chromatic tuner’s help please

[Louis Venus]

Hello

Can you give me any advice on the best chromatic and pick up tuner to buy please, it is for an Aoyama Orpheus, My daughter has just received a distinction at a music festival but the Aududicator mentioned that a few notes needed tweeking!, she tuned it fully before she went in, I think we need a better tuner!

Any advice on a good reliable one preferably with a needle tuner

Emily’s mum

[Sam Karlinski]

I don’t have a recommendation for a tuner, but I would be surprised if the tuner was the culprit. Unless you’re buying one that is truly dirt cheap, then it is probably sufficient. There are other factors you might want to consider. If the harp is not tuned very often, it will have a hard time keeping its tune. Perhaps the harp was perfectly in tune when your daughter was finished tuning it, but it could have slipped out of tune between that time and performance time. Another consideration is how well your daughter can tune. Just because you have a tuner doesn’t mean that your harp will magically be in tune. You have to use your ear as well and make sure that your tuning exactly as possible given the equipment. Maybe this helps, I don’t know.

~Sam

[andy-b]

Also, if the harp needed regulating, even if you tune in flats perfectly, some of the naturals and sharps might need adjusting. Whatever tuner you pick, consider getting one of the tuning pick-ups as well, they help me a great deal.

[Jessica A]

Harpists used to tune with a tuning fork, i.e. one note, and intervals

[Tacye]

Indeed, as has been said when was the harp last regulated? (Tune the harp in flats and then check the notes in natural and sharps to see if this is a culprit.)

Also you say she ‘tuned it before she went in’ and if she moved the harp it could well have decided to detune a few notes, or if the climate changed, or it just felt like it!

[Peter Wiley]

It does not have a needle but once you get over the learning curve the StroboSoft

[Sid Humphreys]

Then only problem with that ap is that it doesn’t work well with other noise in the room. I ordered the Perterson pick up with the iphone adapter so I could get a better reading. Still didn’t work.

[barbara-brundage]

With the little input cable they sell, you can use any tuning pickup you might already have, or connect to built-in pickups if you have those. (This also works with cleartune.) I do think all the apps are oversensitive to overtones, though.

[emma-graham]

Hi Emilys mum!

Lots of great advice above. The harp really didn’t sound terribly out of tune and it was moved about quite a bit on the day without time for re-tuning. I wouldn’t worry too much. I have to admit I’m never happy with the tuning if I use a tuner on the whole harp. I tune the A with a tuner and do the rest by ear. Anyone else still do it this way I wonder? (I still have my tuning fork in case of battery failure!)

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