Jump to content
Gibson Brands Forums

Got a questions 'bout setting up a guitar.


DAS44

Recommended Posts

I fully agree that a good tuner is needed for proper intonation. But my advice is to test your ear out too. That is, hit the 12th fret harmonic and then hit the note. Then check it out with the tuner. This is a perfect opportunity to help train your ear. Disclaimer here! I never use my ear to set the intonation. I'm merely saying to use this opportunity to help train your ear. Another way is to play slide with the tuner. Or even bend notes to other notes using the tuner. A tuner can be used for much more than setting the pitch of the string and/or setting the intonation. It's a great training tool too...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1. Is an expensive and highly accurate tuner needed for setting intonation? (I know its reccomended but....)

 

all for now.

 

If you can't set intonation by ear, (comparing each string to it's neighbor), they you ought to be playing drums. There's a lot of hoo ha about the accuracy of tuners. Yeah, you need to start with a reasonably close "E", but after that you ought to be able to do it by ear. Then, when you get up on stage that all goes out the window as you tune to each other. Because if you a, supposedly, highly trained musician can't hear any intonation discrepecies, the audience won't. That ought to be good enough.

 

imNSho, the absoltely, dead nuts, accuate to within a nano hz tuners will drive you crazy trying to get the needle to stand straight up on all six strings at the same time. God help you if you play mandolin.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1. Is an expensive and highly accurate tuner needed for setting intonation? (I know its reccomended but....)

 

all for now.

 

To answer your original question - expensive? not really. highly accurate? yes.

 

I need to comment on a few comments made. While the Boss TU-2 is great for tuning your guitar on stage and at rehearsal, it is NOT accurate enough to properly set the intonation on your guitar. For that you need something like a Peterson strobe tuner. Those are accurate down to 1/1000th of a semitone. I think the TU-2 is around 1/10th. A Peterson V-SAM will set you back about 250 USD.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess my idea of highly accurate could better be described as accurate enough to be worth paying for.

 

On second thought after seeing some of these posts, I can honestly say that what I require of a tuner is that

it does what I can't - no matter how hard I try.

 

With the TU-2, I hit the mute feature and follow the little lights as I tune.

When all the little lights say it's good, I kick the signal back on and strum - BINGO!

 

I NEVER tune and then hear that dissonant, slightly odd, not quite there note afterwards.

 

I can tune by ear, if I apply the effort and ambition, just like I did over 30 years ago.

Then I check with the TU-2 and find that it wasn't quite what I thought it was.....

Screw all that!

 

:-)

 

Tuner of decent quality, accuracy and durability?

Brings me back to the TU-2.

 

If I had a rack full of gear, I'd have a more accurate tuner in my rig.

Maybe.

 

For a young beginner up thru the hobbyist, the TU-2 is still the best $100 he'll ever spend.

Of that I am certain.

 

 

 

Are there good, comparable tuners out there made by other companies?

Could be.

I haven't cared to look in nearly ten years, and no reason to doubt my decision after seeing so many

of them in use on so many stages where a paycheck was involved. If it's good enough for them....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey, I resisted tuners for years and years and years. Pitch pipe and ear.

 

Then I got that Zoom 707II multi-stomp just to play with and add a bit of chorus and stuff I don't have on both of my amps and it had a built-in tuner. It's not even in the same league with a dedicated tuner but... it surely makes life easier on the occasions when I'm playing with others, especially since it seems everybody else uses ... a tuner.

 

I also discovered I was pressuring a couple of my guitars to pull them out of tune just that little tad bit too... Hmmmm.

 

m

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...