Bringing Forth The Best Stringed Instrument Tuners for Beginners

We've hooked you up with our favorite tuners for all our musician fellas - whether you're a guitarist, have a thing for the uke, like doing those cool bass riffs with your sunglasses on, or if you're a violinist fond of throwing buttery sweet tunes out there.

In this section, we'll shed some light on general information about tuners that every musician should know about. Let's start by helping you pick up the right tuner for yourself.

What to Look for When Buying a Tuner

Before you choose a tuner, it'll pay you well if you're mindful about a couple of features in advance. Here's what to look out for when buying a tuner:

Extra features

Many tuners come with a couple of other features as well - the most common of which is having a built-in metronome. If you're not the sort to carry multiple gadgets with you, this could be a great way to have both in the same device. Besides this, some metronomes come with multiple tuning modes that make the product a lot more versatile.

Settings

If you're buying a chromatic tuner, it'll probably be sensitive to any chromatic pitch and display accuracy. However, some tuners out there will be instrument-specific - a guitar tuner for instance will only be good for guitars and even bass. Make sure to scour through these tuning settings beforehand so you know what you're getting yourself into.

Type

There are three primary types of tuners; chromatic, polyphonic, and strobe - we'll be explaining these in a while.

Clip-on

If you're buying a clip-on tuner (usually works by picking up vibrations off the headstock), you need to ensure that it fits right on your instrument. Many a time, mostly with violins - customers experience an issue with fitting a tuner on the violin. This is mostly because the clip-on tuner opens very little as compared to the violin's headstock's thickness. Make sure the tuner you're going for doesn't give rise to similar issues for your instrument.

Accuracy

This is seldom an issue but some faulty devices may have frequency accuracy issues that may make it impossible for you to tune a certain instrument. To be on the safe side, always opt for tuners that come with a money-back guarantee or some sort of manufacturer's guarantee to replace the gadget. 

Durability

When you're touring or using your tuner live, it's more exposed to being damaged. It's also very easy for it to fall while you're clamping it on - so make sure you're buying a decent product. Similarly, the clip-on should be manufactured out of durable plastic that doesn't break with some mere hard-presses.

The Types of Tuners Out There

There are three primary types of tuners out there, based on how they deal with sounds or different frequencies.

Chromatic

The chromatic tuners compare the incoming signal to one of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale and can only process one note at a time. This is the simplest and most widely used type of tuner - the limitations with this type of tuner work well for most people.

Strobe

As opposed to the chromatic tuner, a strobe tuner can be set to custom temperaments and frequencies. If you are planning to play outside of the standard western scale, a strobe tuner will serve you well. 

The strobe tuners also prove to be very useful if you're planning to experiment with various pitch standards - for instance, basing around 432Hz instead of 440Hz. This type of tuner is the most expensive and specialist option of the three!

Polyphonic

Polyphonic refers to a tuner that can process multiple notes simultaneously. This type of tuner is highly useful when playing live since it allows you to strike all the strings together so you can ensure that all is well and everything is lighting up green.

Pitch-sounding vs. Microphone vs. Clip-on Tuners

The pitch-sounding tuners are used to play the correct note, to which you can then match the notes of your instrument. This is done for all the strings of your desired instrument until it's fully tuned. 

This is a very tough and many a time, very frustrating way to tune your instruments. Firstly, the surrounding noises on stage don't really let you hear this type of tuner. Secondly, you need a good eye and decent playing experience to tune the instrument by using your ears. This one's our least favorite among the three in this discussion.

The 2nd one - microphone tuners usually just pick up the sound signals out of your source and use those frequencies to signal green as soon as the correct note for a string is hit. These are very desirable too and work perfectly at home, in situations where there isn't any ambient noise.

However, at concerts or when you're playing in front of an audience, you need something that is not affected by the surrounding noise. This is where the clip-on tuners step in and this is exactly where you will find your smartphone tuners to be very limiting. That's why we've reviewed the top clip-on tuners of the market in this guide. You'll usually find them to be most precise, error-resistant, and easy to use!