Re: [Harp-L] tuner

["Joe Spiers" <moparjoe@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Professional" and "digital display" shouldn't even be used in the same sentence, when it comes to describing tuners. While there are technicians that use a digital tuner as a tool to tune harmonicas, they will admit that they depend on their ears to actually bring them in tune. I am not implying the tech doing this isn't achieving professional-quality tuning, I am saying the tuner itself isn't professional quality. The display resolution of a digital tuner is only capable of getting you (sort of) near your target, but it will lie to you in a heartbeat and tell you it's there. The display on a digital tuner may indicate "0 cents" for instance, but the tone could actually be +/- 3 cents. So if you're tuning an octave, scrictly by the digital tuner, you could potentially be off 6 cents total. The most accurate tuner is a strobe tuner. You can find much more complete information about the subject, as well as demonstrations of the downloadable "virtual strobe", Strobosoft, at www.petersontuners.com. Strobosoft is about 50$ for the economy version. If you don't want to spend more on the higher end products, this is one option, as well as a couple of portable handheld virtual strobe tuners that fall in between the price of a real mechanical one and the software based version. I use the 490 Autostrobe, and will not even waste my time attempting to tune without it. It is accurate to within 1/10th of a cent. 

Joe Spiers