The second factor contributing to the electric guitar’s reputation for sketchy
tuning doesn’t have as much to do with the instrument as it does the players.
Electric guitar music has always been dominated by non-classically trained
musicians, and in fact, many of the most highly regarded electric guitarists in
history have been essentially self-taught amateurs. In rock music, the genre
which most of us self-taught amateur types specialize in, thing like tuning
have always been subservient to a higher purpose, which is of course, rocking
out. There are a number of great examples of this phenomenon in the classic
rock archives. Jimi Hendrix’s live recordings are often referenced, as some
of them feature notoriously out-of-tune versions of songs like “Wild Thing.”
Jimi knew that mere tuning issues shouldn’t be allowed to interfere with
rocking, and thus the rule was written, and handed down to rockers through
the ages.
One doesn’t hear many overt tuning discrepancies in modern electric guitar
music. The days of live Hendrix and some early Van Halen recordings—where
Eddie and crew just tuned to each other by ear, resulting in some odd slack
tunings—are mostly behind us. This modern revolution of consistent tuning and
intonation is thanks to the proliferation of high quality, inexpensive electronic
tuners. For most of us that play live regularly, the pedal tuner has been an
especially revolutionary piece of gear. Besides the tuning consistency they
offer us, stompbox tuners fit right into our pedalboards, let us tune silently
on dark stages without unplugging anything, and can often do double-duty
as signal splitters, buffers, power sources, or handy killswitches. In the early
days only a few pedal tuners of high quality were widely available, but the
last few years has seen an explosion of these essential pedalboard tools.
Let’s check out a handful of the best modern pedal tuners.
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TONE TALK //
5 Tasty Tuner Pedals for Your Harmonic Pleasure