• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join freeLog in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Tuner troubles

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.
 
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
 
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.
 
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
 

Latest posts