Choosing A Guitar or Bass Tuner

If you've got a guitar then there's no ifs or buts, it's got to be in tune - and it needs to be tuned regularly. The choices are few. You either tune it by ear using a pitch pipe or some other pitch reference, or you buy an electronic guitar tuner. These can be pretty inexpensive devices so affordability isn't usually an issue. Deciding which one on the other hand, is. The truth is, most of the cheap ones do a good job. All you really need to know are some of the limitations and differences between them. Let's start with the most common, the typical tuner.
The Typical Guitar Tuner
These are the most common tuners of all. Portable / compact is a term often used to describe them but they don't have a specific name type. What I refer to as a typical guitar tuner is the little stand alone ones with a needle or digital display, including a built in mic and a line in jack. Something like the Korg GA-30 would be a good example. The main thing about these tuners is the option of using the built in mic or plugging the guitar straight into it.
They are simple to use but many of them do have a common problem. When using the built in mic they aren't always as accurate or reliable as plugging the guitar in directly. This is actually the most common complaint with guitar tuners. They work fine on the high strings but on the Low E and sometimes the low A string, they can have trouble detecting the pitch properly. If you look at the reviews you will find this same complaint with many makes and model of guitar tuner. Unfortunately it's a matter of you get what you pay for, although even some expensive ones can have this problem. So what do you do?

The experienced guitarist has been aware of this glitch for many years and in all honesty it isn't much of a problem. A lot of tuners with this problem work just fine when you plug the guitar in directly to the tuner. This issue happens mostly with the built in mic and one way around it is to try experimenting with the placement, bring the tuner closer to the sound hole or trying it further along the neck sometimes works. The easiest and most reliable way around it is to simply tune the guitar using a fretted note or a harmonic. So in other words, tune the open E string at the fifth fret and tune the string to an A instead. If that doesn't work then try tuning to an E at the twelfth fret or use the harmonic. Problem solved!
Clip On Tuners
Clip on tuners are a bit more than just cool looking gadgets. You see these little things clipped on to the headstock of an acoustic guitar. There's actually a reason you might want one of these over the compact tuner. They work by picking up vibration in the guitar neck. Why would that matter? Because it means you can tune an acoustic guitar in a noisy environment. If you've ever been in a band then you already know it's impossible to shut up the drummer and bass player! This is what makes the clip on so useful. Plus let's face it, they look cool!
Stage Tuners
The stage tuner is pretty much what it says, it's for using on stage. The main difference with these is they are built tougher and should have a bright fairly large display so that you can still use it on a dimly lit stage. Also because most guitar / bass players play standing, with the tuner sitting on the floor you need to be able to see the display easily without bending down. The stage tuner has one other very important difference. They can be muted. The foot pedal isn't just an on off switch. When pedal is pressed and the tuner turned on, it mutes the output so that you can tune your guitar without driving the audience or other band members mad. Most of them have the option to work in mute or bypass mode, often with a choice of two output jacks. Just choose your favourite mode, silence or annoy all!
Bass Tuners
Most guitar tuners will claim to tune both bass and guitar. The truth is, you can tune pretty much any instrument with any tuner. The drawback only lies in it's ability to detect lower pitches, obviously making this a bigger problem for bass players than guitarists. Just like mentioned above, this can always be gotten around by tuning the harmonic, fifth or twelfth fret. This might be a bit more annoying for a bass guitar because slight discrepancies in intonation are more noticeable on a bass. If you are fairly experienced then this isn't likely to be much of a problem but it does make more sense to buy a more expensive tuner with a good reputation for tuning a bass.