Strobosoft Peterson Tuner

Richard Nelson · Post by **Richard Nelson** » 3 Nov 2009 10:40 am

I just downloaded this on a 15 day trial . Its cool .I dont think its that much different from a hand held tuner .Good price though.

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 3 Nov 2009 11:14 am

I've got a Stroboflip. It does the job, but I find myself using a little Korg "fit in your shirt pocket" tuner more often. The Stroboflip seems to be nice for people that are more interested in tuning than they are playing. No disrespect, but I believe that a person that can't tune with just some basic reference to standard 440 is never going to be able to play a fretless instrument like steel guitar or fiddle. Nothing wrong with the Peterson tuner, if you want to spend that much money. I got mine as a gift. I'd rather had a $20 tuner and the rest in Krystal burgers.

Richard Nelson · Post by **Richard Nelson** » 3 Nov 2009 12:04 pm

Good man Rick . I've been using a tuner from Lidl which cost me 10 euros but I did have 2 Korg tuners which broke about the same time . I never trust my ears and I have been using the Jeff Newman chart for about 17yrs .I think tuning by ear is a complete waste of time .I do a lot of home recording and I think this tuner is good . I dont have to go looking for my hand held and I know this one wont break.

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 4 Nov 2009 9:19 am

I might add something. When you have to tune on stage between songs and you have to do it in silence, a tuner is a great thing to have in your setup loop.

Richard Nelson · Post by **Richard Nelson** » 4 Nov 2009 2:13 pm

Yeah I used to have a Korg stage tuner . IN fact I had 2 . They both bit the dust .Mind you they both lasted about 10yrs each so not so bad .This Strobosoft is on my desk top computer so when I am recording or practicing using a track I just click the icon and its up, so no plugging in etc . For my stage work I have a tuner output on my Bethel which is permanantly plugged into a little Korg tuner . Its a bit awkward as I have to switch it on and balance it on my lap to tune . The stage tuner was wired all the time and when I heard it going out I refered to it right away as I had it in my line of sight .I know some guys who are using a laptop now only for live gigs . No amp , speakers nothing . Just the laptop and a converter . If i was back doing concerts thats what I would do .I am doing mostly dances now so its head down and blatter away .Not much time to tune .Just as well as nobody is listening anyway .

Bryan Daste · Post by **Bryan Daste** » 4 Nov 2009 3:24 pm

I like the Peterson tuners; I use a VS-II. The temperaments sound good to my ear, and it makes tuning faster since you don't have to worry about offsets when tuning. I built myself a cheap little Radio Shack switch that I have velcroed on top of the tuner which lets me route the steel to either the tuner input or the volume pedal input. This allows a quick way to tune silently on stage, while never actually routing the steel signal through the tuner - I believe it affects the tone negatively.

Richard Nelson · Post by **Richard Nelson** » 5 Nov 2009 7:52 am

Yeah actually the first one I tried was the old moving parts one . I was working in a theatre in Branson and one of the guys in Jennifer's band had one , I tuned an accoustic guitar to it and the difference was incredible .You should try this software on the free trial ,if you use your computer for playing on. Its $50 . I think the one with the stored tempered tuning is $100. I went to a shop recently and they were looking 100 euros for a Boss tuner . Thats about $140 ....too much . I'm just back from Dublin and a did a session using my Lidl tuner (10 euros ) ....no complaints from anyone .

Craig Stenseth · Post by **Craig Stenseth** » 8 Nov 2009 7:12 am

I bought the 10 dollar iPhone version, it works pretty well with the phone's mic. I will probably get the 1/4" plug adapter at some point.

Richard Nelson · Post by **Richard Nelson** » 8 Nov 2009 10:01 pm

Yeah i've seen that I'd say it works fine . You can probably put the strobosoft on your i Phone too. The iphone tuner is probably accurate to 1cent whereas the strobo is 0.1 cent

Jesse Leite · Post by **Jesse Leite** » 18 Nov 2009 7:22 pm

Craig, I'm in the same boat as you

Bought strobosoft, and might buy the 1/4" adapter soon. If you buy it let me know what you think of it.

Richard, they claim that if it's calibrated it should be accurate within 1/10th of a cent. (Why should it be calibrated? I read somewhere that since it is a piece of software, the processor speed of the phone could affect how the tuner reads the speed of sound in Hz. I am not sure how true this is, but you can easily calibrate it with an A440 tuning fork. I checked mine, and it was accurate without further calibration.) As far as how accurate it is, I find it jumps around a lot when tuning my guitar and pedal steel guitar. BUT, when I hit a key on my yamaha digital piano it registers within 1 or 2 tenths of a cent and stays pretty constant. I am wondering if the loss in accuracy when tuning my guitars is because a vibrating string can slightly fluctuate in pitch as it vibrates; whereas a digital piano creates a more consistent sound? Does this theoretically make sense?

