Peterson Strobe Tuner

Motif

The Peterson Strobe Tuner^[?]Affiliate Link is a high quality tuner that many players prefer due to its accuracy.

Who is this for?

The Peterson strobe tuner is for advanced musicians and professionals who are looking for the most accurate tuner. Beginner players will probably prefer a tuner that displays an easy green light when the pitch is in tune.

Why is this more accurate?

When you play a guitar string, you will never hear a single pitch. Notes are waves, and waves contain fluctuations.

Most tuners display this fluctuation as an annoying jumpiness. The note hits “green” at some point during its crest but jumps back and forth before and after that moment.

Most tuners try to tell you when the note is in-tune by displaying a green light. But since no pitch will stay exactly in tune for its entire envelopeAn envelope is the entire duration of a musical sound, from the moment it is attacked until it has completely been released., the tuner will have a small amount of tolerance allowing you to see the green light whenever the note is close enough to being in tune. And some tuners are a little more generous in terms of what range of pitches will trigger the green light. In other words, some tuners are easier to use but perhaps slightly less accurate.

The strobe tuner directly displays the fluctuating sound as a spinning wheel, and you know that you’ve got a note in tune when the wheel completely stops spinning. Because it doesn’t rely on a specific indicator to judge when the note is in tune, you will know it is in tune when the wheel stops spinning, and a strobe tuner is therefore more accurate.

Whether you will hear that difference in accuracy is another thing.

What are “sweetened” tunings?

Most music is in 12 tone equal temperament tuning, in which all notes are completely equal. However, in this system some intervals are perfect or nearly-perfect distance, such as the perfect fifth (which is only 2 distorted by an unnoticeable cents). Others are more imperfect, such as the major third.

The sweetened tunings will give you an option that you can experiment which may or may not make your guitar sound better to you when played in certain keys.

How to Buy

Peterson Strobe Tuner^[?]Affiliate Link

Disclosures

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As the creator of Hub Guitar, Grey has compiled hundreds of guitar lessons, written several books, and filmed hundreds of video lessons. He teaches private lessons in his Boston studio, as well as via video chat through TakeLessons.