Ibanez aroma

Colleague bought an Ibanez acoustic starter pack for her son. I was tasked to do a set up suitable for beginners. There was an Ibanez tuner in the starter kit (together with picks & a strap). It looks exactly like... Now you know.

Clipped

Thank you & goodbye. I've been using this for a good while; at least 6 years. Purchased from City Music while they were still at Peace Center offering Charvel Desolation models. I find clip on tuners handy especially at the workplace where constant ukulele tuning is required. I've never dropped this tuner & handled it with TLC at all times. Just a couple of days ago, it refused to work despite a new battery in there. 

Clean supplements

My bouts with the clean tone continues. Having a good clean tone is actually a bucket list thing & 'good' remains subjective; on some days it's likeable, on other days, appalling. The three pedals you see above are pretty much it for now. Usually, I would omit a drive unit in the line up, just the tuner & chorus. Everything else, the amp will speak for the tone. However, being a light picker & struggling to pick & fret firmly is a constant challenge as I have always relied on high gain to 'amplify' the slightest of touches. Hence the inclusion of the Tube Screamer in the line up. A weak drive is important to me to preserve the clean chime. I wouldn't say this is a final consideration. 

You gotta tune 'em all

So Korg, in an inspired anime moment, released a Pokemon Pitchclip series. Strictly limited edition, this one. The usual -/+ indicator strips are replaced with pokeballs.

The pocket metronomes are also given this Pokemon treatment but with a less intrusive digital display. It's clear that Korg wishes to get the younger segment of society interested in music fundamentals & they get to rope in the kawaii-hearted as well. Look forward to these being sold out moments after  they get here so you definitely gotta catch them 'em all quickly.

Volume - tuner

The Ernie Ball camp had successfully embed a tuner into their volume pedal. It effectively eliminates the need for two separate units on one's pedal board. Space-saving & practical for sure. The tuner is also a touch-screen unit so the smart feature eliminates the kneed for additional knobs. Neat. 

Don't assume

Last weekend, a guy walked into the guitar store saying his on-board acoustic guitar tuner/ pre-amp was broken. It didn't work & while tuning, the guitar, it caused the high E string to snap (what...?). I happened to be there checking something out. 

So the store personnel took a look at the instrument's aforementioned on-board electronics & there was nothing amiss. It worked fine. The customer then said maybe it didn't work for that high E string (what... ?). Come to think of it, that might be possible because the under-saddle/ bridge piezo unit might be defective. After checking, again, nothing bad was discovered. 

The customer then shared that there was no response from the tuner so he kept going till the string snapped (duh!!). That's the very issue right there- over-tightening. If you suspect a faulty pre-amp/ tuner in your acoustic guitar, please do not keep tuning thinking that the sensors will eventually pick up some vibrations along the way. It doesn't work that way. I'm sure we own a smart phone & are able to download a tuning app to be used in such a case of emergency. So there we have it, a fault that remedied itself. 

Ibanez 2017 (2)

Following its introduction in 2016, Ibanez's OD850 is now offered in a mini format. It is now more accurately referred to as the 850 FUZZ- that's right, it's a fuzz unit through & through, something that would please the fuzz camp in terms of tone. Yes, it's that worthy.

Adding a supplementary pedal to the range, we now have a mini Ibanez tuner (Big Mini) which features a strobe mode. Ibanez may be enjoying a singular success for its Tube Screamer but there are other jewels in the range if one looks hard enough & maybe gritty enough to try stuff.

Poll: Tuner types

Thank you everyone, for participating in the above poll.

Many of us own a clip-on tuner for a simple reason- convenience. This plus the user-friendly nature of such a device, make it a pleasant tinkering experience. Many clip-on tuners are also complementary upon an instrument's purchase & this makes it a common tuner-type owned by many of us. 

We note the pedal-type tuner coming in close in terms of ownership. The pedal board toting players among us own this tuner because it makes more sense having one as a board constituent rather than having a separate clip-on unit. Many of us rely on this tuner type for tuning accuracy as well. Keep  in mind that vibration detection-based tuner types do not manifest accurate read out at times, especially those budget models. 

At the hole

I was at City Music a few days ago, was checking if the new Martin Dreadnought Jr is in stock but it's a negative. Anyway, I saw this Korg Rimpitch & bought one. 

