Guitar Tuner Fine Adjustments (Slightly OT)

[Arn C.]

I have 4 guitar tuners at home.  Each one over time has gone out of tuning capabilities.  For example: one of them all the strings come in tune, except the first "E" and "B" strings-they are slightly off.
Another one I have, all strings tune ok except the "D" string.

Is there a way maybe to put a trimpot in these to adjust them back in?
I am tired of buying a new tuner every year.  I can tune by ear, but I would like to have one working for on the fly tuning while I am playing live, so there is no down time.   Takes me a little longer by ear. Of course if I was rich, I would just purchase a Peterson Strobe Tuner-Someday!

I haven't looked inside any of them yet, but I will.  I have (2)quiktunes (1)Korg (1) danelectro(this never worked from day one, but I bought it far from home-damn thing just bounces around when you try to tune with it and when you think it may be possibly close to being in tune-it isn't!

Thanks!
Arn c.

[cd]

You've got some low end tuners there.   Bust open any/all of those tuners and all you're going to find is a little computer chip with a bunch of transistors.  In general what you want to do is turn down your tone control all the way, use the neck pickup, and pick near the neck pickup.  Think of it like tracking a crappy octave divider.  You want the purest fundamental note from your guitar.

And get yourself a real tuner   I got a used BOSS TU-12 off eBay for $5!!!  One button was mushed in, I just cracked it open and reseated it, good as new.

[Johan]

for stage use, I highly recomend Boss TU-2. not too much money, buillt like a brick, accurate, easy to read..

johan

[Nasse]

Some time ago I had to tune a guitar in a noisy dressing room (the kids let me be a guitar roadie) there was lots of noise few other bands there too and some was playing guitar and singing next to me. The guitar I was working on was a lefty and so I was little confused about the mic switch and the pots worked reverse... But I believe there was some electrical noise too, I was setting the intonation and it was almost impossible with some strings, no "tracking" but I managed it somehow... I had to switch between neck and bridge mics and fiddle tone control and change the placement of picking finger...

[Arn C.]

The way I have been tuning since I began using tuners about 4 years ago, before that I used an "A" harmonica for my starting point, but time is important when playiing out.   Sometimes I get a bit rowdy and hammer on the strings and, well, out of tune......

anyhow, I have been using all pickups on or the bridge pickup with treble maxed out and I pluck the string at the 12th fret.    I will try it with the tone rolled back with the neck pickup on and pluck the strings next to the neck pickup and see how it goes.....

But, something must go wrong with these things for the tuner to be, persay "out of tune"

Thanks!
Arn C.

[Gladmarr]

you can tune to the phone, I think dial tone is a combination of A and F.  I think 60 Hz hum is around a Bb, I can't exactly recall.  Let a toaster be your tuner!

I also found this, which supports my phone idea...  http://www.guitarsite.com/tuning.htm  ...or chack the bottom of the page on this one...  http://www.ehow.com/how_4601_tune-guitar-with.html

In looking this up, I found a page about this guy who has a special guitar neck for microtonal tunings.  He has 49 tones per octave!!  That's a lot of frets.
http://microtones.com/gtrshop.htm

[Arn C.]

Thanks Gladmarr!

   I think I would rather use a harmonica or our keyboard, but that is quite inventive!

"The New Telephone Tuner"   

Peace!
Arn C.

[bwanasonic]

Are you sure it's not the intonation on your guitar? What model tuners are you talking about? I've never heard of this happening even with cheap tuners.

Kerry M

[redeffect]

suggestion: change strings, clean fingerboard, frets, bridge saddles,nut slots,adjust pickup height(if they are too close, you're gonna have problems),and check intonation. this constitutes an good "tuneup". alot of times we player/builders are so busy ,well, playing & building, we get a little lax with our guitar maintainance. Use neck PU, turn down tone. if none of this works, at least you'll have well setup guitars .   (and crappy tuners). suggestion: break down, and buy  BOSS tuner. you probably could have saved mucho aggrivation getting one in the first place.

red

...you get what you pay for...

[George Giblet]

The only tuner I've pulled appart is a  Boss one and i didn't seem to be adjustable in any way.  I know that the analogue meter movements can stick producing dodgy tuning, however, the LEDs always accurate.  There will probably be a calibration pot for the analogue meter.

As for pulling them apart it's hard to say what you will find.  I actually thought most of these were digital these days and should not detune.  If there's pots in there then you're on a winner.

The first thing I'd do is put the thing into manual mode and trace the string section switching to see if I can find anything that sets the frequency.  Not all units have a manual mode which means you just have to hunt around on the PCB for something that looks kind of regular.  Drive in a test signal tuned to a good string and stick your fingers on the back of the board to try a location that detunes that string.

I suspect with a bit of fiddling around, perserverance and pehaps a little tracing you should be able to get at least one of them back on the road.

Have you tried playing around with your volume, tone and pickup selections.  If the tuning varies with these there's a good chance the algorithm use in the tuner is crap and can't handle different waveforms.

[Arn C.]

REDEFFECT,  as others mentioned, yes I need to buy a better tuner.   And I will when I get some extra cash.  I have never used ebay, and don't really want to.  So, I would buy one new.
As far as my guitar :  This is one thing that is always taken care of with my guitars-Maintenance.  My guitars get refretted when necessary , intonation is always checked, etc..  I am a stickler for perfect tuning.  So, my guitars are not the issue, been playing since I was 12 and that was in 1969.

I will take a look inside them, but first I will try to tune from neck pickup with tone turned back..

Thank you all for all your insights and advice!
Peace!
Arn C.

[redeffect]

Arn C. ,apologies for the tone of my response. no disrespect was ever intended.
respectfully,
red

[Mike Burgundy]

I second the TU-2 plug. If you're into rack-tuners, KORG is the way to go. I've also heard good things about the new Peterson "strobe" stompbox but never used it. They do make brillaint strobe tuners, but they're not really suitable for gigging IMHO - pricey!
It's true that a guitar's setup and state of maintanance has a LOT to do with its tunability, but it's also entirely possible to have the described problems on the same guitar, with different problems with different tuners. Hook them all up in series and see.
The TU-2 and rackKORG are the only tuners I've never had problems with (aside from a broken jack). The cheapo's I've had (ranging from MicroTune, Kwik to Fender) all had their problems. Some even seemed to have difficulty "listening" to a certain string or note, while the rest worked fine. With the Fender, I always tuned EAD and high E, and had to tune the G and B by ear. On any guitar. It wouldn't even go near a bass. No fixing it either.

My fave method of tuning is hitting the 12th fret harmonic, and wait a second or so to let the note settle - due to it's nature, a guitar string always starts out a little sharp and then settles a bit. This is normal, and your hearing doesn't register it as sharp since it's a lot shorter than the decaying note that follows. Tuning the decaying note is the best way. Using the 12th fret harmonic makes for a more stable note. Try to pick the way you would normally - picking harder or softer excaggerates or understates the "pick-detune" effect.
hih