So being new to the guitar scene I am trying to get the best gear at decent prices. I purchased a Cort chromatic tuner which isn't the best tuner but also not the cheapest. I always tried tuning it on the piezo setting and then compared it to an iphone app I have installed on my phone. The two never agreed. Worse is that the Cort tuner always showed that the guitar is out of tune on the 12th fret. I then took my guitar to a luthier to get set up. Same story. Now I noticed that if i use the tuner on the microphone input it is closer but still somewhat off . The setting on the tuner is for guitar at 440Mhz. I don't trust it very much at the moment. Any ideas or suggestions? >

Not sure what you mean by piezo setting? You've plugged the guitar into the tuner?

For electric guitar's the microphone on these tuners and on the phone apps are not the easiest to use - the guitar just doesn't have enough volume. It can work though. I generally use a clip on tuner (they're reasonable, about R100-R200), and it's relatively accurate - though not as accurate as some pedal based tuners. I've one of these : http://www.amazon.com/Snark-Clip-Guitar-Chromatic-Metronome/dp/B0046A04LU - it isn't as accurate as I hoped, but okay for daily playing.

Sounds like the intonation isn't great on your guitar - tough to say without a reliable tuner. However, this is something you can do yourself, if you don't trust the fellow who did your setup.

Here's a overview of the theory by the master...http://www.ratcliffe.co.za/articles/intonate.shtml

Well, there is always "Howzit tuner!" Sorry... ?

I bought myself an el-cheapo Caline tuner off eBay and it is not that good to say the least. The biggest problem is that it is not very accurate in the sense that it tells me that a string is in tune, but when I play the guitar it is clearly not in tune. The difference is not huge, but it bugs me no end!

Fortunately, I started playing guitars before electronic tuners were widely available, so I learnt how to tune the hard way. 8) (Back then you were lucky if you knew someone who had a tuner! And it was not even that long ago... ) So what I do is to get the rough tuning done with the tuner and then manually do the fine-tuning. It is obviously not ideal, but it gets the job done. And I think that there is still merit in learning to tune your guitar - at least I hope so! ? I would suggest learning to tune using harmonics because one can get super-accurate tuning without too much skill (just listen for the beats).

The tuner app on a cellular phone should be pretty good depending on the app you use. The sampling rate on the mic should be pretty high, and even low-accuracy clocks are incredibly accurate at the low sampling rates used for audio. So a good app should work really well.

And I agree with V8: It sounds like the intonation on the guitar is not great. Again, learning how to set (or at least check) the intonation of a guitar is a good skill to have. Unfortunately, one either needs a very good ear or a good tuner... And don't break your truss rod! (Experience talking... :'( )

Rabbit wrote: And don't break your truss rod! (Experience talking... :'( )

Why would you adjust the truss rod while setting intonation? ???

http://www.ratcliffe.co.za/articles/truss.shtml

The tuner that I have is the Cort E502C:

http://www.cortguitars.com/uk/accessories/tuners

http://www.kalahari.com/Musical-Instruments/Cort-E502C-Guitar-And-Bass-Clip-On-Tuner_p_47825828

I would be very upset if my intonation is not right. I paid a proffessional a bag load of money to set up the guitar in order for me to have everything right until I learn how to do it myself. I will take my guitar to the teacher who teaches my son and ask him to check.

It is a clip-on and the Piezo setting is where it measures the vibration pitch. On the picture you will see it is set at 443Mhz. Mine is currently set on 440Mhz. In the link that V8 posted it mentions that it is tailored to the guitar, so I guess I will need different settings for every guitar. Makes sense as not all guitars are the same.

Vikster wrote: I will take my guitar to the teacher who teaches my son and ask him to check.

+1, get a second opinion. Not all techs are equal. There trustworthy GFSA'ers who do tech work, if you do not come right, ask around here for one in your area. I'd offer, but I'm in Ct and not the greatest tech :-[

Vikster wrote: It is a clip-on and the Piezo setting is where it measures the vibration pitch. On the picture you will see it is set at 443Mhz. Mine is currently set on 440Mhz. In the link that V8 posted it mentions that it is tailored to the guitar, so I guess I will need different settings for every guitar. Makes sense as not all guitars are the same.

Ahh, I think I understand your original question now...you shouldn't need a different setting - "Concert pitch" A440hz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A440_%28pitch_standard%29) is a standard tuning pitch so I'd say your tuner is in tune. I use the same clip-on for electric guitar, bass, ukelele, acoustic guitar, violin...

There are a few variables that may cause tuning issues : flat batteries in the tuner, old strings, strings slipping on the tuning pegs, strings binding on the nut/bridge saddles, you might be pressing quite hard down on the 12th fret causing the pitch to be a touch sharp (and a few other that escape me now). It's pretty uncommon, but a packet of new strings can have a dud/dead string or two, I've had this happen a few times (mostly when using no-name brand strings). Or the intonation may be out.

There is a trick or two when tuning and setting up a guitar. Ideally it should be tuned in playing position and not laid flat on a table.

As I mentioned my clip-on isn't as accurate as I'd hoped. It can be 5 cents out compared to other tuners. But for daily use, I can live with it. (P.s. Not all ears are equal either - what sounded in tune to me, causes others to wince and claim I'm tone-deaf). When I record, I use a app based tuner.

Given a choice between a tuner and an app, I would tend to believe the tuner. And Cort is a good manufacturer - not the best, but definitely not low quality! While a phone's hardware is quite capable, the real magic lies in the software, and there are any number of ways to mess that up...

The frequencies you mention should always be set to 440 Hz. This is the frequency of the note A above middle C, and serves as the ground truth for tuning. So changing that value could lead to a guitar which is perfectly in tune with itself, but out of tune with everything else. Having everybody use 440 Hz removes the need to tune instruments relative to each other because they are already tuned to the same ground truth.

I would actually be very surprised if the intonation is not set correctly by someone who charges for their services. So I have been racking my brain about what else could it be... :-\ Here is what I have come up with:

The tuner looks like it is just a guitar tuner - which is to say that it is probably optimised for tuning open strings and not fretted notes. A chromatic tuner is actually required to tune any note (though the twelfth fret might work because it is the octave of the open note). So the question is: Does the tuner say that the twelfth-fret note is slightly out or does it say that it is completely wrong? If the answer is completely wrong, then you have probably just bumped up against the limitations of the tuner rather than a problem with the guitar. If it says that the note is only slightly out, then the question becomes: How much? A small error will make no difference to the playability of the guitar, but will take a ton of time to get any more accurate. So it is really not worth the trouble. If the error is large (a sizeable fraction of a semitone), then you probably have a problem with the intonation. Here it would be useful to check the twelfth-fret harmonic.

The goal of intonation is to get the twelfth-fret note to be identical to the twelfth-fret harmonic. The harmonic depends only on the string length and tension, so it is the natural harmonic (octave) of the open note. The twelfth-fret note depends on the string, but also on the fretboard. If the note and the harmonic are different, then every fretted note will be slightly out of tune, and it will get worse as one moves to higher frets.

So you could try comparing what the tuner says for the twelfth-fret note to what it says for the twelfth-fret note. If the tuner cannot handle anything other than open strings, neither will work. If it does work and the two notes are very close, there is no problem.

Or as you say, you could just ask the guitar teacher! ?

I use this.... 400 bux at your local marshall music at the moment.



Stay away from those pocket tuners mate ... eish ?