having trouble with electronic tuner
giventofly86
Posts: 19
I'm a guitar newb, and I've been having difficulty tuning my accoustic guitar for a while now. I have an electronic tuner, but it doesn't seem to be working properly. For example, when I pluck the 6th E string, the thinnest one, it reads it as 5A. The tuner is a seiko sat100 guitar and bass tuner. I'm wondering if the settings on it are messed up, and how they should be. Does anyone have any experience with this?
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One thing that often throws electronic tuners out of whack is when other strings on the guitar vibrate (even just a little bit) as you tune one string. In this case, your 5th string, the A string, could be vibrating a little as you try to tune the 1st E string. Since the 1st string is so thin, it's vibrations don't create as much electrical energy as the much thicker 5th string, so the tuner will get confused. You need to make sure that each of the other strings is muted as you tune.
Another possibility is that your 1st string is so out of tune, it's confusing the tuner as to what string you're trying to tune. If your tuner has a manual mode, where you can tell the tuner what specific string you're trying to tune, you can usually fix this sort of problem. For example, if your 1st string got detuned to an A (3 and a half steps, pretty low), then the tuner might think it's tuning the A string.
One more possibility is that your guitar is producing an undertone or overtone as you tune the string, and that's confusing the tuner. About the only way to prevent this is to pluck the string cleanly and with no harmonics.
The last thing I can suggest is that if the tuner's battery is going dead, it might just go haywire. If none of the other suggestions works, swap in a new battery(s). If you've done all of the above, and nothing fixes this, get another tuner. I like Korg tuners for unplugged acoustics, if you end up replacing. Good luck.
It could be set to Bass, it could be set to some detuned mode, just make sure its set to 6 string standard guitar.
Other than that, listen to MiG, that's pretty much your best bet, any day of the week.
EDIT: just read that your tuner IS a BASS tuner as well.
Make damn sure the "BASS" mode button hasn't been pressed.
That will fuck you in the face everytime.
Also, if you are newbie, make damn sure you don't have a floating bridge guitar, cuz you probably will NEVER figure out how to tune it. lol.
Just saying.
If I opened it now would you not understand?
Im starting to think it's not my tuner but my guitar ("y'mean it aint me noggin it's me peepers?" (couldn't help the simpson's quote lol)) When I try my tuner against an online one, it seems to display the notes correctly, but when I use my guitar it's still all screwy. I think I need to get my guitar re-strung again.
You know, i forgot to suggest checking to make sure you have the right strings in the right order on your geet.
Its not uncommon for a noobis to string his guitar with the strings in the wrong position. That could def be fukin u up.
Who knows tho.
Strings are cheap, restring it, pay attention to the colors at the end.
If I opened it now would you not understand?