Anyway, I am extremely happy with the iPhone Peterson Strobosoft app. Even though it jumps around a bit, I find it as accurate (if not slightly more) than my other battery operated tuners. What drew me to the app in the first place is that it tells you exactly how many cents out you are (ie. +8.7 cents or -5.3 cents), which is REALLY useful for tuning a pedal steel using a tuning chart like Jeff Newman's. The first few times I started using Jeff Newman's chart, I had to use the reference pitch button to keep switching from 440 to 442 to 437, etc. Since getting this tuner, I just wrote out the cent conversions for the tuning chart, and now I can tune up twice as fast using the chart.

The bad part is it eats your iphone's battery life! Don't leave your strobosoft app ON when you are DONE tuning, or you will be recharging your iphone often!

Richard Nelson · Post by **Richard Nelson** » 19 Nov 2009 6:40 am

Jesse , I have it on my desktop and yes Its great . I use the cent conversion also . Its fast . The string vibrates sharp first then settles . I think if you pluck it without a pick it settles quicker .I am surprised how often my guitar is going out of tune when I am playing. After recording one tune I check and the Es can be out by 4-5 cent .

Jesse Leite · Post by **Jesse Leite** » 19 Nov 2009 8:03 am

Richard, yes I guess that's the nature of the beast. When you are pulling strings all day, they sure can go out of tune. I try not to worry about tuning too often though (after all I want to spend more time playing than tuning

). I'll usually check it once very quickly before I start practicing for the day. During a recording session though, I think everyone should be tuning their instruments between every few takes at least!

As for how the jumps and settles, I find on the thicker strings it settles quicker if I play a harmonic at 12th instead of tuning the open string.

Bob Martin · Post by **Bob Martin** » 19 Nov 2009 9:58 am

Just a little tip, if you set your guitar up correctly the iphone app is just as accurate as the hardware tuner because the hardware tuner is nothing more than a software tuner too along with the strobosoft for the computer.

Roll your volume back a little bit before you go into your iphone and if you can roll back the highs please do. Never use the microphone on the iphone to tune your steel or guitar thru your amp that's the most important tip. Spend the extra 15.00 bucks or what ever it is now and you will find the iphone tuner is just as accurate and impressive as all of the peterson tuners.

As far as using a microphone to tune a steel there are so many harmonics and overtones that you are bound to get very poor tuning accuracy. If you were tuning an acoustic gtr in a quiet room it will do fine but as far as using an amp and the mic on the steel it's a bad combination.

If you want to hear more good things about the iphone app and see what folks are saying go to www.petersontuners.com

enjoy

Bob

Jesse Leite · Post by **Jesse Leite** » 19 Nov 2009 5:42 pm

Well I am pretty impressed, even with the internal mic on the iphone. The input boost button in strobosoft even makes it possible to tune when my amp is off (even with just the low volume of the strings by themselves). I would never dare tune at a gig without being able to plug into the tuner though... "could everyone be quiet please while i tune my steel with my iphone" ...haha. Anyway, I think I am going to invest in that 1/4" adapter now; not that I am ready to gig yet though (I won't be ready for a while!!!).

Richard Nelson · Post by **Richard Nelson** » 25 Nov 2009 6:13 pm

Yes I had a look at the iphone version . It looks great . It even tells you the dec points of cent which the computer download one dosn't ....and its only £6....When I see this I wonder how they can charge $50 for the download ? But its a great buy for the phone .

Craig Stenseth · Post by **Craig Stenseth** » 27 Nov 2009 4:05 am

Jesse Leite wrote: The bad part is it eats your iphone's battery life! Don't leave your strobosoft app ON when you are DONE tuning, or you will be recharging your iphone often!

Been there!

Richard Nelson · Post by **Richard Nelson** » 30 Nov 2009 12:06 pm

Jesse, when you get the adaptor , I think you need to get a mono jack to stereo mini jack as a friend of mine got stereo to stereo and it doesn't work. I dont have an i phone as I'm waiting for my network to bring it in to their catalogue

Bob Martin · Post by **Bob Martin** » 2 Dec 2009 12:09 am

Craig Stenseth wrote:
Jesse Leite wrote: The bad part is it eats your iphone's battery life! Don't leave your strobosoft app ON when you are DONE tuning, or you will be recharging your iphone often!
Been there!

Very good advice if you leave your iphone on ie never go to sleep no matter what app is on screen your battery will go down pretty quickly. Make sure and set your auto lock to a low setting like 1 minute or 2 or how ever long it takes you to tune. It will go from 1 minute to 5 minutes or of course never which means always on and that setting along with 5 minutes will kill your battery life get a charging cable on ebay for about 3 bucks that plugs into your power strip and then into your iphone so you can leave your tuner on at all times.

Bob