|
|
The Online Guitar Store - S.o.s. Guitar Tuner
|
List Price: $19.99
Our Price: $10.49
Your Save: $ 9.50 ( 48% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: D'Addario
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Binding: CD-ROM
Brand: D'Addario
EAN: 0019954951115
Feature: Ergonomic Pick Sized Design
Format: CD-ROM
Is Autographed: 0
Is Memorabilia: 0
Label: D'Addario
Manufacturer: D'Addario
Model: PW-CT-06
Platform: No Operating System
Publisher: D'Addario
Special Features: The revolutionary Planet Waves S.O.S. Guitar Tuner pulses two out-of-phase LED light beams directly onto the vibrating string. When the string is out of tune, the two lights will visually dance on the string being tuned. As you approach in-tune status, the movement slows down and eventually stops when you are perfectly in tune. This revolutionary visual tuning system enables precision tuning in silent or noisy environments, with the need for audible sound or sensing of any kind.
Studio: D'Addario
|
|
|
Features
|
Ergonomic Pick Sized Design
Precisely Tunes in Dark or Noisy Environment
Light Based Tuning
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
The revolutionary Planet Waves S.O.S. Guitar Tuner pulses two out-of-phase LED light beams directly onto the vibrating string. When the string is out of tune, the two lights will visually dance on the string being tuned. As you approach in-tune stat...
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: You get what you pay for
Comment: S.o.s. Guitar Tuner
It certainly is cheap but as a tuner it has some pretty severe limitations. If one or more of the stings on your guitar are in tune, or very close to it, then this gadget can be useful, but there are situations where it's basically completely useless. If a string is way out of tune and there's enough noise around you that you can't hear the string and compare it to others you could spend an hour trying to find the right pitch and never find it, or you could just keep twisting the tuner until the string snaps. Even under optimal conditions, it's much harder and time-consuming to use than most tuners. I can tune much faster and just about as accurately using a pitch pipe.
This tuner does have an advantage over many otherwise superior tuners in that you can use it in low light situations, but that hardly excuses its shortcomings. I suggest you spend a little more and get something that works faster and better. For example, the Intellitouch PT1 and PT2 tuners are way better than this thing. I haven't tried the Intelli IMT500 Backlit Clip Style Tuner, but it looks like it matches up well against the Intellitouch models and comes at a more affordable price.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good for a cheap strobe
Comment: This thing works great for a cheap strobe tuner. It works approximately like any other strobe tuner, and takes some getting used to; but I really like it. The needle in my chromatic tuner (a needle drawn on an LCD) wobbles a lot and when it's "close" the display stays stable; with this I can fine-tune a bit.
I really find this thing useful with relative tuning; once I get the low E string in tune, I can use the strobe to check the A string and also visually and audibly compare it to low E at fret 5. I can use it on its own or use a chromatic tuner like the Korg GA-40 to give me a second type of visual reference.
If you need to do non-standard tuning, you'll have to use the strobe against a fretted string; for Drop D tuning, for example, you'll need to fret the low E at 2 and use E6 for comparison. If you want to tune up, i.e. have low E play an F, you'll have to fret it up to D5 (fret 4 in this case). Make sure your intonation's proper if you do this.
Customer Rating:
Summary: To be avoided
Comment: When I first got this tuner I published a wishy-washy review--the strobe works but it can be awkward to use. When I went to update my review in light of more experience, I found I could not change my star rating, so I erased the original review and wrote this one.
Strobe tuners are all the rage for accuracy, but they cost in the hundreds of dollars. The idea of such an inexpensive strobe was too good to pass up! I'm a gadget nut. At this price, I had to give it a try. It does work as a strobe--no question!--but it is so awkward to use that I never use it.
Basically, the string is plucked with the pick portion of the tuner and the string is tuned until the visual "beats" cast by the two lights disappear. This process will be familiar to anyone whose ever tuned a double-stringed instrument like a mandolin or a lap dulcimer. There, the beats are aural. There's a wah-wah quality to the plucked double-string that disappears when the strings are tuned together perfectly.
The SOS tuner works in similar fashion, but the beats are visual. The lights appear to cast two beams come and go at different frequencies until the string is tuned to the desired pitch. When that happens, the two lights cast what appears to be a single unwavering beam. The problem is that unlike aural beats, which persist even as the sound fades away, the visual beats of the SOS tuner require that the the string be moving with some vigor. It takes a second or so from when the string is first plucked to settle down and then after a few seconds the string has to be plucked again...and again.
If you keep at it for a few minutes, you can tune your instrument this way. When I judge my results to what my other tuners say, I find that most of the time, most of the string are tuned properly. But rarely do the result agree completely with my Korgs, Seikos, and Intellis. In fairness, those tuners don't always agree with each other, but the SOS is always just a little more different. One could argue that it's not that much different. However, ever time I use the SOS and check the results, I end up asking myself, "Why am I putting myself through this?!" I return to one of the other tuners, start over, and go away happy.
The SOS tuner is an interesting conversation piece, but in all honesty I found it to be a complete waste of money.
Customer Rating:
Summary: What it does, it does well
Comment: First the caveats:
1. It only works with strings. ('useless for horns, steel drums, etc.)
2. It only tunes the basic six guitar notes, E,B,G,D,A,E, & absolutely nothing else.
3. The thing has a bit of a learning curve to it.
If you can live with the above limitations, the SOS is pure dynamite. It works by pulsing two LEDs at the frequency of the note you select. They're 180 degrees out of phase with each other, so their light on the string allows one to "see" the vibration until the string is perfectly in tune. The process, once you get the hang of it, is dead-on accurate and works quite well in a dimly lit, noisy environment because it's optical, not sonic. You turn its dial to the note you want, pluck the string with the built-in pic, and shine the two lights at the string. If you practice, it can be quite fast and precise at a level way, way beyond its meager price. I was dazzled. (My wife says I'm easily amused.)
Customer Rating:
Summary: It's ok ... but I'd get something else.
Comment: The first thing you should know is that this is not a replacement for your standard plug-through tuner. If you need something to act as your primary tuner for big important gigs, this is not it. Get yourself a Peterson Strobe or a Boss TU-2.
That having been said, this thing is 15 bucks and I bought it on something of a whim. It's a gimmicky little gadget made out of cheap plastic, and it feels cheap. It also takes forever to use. If you need something quick, go with one of those needle tuners, because this thing takes awhile to get right (with a lot of second-guessing on your own part).
PlanetWaves says this has got a 0.4 cent accuracy, which is more accurate than $200 tuners boasts. How can this be? Well, it's a little misleading. First, most guitar tuners aren't sensitive enough to make 0.4 degree adjustments, and Second, there's no big sign that turns on and says "Ding, you've got it right!" so you end up staring at the little LEDs, trying to figure out whether they're still moving or not.
But it does tune, and it does tune accurately (I'd put it somewhere in the 3 - 5 cents range if you take enough time). And it is really tiny, which is nice. And, it's a strobe tuner, which means it doesn't matter how loud or noisy a place is, you can tune away.
Still, it doesn't do alternate tunings, it doesn't work on nylon strings, it doesn't work when it's bright, it doesn't work on 7 string or bass guitars and it doesn't work if you need to tune A away from 440hz. With those sorts of limitations, it's pretty impractical, so unless you only ever play 6 string guitars in standard tuning in low-to-medium lighting with plenty of time to fiddle around with a tuner, I'd go look for something else.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
