Just thought id share a story about my band to pass the time, ive never come across anything like this before you see!

Since the last gig my band `the hops` did, every rehearsal has sounded a bit... dodgy. I was starting to think my strat needed a set up as the rest of the band seemed happy with their sounds, but to me there seemed to be major tuning issues and nothing sounded like it should. I ended up having a full set up on my strat and the band keep making jokes about me being paranoid and everything being fine, was starting to wind me up a bit as i kept thinking `can nobody else hear this? We don’t normally sound like cats screaming!`.

Anyway, last night i finally made everyone stop and basically said `something is wrong, we NEED to sort this out`. i got a lot of stick for it. I made everyone check their tuning with each other, tune again with their pedal tuners, then do the same thing. After a frustrating 20 minutes or so it turns out our singers boss tu-3 tuner was tuning his guitar a bit sharper than the bass players and mine was. It was subtle, but it was most definitely wrong. I got him to plug in to my tuner and suddenly everything was a 100 times better! He`s now got the manual out and it turns out there’s a way of manually changing the actual pitch your tuner is working to, his was wrong. I’m so so relieved!! Turns out i wasn’t being a paranoid troublemaker and we were smiles all round when we finally played a song all in tune together!! At least they all now agreed that there had been a problem and its now fixed! Kinda pleased me as i now think its a credit to my ears!!

I haven’t been so relieved in a long time. Mainly relieved we sorted it out before doing another gig!! Perhaps the lesson is, always read the manual?

Anyone else had any issues like this? Can predict a barrage of `I always tune by ear` type replies

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`I prefer not to listen to music that I can't rip off or improve on` - Ian Dury

So if he has the latest one, the TU3, it must have a facility to change the standard pitch reference of 440hz (or whatever it is). And he has reset it at some stage. Useful for tuning to something that cant be easily tuned to concert pitch, like a piano or some organs that have had their tuning 'slip' over the years. Not useful in most band situations though!

We trust in these things at our peril! Once you have developed some level of musicality (or are gifted with it immediately) the ears must always be the final arbiter. You obviously have a better sense of pitch than your band mates..

I only use my TU2 for re-stringing just to put me in the ballpark. Even when they read as spot on - there will still be microtonal adjustments to be made, unless you have an incredibly expensive state of the art strobscopic tuner correctly calibrated.

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

It's been a staple of mine to tune to the bassist's tuner. Or if I play with brass people, I get them to blow their idea of what a certain note is (their choice) and tune to that.

I very rarely use a tuner. Though I've strobesoft on my phone.

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No no and no

At home I use a Boss Tu2. When I play with other people, I'll tune to their tuning.

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RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head

For some reason some electronic tuners are sold with the factory settings set to an upper range of concert pitch (A444) rather than standard pitch (A440). Also, some tuners can be knocked off standard pitch reference quite easily so it's a good idea to check your tuner once in a while to make sure of what you are tuning to. In a perfect world it would require a deliberate action to change the reference pitch of a tuner but the manufacturers seem to think it should be really easy to do. I guess they figure musicians change their reference pitch frequently. On the KORG CAxx and GAxx tuners that I use it's way too easy.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.