a bassist in a prior band I was playing with also had the Polytune and how he ALWAYS sounded a little bit flat to my ear, all the time. I have pretty sensitive hearing when it comes to tuning but both of these instances are really throwing me for a loop on this product.
TL; DR: two instances I've had where two different Polytune pedals were both very inaccurate compared to other tuners.
Has anyone else ever owned a Polytune and had similar issues? Am I doing something wrong? I know these things generally get great reviews and I always thought they were decent, but the only two experiences I've had with them are the two listed above, both of which yielded a huge gap of accuracy compared to even say, a Boss TU2.
Or am I just doing something wrong? Is there some mystery calibration setting that my guitarist should be bypassing that got turned on by accident? Any tips?
So, back on topic: Today at a rehearsal, my guitarist sounded kind of out of tune so I took his guitar and reintonated it quickly, using my Turbo Tuner. Strumming chords up and down the fretboard, sounds perfect, no issues. However, we plugged the guitar back into his TC Electronic Polytune pedal and three of the six things were coming up almost a quarter sharp, where as they were perfect on my Turbo Tuner. Upon close inspection, it appears the Polytune pedal was set on completely stock settings in chromatic mode so I have no idea why it would read so far off.
I started thinking about how a bassist in a prior band I was playing with also had the Polytune and how he ALWAYS sounded a little bit flat to my ear, all the time. I have pretty sensitive hearing when it comes to tuning but both of these instances are really throwing me for a loop on this product.
TL; DR: two instances I've had where two different Polytune pedals were both very inaccurate compared to other tuners.
Has anyone else ever owned a Polytune and had similar issues? Am I doing something wrong? I know these things generally get great reviews and I always thought they were decent, but the only two experiences I've had with them are the two listed above, both of which yielded a huge gap of accuracy compared to even say, a Boss TU2.
Or am I just doing something wrong? Is there some mystery calibration setting that my guitarist should be bypassing that got turned on by accident? Any tips?