Last year, I had the idea of putting a tuner into the acoustic guitar's sound hole but was ridiculed by an online troll. Apparently, that someone thought it's totally wrong to attach one that hides inside the instrument's sound hole but it seems that the idea was already thought of by Korg. So there are now 2 choices for you acoustic wizards to have discrete placements of your tuners: 1) Head stock 2) Sound Hole.

KORG: Rim & Slim

This is an official release- KORG takes pride in the intro of its Rimpitch, a soundhole mount tuner for acoustic players. It's especially useful for those guitars devoid of electronics.

The Slimpitch here is the other newbie. A seemingly normal tuner with direct tuning capability, a clip-on detection, a plug-in option and...

... it has enough magnetic feature to stick itself onto your music stand! 

Korg: Rimpitch

I was slammed for suggesting a tuner that could fit into the acoustic sound hole (recently) but Korg did it for Musikmesse 2014. The contraption you see above is the manufacturer's Rimpitch unit, one that fits into the sound hole indeed. Some of us prefer not to look at the headstock while tuning, we look down. This is the reason why pedal tuners clicked with so many of us. Hope this would be here soon; on my to-get list :-)

Fender 2014: Malmsteen stuff...

Greetings. Welcome to planet Malmsteen.

If you think you need a supplementary supply of Fender accessories to go with your scallop-neck Malmsteen Strat, you can now acquire a signature cable & gig bag at the very least.

Say what? You've been buying a set of mix-&-match strings for your Strat because you couldn't get a Malmsteen set? Well, do not fret (no pun intended), this year sees the release of the signature 8-11-14-22-32-46 set.

And the grand master of neo-classical shred specifies his clip-on tuner to be functional despite a noisy background so this one might be another must-have on the list of acquisitions. Aren't you excited yet?

Floor Snark

Snark fans, get ready for the pedal experience :-)

Snark spotted!

Spotted at the recent In Thrash We Crust- Snark tuner in action (clipped onto guitarist Zach E's guitar).

Samson's might

We're still on tuners; this is a clip-on model by Samson, the CT20.

This is how it looks like, a simple mechanical tuner, more importantly, it's a fast response unit.

Available at Beez's, listing for $30.00... but he might have some discounts for you, he he...

Pitch pink

Got myself a Pitchclip from City Music yesterday :-) Update soon...

Snark it!

The SNARK tuner is one little performer.

I've read rave reviews of it in countless guitar literature, online sources included so I've decided to get one, not costly this one: $15

Design-wise, it's not a state-of-the art affair, in fact, it looks rather toy-like & shoddy but let's remain practical here; we're in it for what it can do, not how it looks like. The main draw is the tuner's sensitivity, there's hardly any lag time between the picked note & response display, unlike other tuners which require a re-clipping elsewhere on the headstock to induce responsiveness should it failed to work initially. The colour display also holds its own in brighter surroundings, that's another plus for many of us. Highly recommended :-)

Carl Martin Tuner

Carl Martin has a fresh, sleek tuner in their offerings. The new CM tuner offers 2 modes- standard or strobe. The MUTE switch you see above means you can have your tuning moments muted & rely just on the visual read-outs or hear yourself in action if that makes you happier while making sure your instrument is not out of tune. Neat.

Solar tuning

This is a cool gizmo by TASCAM; a solar-powered tuner. But what if you have to use this in the dark? The TC-1S has USB access so you can charge it up prior to any indoor use.

Guitar set up: Simple instructions (maybe) Part 3

If your neck's relief is rather excessive (giving rise to a bowl-shaped neck instead of being straight), you need to turn your truss rod clockwise upon facing it i.e. when you look at the nut from the headstock end. How much to turn? The recommendation here is for you to exercise a quarter turn. However, since my neck isn't too adversely warped, I did a 45-degree turn only.

Let the neck breathe for a little while (say after a song's worth of wait) before you check further. The understanding here is that the neck has been straightened, therefore, the standard tuning would have gone sharp. Plug in your tuner to check this out; as evident above, my KORG Pitch Black registered just that. If no such reaction is registered, it means the truss rod adjustment was not effective. Repeat the instructions in Parts 2 & 3 until your neck is straightened or made less concave to your liking.

In my case, I needed to tweak the truss rod a little bit more to achieve a flatter profile. My observation here is (after many personal set-ups), guitar necks with a bigger radius value perform better with a flatter neck profile.

CAUTION
After 2 or 3 attempts, should you find no reactions to your adjustments, please STOP the tampering & leave it to the pros to diagnose the problem.

...to be continued.