Tuner that shows +/- Cents quickly (and accurately)

I've been using a TurboTuner ST-200 for years and it's far and away the best bass tuner I've tried. The same thing that makes it fast - stroboscopic technology - means that it's not even calculating cents, just showing where you are relative to reference pitch. If I want cents, I'll use something slow like a plug-in on my DAW.

 

Sorry to have edited my reply a couple of times after prematurely posting. Just what are you trying to do with that +/- cent information, and how accuate does it need to be? Most of the dial-and-needle style tuners have some indications on the dial as to how many cents +/- off the target frequency you are, but it's imprecise (and often slow/inaccurate for bass, which is why strobeoscopic tuners are the favorite of bassists).

 

I've used Peterson tuners for years, both analog and digital. I currently use the TC polytune3. It has strobe and needle modes and is plenty accurate. No lab mode with cent readout though. I've found that level of accuracy only truly beneficial with higher frequency/multiple string instruments like the mandolin and the piano.

 

how about a smartphone app?

 

I think that playing with chords behind me or a backing track where you have tonal references informed me plenty and really enhanced my relative pitch without needing something to tell me how out I was. I think it's more important to train your ear to hear it. You could spend the rest of your life obsessing over how many cents off you are but ultimately it should be the music that matters.

 

Anything that's gonna get you more-or-less accurate cent measurements all the way down a bass neck is going to be awfully slow to practice against. You would only be able to check yourself visually on very slow legato figures. If you really think a visual reference approach would be useful, I'd strongly suggest trying instead to learn how to read the dial spin on your TurboTuner as your guage of out-of-tuneness. You already have it, and it's as fast as they come.

All that having been said, I don't think a visual aid like that would really be all that helpful to learn fretless or upright, but to each their own.

 

and if you would prefer a landscape view with bigger digits, check Airyware Tuner too