5 ms·

This sounds neat, but I think I owned a tuner for about 6 weeks before I could do it by ear... EADGBe isn't that hard.

beezlebroxxxxxx 5mo ago
If you have a good external reference point. But it's also pretty easy to have your tuning drift quite a bit away from E standard if you solely rely on the strings. Getting a standard tuning is not the same as getting the standard tuning you want, exactly. This is especially true if you play in standard tunings below E, like C or B, where strings can be looser than the norm.
chpatrick 5mo ago
It's not hard if E is in tune already. :)
jameshart 5mo ago
Pack it up folks, nubinetwork has exposed the scam that is the guitar tuner industry. You don’t need a guitar tuner if you have ears; all the guitar techs and musicians who use them have bought into a lie. And obviously since guitar tuners are a waste of time, a tech demo showing that you can use the accelerometer in a commodity handheld device to pick up minute vibrations with sufficient accuracy to detect guitar tuning from a web page is just feeding into the hands of Big Tuner. Seriously, this is the very definition of a shallow dismissal.
markvdb 5mo ago
Pro guitar teacher here with over twenty years of experience teaching the guitar, and close to fourty years of experience playing the guitar. I still struggle with properly tuning my instrument by ear. Nothing wrong with my ears. It's just not easy to do this right.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- dsego 5mo ago
  For me it's hard because of tempered tuning, so each string should be slightly out of tune for everything to sound good. If I tuned by ear, I could get two open strings to match, but all the fretted notes and chords wouldn't sound good. On my ukulele I even tune one string down on purpose to make the fretted note sound better. And then there is the inharmonicity of overtones, and some strings have more noticeable overtones that influence how the pitch is perceived.
Hamuko 5mo ago
I can tell if my guitar's significantly out of tune, but no way I'm getting an accurate tune without a tuner.
recursive 5mo ago
So what do you do when the lead singer is engaging in some stage banter and you need to tune between songs? IEMs? With what reference pitch?
- lightedman 5mo ago
  A good chunk of us are in tune (pun intended) with our instruments to the point that we can simply feel the vibrations and know where we are with regards to tuning. I haven't touched a tuner in about half a decade.
  - recursive 5mo ago
    That sounds like a very useful skill for a working player. But it seems to come with a couple of significant conditions. I can believe this is possible. But I don't think this is a reasonable thing as a baseline expectation for a player with 6 weeks of experience, which was the original comment in this thread. I don't know the details, but I imagine you're feeling beats transmitted through the neck or something. But if that is the case (an assumption) it still requires you to have at least one known-good string, unless you're playing solo. So, for these circumstances, and others, a pedal-based or clip-on headstock tuner seem like they still have plenty of practical application.
    - deadfoxygrandpa 5mo ago
      depends on the instrument. with acoustic instruments the resonance chamber is often tuned so that you can feel the body itself vibrating more when you're in tune
      - recursive 5mo ago
        I don't doubt that this is true at some level. But is it really perceptible for 20cent differences? I don't know anything about this, but I'd be surprised. I'd say +/- 20 cents is a bare minimum for calling something "tuned", but low single digits is really the goal.
GuinansEyebrows 5mo ago
i'm like this at home for sure, until i want to play along to something in tune. i'm also the one at rehearsal literally throwing TU-3s at my bandmates who don't have tuners on their boards for some reason. you have to have a tuner if you play with others. no question.

If you have a good external reference point. But it's also pretty easy to have your tuning drift quite a bit away from E standard if you solely rely on the strings. Getting a standard tuning is not the same as getting the standard tuning you want, exactly. This is especially true if you play in standard tunings below E, like C or B, where strings can be looser than the norm.

chpatrick 5mo ago

It's not hard if E is in tune already. :)

jameshart 5mo ago

Pack it up folks, nubinetwork has exposed the scam that is the guitar tuner industry. You don’t need a guitar tuner if you have ears; all the guitar techs and musicians who use them have bought into a lie. And obviously since guitar tuners are a waste of time, a tech demo showing that you can use the accelerometer in a commodity handheld device to pick up minute vibrations with sufficient accuracy to detect guitar tuning from a web page is just feeding into the hands of Big Tuner. Seriously, this is the very definition of a shallow dismissal.

markvdb 5mo ago

Pro guitar teacher here with over twenty years of experience teaching the guitar, and close to fourty years of experience playing the guitar. I still struggle with properly tuning my instrument by ear. Nothing wrong with my ears. It's just not easy to do this right.

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
dsego 5mo ago
For me it's hard because of tempered tuning, so each string should be slightly out of tune for everything to sound good. If I tuned by ear, I could get two open strings to match, but all the fretted notes and chords wouldn't sound good. On my ukulele I even tune one string down on purpose to make the fretted note sound better. And then there is the inharmonicity of overtones, and some strings have more noticeable overtones that influence how the pitch is perceived.

Hamuko 5mo ago

I can tell if my guitar's significantly out of tune, but no way I'm getting an accurate tune without a tuner.

recursive 5mo ago

So what do you do when the lead singer is engaging in some stage banter and you need to tune between songs? IEMs? With what reference pitch?

lightedman 5mo ago
A good chunk of us are in tune (pun intended) with our instruments to the point that we can simply feel the vibrations and know where we are with regards to tuning. I haven't touched a tuner in about half a decade.
- recursive 5mo ago
  That sounds like a very useful skill for a working player. But it seems to come with a couple of significant conditions. I can believe this is possible. But I don't think this is a reasonable thing as a baseline expectation for a player with 6 weeks of experience, which was the original comment in this thread. I don't know the details, but I imagine you're feeling beats transmitted through the neck or something. But if that is the case (an assumption) it still requires you to have at least one known-good string, unless you're playing solo. So, for these circumstances, and others, a pedal-based or clip-on headstock tuner seem like they still have plenty of practical application.
  - deadfoxygrandpa 5mo ago
    depends on the instrument. with acoustic instruments the resonance chamber is often tuned so that you can feel the body itself vibrating more when you're in tune
    - recursive 5mo ago
      I don't doubt that this is true at some level. But is it really perceptible for 20cent differences? I don't know anything about this, but I'd be surprised. I'd say +/- 20 cents is a bare minimum for calling something "tuned", but low single digits is really the goal.

GuinansEyebrows 5mo ago

i'm like this at home for sure, until i want to play along to something in tune. i'm also the one at rehearsal literally throwing TU-3s at my bandmates who don't have tuners on their boards for some reason. you have to have a tuner if you play with others. no question.