Tuners and Tuning Musical Instruments

For intonation work, or even for determining the need for intonation work, it is important to be able to measure the cents-off when comparing any two notes.  An electronic tuner will only give you a rough measurement of cents-off , but if you are careful and patient, you can get a good idea of your intonation problems, and make good adjustments.  A virtual strobe tuner can provide a very good measurement, but not as good as a real strobe.  (A real strobe tuner has actual moving parts, whereas a virtual strobe tuner uses electronics or software to display a strobe pattern from an audio input.)

Although strobe and virtual strobe tuners will measure to 1/10 accuracy, a note from your guitar will not hold that steady.  A reading to within 1 cent accuracy is very good, and intonation work to 2 cents accuracy is good.

Be also aware that, when plucked, the pitch will momentarily go high (attack) and then die down lower (decay).  Normally, it's best to read the tuner after the attack has died down, but not too long into decay.  Someone who normally plays very fast may want to tune to the attack.

Virtual Strobe Tuners

                                Click image for more information

For doing compensation work, a strobe tuner, or virtual strobe, which measures pitch to 1/10 cent accuracy, is definately a great asset.  A must for professionals!

There are some new options for strobe tuning that are less expensive than were previously available, yet they pack a big array of features.  Players and hobbyists should also take a look!   They are now inexpensive compared to what you may have paid for your guitar.  If you are thinking of doing some serious intonation work, you will also want to make the most of that by being able to tune quickly and accurately on an ongoing basis.

Although Strobe and virtual strobe tuners are capable of 1/10 cent accuracy, your guitar, especially if it's an acoustic guitar, will not hold that steady; be happy if you can tune to 1 cent accuracy, and thrilled at 1/2 cent accuracy!

Electronic Tuners

I have produced excellent results using chromatic electronic tuners, but it takes a lot of patience and re-testing.  I find it best to pick the string at regular intervals of a little faster than one per second.  I much prefer the ones with LCD dials to the ones with arrows.  Obviously, some are better than others.

The manufacturers claim very good internal accuracy, however, if you carefully hold the tuner sideways to the light, you can see that the LCD tracks for displaying the readings are only at every 2 or 2 1/ 2 cents apart.  This still works, though, because the sound from the guitar actually wavers over a range of more than 2 cents.  If you can keep it one mark for a few seconds, the reading will be pretty accurate. 

Though I could tune pretty accurately to a note, I found the electronic tuners to be quite inconsistent with each other on cents-off readings.  So, you can only get a rough idea of how far off your intonation is from one note to another.  

Software Tuners

Peterson offers Strobosoft, a software tuner in standard and deluxe versions.  Lots of features for sweetened tunings, temperaments, intonation mode, spectrum analysis, etc.  Also, there is a mobile Ap from Peterson priced at $10.  I haven't tried it yet.

I found an amazing software tuner called theSeventh String Tuner by Seventh String Limited, which can produce strobe-like accuracy. It's free to use.

You can run it on the internet or download it to your computer.  It is very sensitive, and features automatic cancellation of background noise.  The tuning indicator will drive you crazy, because it is not damped and it jumps around a lot, especially with acoustic guitars.  But, it also has horizontally moving bars that are damped.  You can get an accurate reading by tuning until the bars don’t drift much left or right.

It is important to note that the accuracy of the Seventh String tuner pitch (any software tuner) is dependent upon the reference frequency of your sound card.  Notebook sound cards are especially prone to vary, so check the pitch of the tuner with a tuning fork or your best tuner, and adjust accordingly.   My desktop computer is right on, but my notebook is 11 cents sharp.   Adjust the cents as needed.

The AP Tuner, by Joseph Broms, provides a high degree of accuracy.  It displays the note and cents-off, making it really easy to determine the intonation difference of two notes.  It also has nice extra features, including tuning offsets and tone graphing.  AP Tuner is shareware, $35, but you can evaluate it as long as you want.

The tuner registers cents-off in real time, but freezes when the note amplitude drops below the sensing threshold, so adjust the slider at the left at a little below your normal note volume, so it stops recording before too much decay.  This results in a fairly consistent measurement.

The TB Strobe Tuner software features a circular strobe effect display.  It enables tuning calibration adjustments, so you can accurately measure the difference between two notes (see below).  In addition to equal temperament, it  provides a list of scale selections for a variety of instruments, DADGAD, Drop D, etc (but does not provide for custom offsets).  You can set a specific note to test, or use the automatic chromatic mode, or others.  This program good, and very inexpensive at $4.90!

Measuring the Intonation Difference Between Two Notes 

With the Peterson V-Sam, in Auto tuning mode, or with the AP Tuner software, The cents-off is displayed, so after tuning the first note, you can directly read the cents off of the second note.  (Or you can subtract the cents-off of the first note from that of the second note.)

With the Peterson Stroboflip, Strobosoft, the Seventh String Tuner, or the TB Strobe Tuner, to compare two notes for intonation, tune the first note, and then play the second note.  Adjust the calibration cents on the tuner until the display stabilizes (in tune).  The difference between the two notes is equal to the cents that you have just adjusted by.

Return to top

Prev Page                                                Next Page