PedalBoard 101

#2 Guitar Tuner

Staying in tune is the fundamental thing for every guitarist. None (even not yourself, believe me... ) want to listen to you playing if your guitar is out of tune.

Lucky, ingenious devices have been invented to reach the perfect pinch in seconds! These devices are named Tuners.

How it works

As you might already be aware, sound moves in waves, and waves can be measured in frequency, and so in hertz. We are not here to study physics, so, let me just tell you that the standard guitar tuning runs on 440 Hz.

There are multiple theories that stipulate that if you tune ''half step down'' you synchronize your soul with the rotation of the universe and bla bla bla..

Let me just tell you that, whatever is what you are use to, the lower Hz you set, the lower tuning will be (to make the reference of the half step flat tuning you'll usually set up your tuner to 415.3 Hz, or simply keep it at 440 and tune half step down......🙂 )

Some history

The first technology (and actually really efficient and precise) was the stroboscopic tuner, that flicker a light at the same frequency as the note. The light shines on a wheel that spins at a precise speed. The interaction of the light and regularly-spaced marks on the wheel creates a stroboscopic effect that makes the marks for a particular pitch appear to stand still when the pitch is in tune.

The first strobe tuner dates back to 1936 and was originally made by the Conn company; it was called the Stroboconn and was produced for approximately 40 years in different versions of course.

The strobe tuners are still nowadays the most precise tuner available on the market.

Where to go in the signal chain?

Mainly to be placed first on the pedalboard chain but please note that it really does depend on what kind of pedals you have, or you plan to have, on your board.

For example the very popular BOSS TU-3 is a ''buffer'' pedal, and some Fuzz pedals doesn't really like buffer in front of them.. (ref to the fuzz page)

My 2 cents

Do I really need a tuner pedal? I would not buy a guitar tuner in pedal format, as actually the clip tuners work perfectly fine for most of the players.

For the professional guitar player (and if you are one, HUGE THANK YOU as I'm deeply honored to have you reading my humbles posts) maybe yes, as you maybe will need to ''mute'' yourself and be sure to have your guitar perfectly in tune at every time during your ²show.