I love my guitar but I dont know if I love my tuner, so if you can ....

Ray

help me here plse, because I'm feeling very untogether about something. About a year ago I went into a music shop and said I want a tuner. So they showed me a couple of tuners which didnt look impressive at all. And I looked up on the wall and I saw this other one with lots of buttons and I thought that must be just about the way to go for now. So I said I wanted it and they said but this other little thing is what they use for all their setups because it is so reliable but I swear it didnt have many buttons and stuff and we all know then that is not gonna do the trick.
Now, this lekker tuner that I bought and it is a Seiko (with some numbers after) also came with quite a lot of instructions which I didnt read and which I have lost but I swear I dont think I'll read them now anyway - just too much.
So, why am I telling you this? Because I have got a bit of an issue. I have got an Ibanez AG75 and I cant tune the thing. On my acoustic guitar the thing seems to work and displays the note I am tuning and also some other number which I think refers to the octave. So I tune the Ibanez up to the acoustic and things sound OK. Then when I plug the Ibanez into the tuner it gives another note completely and then nogal says I’m not in tune with it. So with one guitar the thing works gif and on the next guitar it presents such a confusion I don’t know how much more I can take.
Then, one of my offspring has got another Ibanez solid body guitar (well, I bought it but he plays it) and the thing works great on that guitar.
Is there something about these hollowbody electric guitars that somebody should be telling me? Should I laugh this tuner off and go and buy the much cheaper reliable one? Maybe the boy in my house with a fine head of hair meddled with something and he should get out and find another place to stay? He eats plenty and the university fees are killing since he lost the bursary.

aja

This might be a dumb question, but when last did you change your strings?

Anyways, I have always used this cheap korg CA-30 tuner. It tracks a bit slow, but works pretty well...

AlanRatcliffe

Flatwound strings by any chance? Some tuners like a brighter tone and archtops also have a lot of resonant frequencies in the lower mids which sometimes confuse things. Try select the bridge pickup and tune with 12th fret harmonics (which have purer fundamentals with less overtones).

Ray

YES, YES, YES!!! I use D'addario half rounds because the normal wound strings make a hell of a noise. Thank you, thank you , thank you!! So for now, the tuner and the kid stay. I must also say that I have .12's on because anything lighter is really wierd on this guitar. I am so happy now I'm gonna write a song. Really, I am serious you know that feeling when you think something you really dig might just be a bag of crap and turns out that everything's gonna be alright.

AlanRatcliffe

Ray wrote: So for now, the tuner and the kid stay

Tuner... probably. Kid... maybe - seems to be leeching valuable GAS money. ?

Gearhead

Alan, please don't tell the man to sell his kids - it looks as though he might, but later you find out that he buys them Ibanezs. I wonder what fresh eyes fetch these days? :-\

Bob-Dubery

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Flatwound strings by any chance? Some tuners like a brighter tone and archtops also have a lot of resonant frequencies in the lower mids which sometimes confuse things. Try select the bridge pickup and tune with 12th fret harmonics (which have purer fundamentals with less overtones).

Ja. I have trouble with the Morgan sometimes because of all the overtones. As you say I just tune it with harmonics - end of problem. This bothers some tuners more than others, and seems to be a little more severe when I have just fitted strings.

Reinhard

You can also try dampening the other strings while tuning.

Ray

Does anyoen have any experience with these Planet Waves clip on your headstock tuners? Any good?

Bob-Dubery

Ray wrote: Does anyoen have any experience with these Planet Waves clip on your headstock tuners? Any good?

I've got one. I think that ANY of these clip on tuners are not much use when you've restringing a guitar and want to get it up to proper pitch. Once you're more or less OK they become useful.

However I do have a question mark against the Planet Waves. Every now and then it tells me the guitar is in tune but I can hear that it's not. So I get out my Boss TU-80 and find that one string or other is sharp or flat by a few cents but the PW isn't even picking that up.

There are several clip on jobbies that are great for people with not very good eyes (like me). The PW goes green for "in tune" and red for out. Even better is my el cheapo "Cherry" (that's the brand name) which goes orange for flat, red for sharp and green for spot on.

What does work for me with the PW is the simplicity. No different modes and things like that. On and off with one easy to reach button. There is another button round the back somewhere but who cares about that one. It will most definitely NOT work for you if you play guitar left-handed.

Reinhard

I love my turbo tuner, very accurate, and tracks really quick. Red lights turning left if you are flat, right if you are sharp. Step on it when you start and once again when you are done.