Roadie 2 Ukulele Tuner

Hey everyone, my friend Paul (ukuleleforteachers.com, also here on UU) blogged & vlogged about the new Roadie 2 tuner. We teach ukulele in larger classes and tune at least 60 ukuleles at least once a day.

The Roadie 2 is different than the original Roadie as it is self-contained. You choose tunings (or create tunings on the app), and then have the device go from string to string. The original Roadie required a phone...the Roadie 2 does not. It is fast and efficient...faster than I can switch between ukuleles with a tuner and tune each instrument. I’m not lying when I say that this device may save me days of work in the coming months.

While there is much to be said about learning how to tune—teachers taking over that task (particularly in middle school and younger) saves a lot of broken strings as well as incorrectly tuned ukuleles.

I will say that the Roadie 2 doesn’t work with any of my friction tuners (including my Orca Prototype, 1st Generation Outdoor Ukulele, or Martin S1). I don’t know how it would work with a Gotoh as Gotohs are a future plan for these instruments.

I’ve had a couple of glitches where the tuner doesn’t figure out the first note...but that is easily remedied, too. It isn’t as if I haven’t ever accidentally turned the tuning peg for the wrong string in my life (I did this on Friday on school ukulele...but for the record, it was backwards strung for a lefty).

If you just have one or two ukuleles, a $5 Reverb tuner is all that you need. If you want to be a purist and insist on tuning off a tuning fork, bless you. But if you have a number of instruments, or you just don’t like the hassle of tuning, this $129 device might be for you. If you are a music educator with a set of ukuleles...seriously think about this device.

You can read more thoughts on my blog (there’s a video there, too)...and if you’re going to buy one, it would be great if you could use my referral link (found on the bottom of the blog post).

I can definitely see how that would be a huge help for someone like you who has to tune so many ukes on a regular basis. If I had to tune that many I'd most definitely want this gadget. Tuning that many ukes would get old in a hurry.
As is, I just have to tune my own and like doing it the old fashioned way.

The only problem I can see with it, which could be alleviated easily would be about how it tunes the strings. I learned years ago (I can't remember exactly who to credit specifically, but this is suggested by a lot of pros) to always tune a string up to the desired pitch and never down. If you have a sharp string and tune it down to pitch there is some slack left in the string, or something along those lines, and once you start playing the string doesn't hold so well. It'd be easy enough to just make sure you tune each uke below pitch then let the machine always tune up...I'm guessing the machine doesn't automatically tune below and then back up to pitch. If it does, it's even more genius.
That's just something I thought would be relevant here.