Norbert wrote:True, if you can't tune your instrument on it's own you don't have much business playing it. But there is the matter of relative pitch - you can tune to yourself, but might not always be in tune to someone else, or to something you recorded another day (unless you are fortunate enough to have perfect pitch). And tuners give a good reference point for out-of-tune bandmates.
In the band I play in we usually all tune to the piano/keyboard before playing. And sometimes we do use a tuner for the reference. The main idea is to get everyone tuned to exactly the same pitch. Now I don't have anything against guitar tuners. My main beef with them is that there isn't any guitar that I know of that has perfect intonation. Maybe they would with a Buzz Feiten fret setup, but I don't own any Buzz Feiten guitars. So after using a digital tuner, I always end up tweaking the guitar so it sounds sweet everywhere on the fretboard. To me that somewhat reduces the usefulness of the digital tuner.
Chubsman wrote:Reminds me of a band that was put together for a one off benifit show... We start to play and I hear the bass player is out of tune and he starts tuning next to his amp during the first song... After the set the drummer comes up to me and says... hey did you see that... he tuned during the first tune... now that is pro! I said no.... being tuned BEFORE the 1st tune.... THAT is pro.
I also used to play bass a lot - mainly fretless. With an out of tune fretless you can compensate on the fly.
Yesterday, during a set I realised that a couple of strings on my guitar (not bass) had moved slightly out. So I managed to tweak them between licks within the song. I'm sure a lot of folks could learn to do that kind of thing if they weren't too reliant on digital tuners.
rjgtr wrote:The best thing is to hand the guitar to your tech and get a fresh guitar, but most of us don't have that luxury.
I once used to be the guy they handed the guitar to, when I was roadie-ing...