best hand-held tuners

[dancingpiper]

This likely has been covered before but I just received a new harp (Dusty Strings FH36S). She is gorgeous with such a wonderful voice!! Anyway, the only harp tuners I have are a couple of $4 tuners that work well for my smaller harps but just don’t pick up the bass and treble of my new harp. I know there are a lot of great tuner apps for phones but I don’t do apps on my phone. Are there any suggestions as to what would be a good non-app tuner? Thanks, all!!

[balfour-knight]

I use a KORG chromatic tuner CA-30, with pickup, to tune my harps. I only tune the middle of the harp with the tuner, then use octaves, 4ths and 5ths to tune higher and lower on the harp. I am a professional piano tuner, also, and have a much more elaborate KORG tuner for doing pianos. But I find that the small CA-30 does just as well as the larger KORG for the harps. On keyboard instruments, you are tuning and tempering all the chromatic notes, whereas, on the harp, you only have diatonic notes, much more simple to get a good temperament! I rely mostly on the KORG tuner to establish and maintain standard A=440, but I very often tune the harps just by ear.

Happy tuning,
Balfour

[dancingpiper]

I will check that out; thanks!!

[balfour-knight]

I forgot to ask you what wood you picked for your wonderful new Dusty FH36S! I bought my FH36S in 2015, and she (Cherie) is made from the most gorgeous figured-cherry, and has the warm, bright tone to match. When I play her, it is like biting into a chocolate-covered cherry, my favorite!

I can tune Cherie completely with the KORG CA-30, although I prefer my own ear, ha, ha! The very highest strings can be played comparing them with their lower octave (already tuned note!) while looking at the tuner, and it works better than just plucking the high string by itself. They don’t ring long enough up there for the machine to adequately “hear” them.

Hope this helps, and enjoy playing your new beauty!
Balfour

[balfour-knight]

Dancingpiper, I will post a photo of Cherie and me, so you can see the gorgeous cherry wood!

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[dancingpiper]

Wow; what a lovely harp with a lovely name!! I can tell she brings you much pleasure :-). Mine (Naomh – “neev”), is walnut with the cherry blossom inlay on the front. She took my breath away with her beauty when I took her out of her case upon arrival last Friday. Her tone is so rich and full… I know she makes even my poor playing sound better!!
Thanks to your guidance in tuners, I checked out the Korg website and remembered that several years ago when I started trying to learn to play, my kind brother sent me a Korg tuner/metronome. I’ve been using only the metronome part and had totally forgotten about the tuner side. Now I remember what that cable in my harp lesson bag is for!! I tried it out and it works wonderfully except, as you pointed out, the top octave. Those I a comfortable tuning by ear. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!!

[balfour-knight]

You’re welcome, Dancingpiper! I bet your harp is totally beautiful, like my Cherie. Walnut is also one of my favorite woods, but Cherie stole my heart! She has the beautiful Celtic-knot abalone inlay on the pillar, along with the Camac levers and built-in pickup. I picked her out at the Southeastern Harp Weekend that used to be here in Asheville, NC. I enjoyed playing all of the harps that Dusty Strings brought to the conference, and was not intending to buy a harp then. But when I found Cherie, I could not let her get away–she is one of a kind, one of the first ones they made in cherry.

So glad you rediscovered your Korg tuner! Those high notes on the FH36S are nice and pure, so I enjoy tuning them by ear, too. After a year or so, I restring them up there, so they stay nice and pure, ha, ha!

Happy Harping with your outstanding new harp!
Balfour

[dancingpiper]

Love at first sight and sound; I understand!! Thanks and happy harping to you and Cherie as well!!

Blessings,
Gail

[balfour-knight]

Thanks, Gail!

[Gretchen Cover]

Use a tuning app on your phone. Peterson is best imho.

[balfour-knight]

This was in the initial post by Dancingpiper: ” I know there are a lot of great tuner apps for phones but I don’t do apps on my phone. Are there any suggestions as to what would be a good non-app tuner? Thanks, all!!”
I am like her, I don’t do apps on my phone, either, but thanks Gretchen! I know a lot of musicians use apps.

Harp Hugs,
Balfour

[dancingpiper]

I’ve heard lots of good things about tuner apps and am glad they are available for those who prefer them!! Thanks, Gretchen

[Gretchen Cover]

Not trying to challenge your not using apps but you might want to reconsider it. Of course, if you have a flip phone, it would not be possible to have apps. My last hand tuner was Korg.

[carl-swanson]

I’m an absolute caveman when it comes to anything involving computers or cell phones. But the young men who I am training convinced me to get the Peterson ap for my cell phone and it’s fantastic. It reads everything really clearly, and you can set it to “stretch” the octaves, the way piano tuners do, and the harp sounds fantastic when tuned like that. There is another Peterson tuner (not an ap) that costs about $180 which for some people would be even better. It has a sensor wired to the tuner. You put the sensor on the soundboard (it comes with slightly sticky clay that adheres it to the board) and the machine reads the vibrations, and doesn’t “listen” to the pitch. The huge advantage to that is that if you are an orchestra harpist and have to tune when other musicians are warming up, you can easily tune the instrument extremely accurately without any problem. One of the young men I trained bought that and prefers it to the Peterson ap.

[balfour-knight]

Carl, so glad to hear all of that. I have stretched the octaves on my harps as long as I have been tuning them, for many years, since I was 8 years old, learning to tune my first little 29-string harp by ear. When I was 15 and complaining to my dad about “we need to have the PIANO tuned more frequently,” he told me that I could learn to do it, so I apprenticed with our elderly, faithful piano tuner. He did it the old-fashioned way, listening to 4ths and 5ths, getting a good temperament, so I learned it the same way. I’m so glad that the modern phone apps can stretch the octaves. Isn’t it a fantastic sound?

Best wishes,
Balfour

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