Turbo Tuner ST-200

[marnold]

I'm a very naughty boy. I just ordered a Turbo Tuner ST-200. Between that and the tubes I spent more than I technically had for my birthday. Nevertheless, the power button on my old Korg only works about 1/5 of the time and it never worked that well with my bass anyway. Details when I get it.

[bcdon]

Awesome! The Rev must always be in tune.. you owe it to your flock! Can't wait to hear your review. And, Happy Birthday, Reverend Rawk! :dude

[marnold]

Just got the email that my Turbo Tuner shipped. They claim 2-3 business days via USPS. We'll see.

I was reading some Gear Page threads on it. And, yes, I realize that that is not good for one's sanity. However, the Turbo Tuner is one of the few things on there that is almost universally praised. It'll be worth it if I don't have to play "guess when the needle will react" anymore. Trying to set intonation with my Korg was insane. One moment it's in tune, the next it's way off.

[Eric]

Yeah, those are supposed to be pretty awesome. I think all of the top-tier tuners these days (polytune, pitchblack, turbo tuner) are pretty well-received, so I have no doubt you'll like it.

[marnold]

Checked the USPS site. If they follow their usual procedure, I should have it tomorrow! Pretty quick!

[otaypanky]

Just got the email that my Turbo Tuner shipped. They claim 2-3 business days via USPS. We'll see.

I was reading some Gear Page threads on it. And, yes, I realize that that is not good for one's sanity. However, the Turbo Tuner is one of the few things on there that is almost universally praised. It'll be worth it if I don't have to play "guess when the needle will react" anymore. Trying to set intonation with my Korg was insane. One moment it's in tune, the next it's way off.

The Turbo is pretty insane too LOL
Only because it's so darn fast. One second it's indicating the note is flat and then without even feeling like you moved the tuner key it's showing you're sharp.
You'll get used to it pretty quickly though :)

[marnold]

Got it in the mail today! Just ran it through its paces. First up was my bass. My complaint with my old Korg is that it had a hard time figuring out what note I was playing, much less whether I was in tune or not. No more with the TT! It picked up on the note right away. The only problem I had was when my strings wanted to bind on the string tree. I found out that my intonation is not perfect, but it is extraordinarily close. A couple of minor tweaks would do it.

Then came the big test: my DK2M with a floating trem. I noticed that my strings had stretched to the point that the bridge was no longer flush with the body, albeit only slightly. So I centered the fine tuners, unlocked the nut, and tuned it via the tuning pegs. It doesn't take much movement of the peg to really change the movement of the strobe. Nevertheless it wasn't too hard to get it basically in tune. Then I locked the nut again and tuned it with the fine tuners. I can definitely tell with the display if I even slightly push the bridge down (thus pulling the strings sharp). The fine tuners allow for much more precise control than the tuning pegs. Within no time, I was in tune. Open chords sound great! That, to me, is always the biggest test. I can't hear if one string is off within the tolerance of my old tuner, but I could definitely tell with all six. I also didn't have to wait for the tuner to "hone in" on the note like the Korg did. I found that my intonation needs work--on some strings more so than others. Since it is such a PITA to fix on a floating Floyd, I'm going to leave it for now until I get new strings.

The tuner itself seems to be built like a tank. It could definitely take some punishment, and maybe even dish some out.

Overall I'm very pleased. It wasn't cheap at $129. That's probably 10X more than my Korg was, but it's still much cheaper than a Peterson. Do I need its extreme accuracy? Probably not, strictly speaking, although I can actually set intonation now with a good amount of confidence. The bigger points to me are the speed and accuracy with which it picks up the note you are playing without jumping all over the place like the Korg did.

I should add that I made sure I was using the neck pickup of both instruments. In the case of my guitar, I also rolled back the tone. That is suggested in the manual and it's something that used to help with my Korg. I also would strike the string at about the 12th fret. In my testing, the TT didn't seem to care where or with what I struck the strings. It was equally accurate either way.