Best clip on tuner recommendations

Another Ukulele

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My Super Snark suffered catastrophic plastic fatigue this evening.
The clip shattered into pieces
 
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This is my favorite clip-on tuner: TC Electronic UniTune

Only available at Sweetwater.com, I believe.

Not cheap, but they work great, and come with candy!
 
Super Snark?

Several people here recommended putting a plastic tie around the Snark's tabs that hold the ball of the arm to the head. Before one snaps off. It works very well. A drop of Super Glue or epoxy keeps the tie in place. But then, the tuner is pretty cheap, so I usually have 3 or 4 floating around. I use them because they are fast and only somewhat fiddly. And the most of the uke club members use them, so I don't swim against the school in the stream.

The most accurate clip on tuner I own is the Peterson Strobo Clip HD. It's a strobe tuner. It takes a little longer to use than a Snark. But it's dead solid perfect. [Correction: It guaranteed to be within plus or minus one cent of the note.] It folds down, much smaller than a Snark, so it fits in many of the storage compartments in a uke case. (At least in a tenor case.) I als has a "Sweetener" for ukes function that supposedly compensates for a concert neck. A tenor version is available for Google users.
I also use the big, desktop or stand mounted Peterson Strobo Plus HD tuner. It has a plug in capability for electric instruments.

I have a friend that swears by his Korg clip on tuner. He has a pedal box one as well for his electric ukes and guitars.

I also use a D'Addario sound hole tuner on two of my ukes that don't hold a tuner very well on the headstock. (Peghead?) I don't particularly like the D'Addario mini because they are hard to see in sunlight. But I keep one as a backup in my UkeKrazy case that I carry my tenor du jour in when going to the uke club or gigs.

I had a Kiliq Uber Tuner for a while. It was about as accurate as a Snark. But it was a PIA waiting for the graphics on the dial face to boot up when you turned it on. Which made it difficult to use in a group setting to check string tuning between songs. I think they have a newer Pro Tuner that might be better.
 
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My favorite is the D'Addario Micro Tuner with the color screen. I also use a new Universal model with an extension post for my bass ukes/mini bass guitars. The readout can be rotated in four directions depending on how you clip on the tuner, on top of the headstock or under.

D'Addario Micro Tuner.png

D'Addario Universal Tuner.png



This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly Grove near the Beverly Center
8 tenor cutaway ukes, 4 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 14 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 36)

Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
Member The CC Strummers: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers
 
My Super Snark suffered catastrophic plastic fatigue this evening.
The

I’m not a fan of Snark Tuners but YMMV. I use ENO ET33 Chromatic Tuners which seem to work well, they’re comparatively cheap (prices vary widely between suppliers but can be as low as 7 USD posted direct from China), they’ve a clear display, they’re reasonably compact, they’re reasonably durable and they’ve a battery life of about a year. The Eno’s tick all of my boxes and I see no real need to look for anything else, but no doubt there are similarly good products available from other manufacturers. I’m not sure what the ‘best’ tuner on the market is or even how it would be judged, but what I use above is near enough the ‘best’ for me.

Other than that I carry A440 Tuning Forks in my Gig Bags and occasionally dig one out to refresh the skill of using a Tuning Fork. It’s a separate topic but Tuning Forks are an inexpensive, exceedingly durable and reliable back-up (no batteries required). Just a little skill is required to use them effectively and using them helps to train the ears, etc. Mine are Wittner and K&M (168/1) branded Forks with 12 cm long round prongs and a (hard to do damage with) ball end - made in Germany quality at a very reasonable price - I’m pleased with them.
 
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I like the Boss TU-10,

tu-10_black_angle_gal.jpg


Very sturdy, very accurate.

Wow, big pic. It's not a small unit but its not THAT big.
 
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I second the recommendation for the Untitune, after having used several for years on end. Yes, they're expensive, but
- they're sturdy (clip doesn't break, you can drop it)
- they're easy on the battery (only changed the one in my polytune after 3-4 years)
- you can read them in bright sunshine
- you can calibrate them to a different tuning, switch from vibration detection to microphone and back and all that, but the function buttons are really hidden and unobtrusive, so you can just switch it on, tune, switch it off.

Only drawback is that the d is lowercase and that the # sign can be a bit small.
 
Peterson. Pricey, but solid solid solid and accurate.

Yes, the Petersons are great. The D'Addario mentioned above works well and is really unobtrusive. Korg also has been known for ages for their quality tuners
 
I really like the Snark Napoleon tuners. They're not as versatile as the regular Snarks. They don't have a microphone option, but the display is very bright and easy to read and the clip is a lot sturdier. I had trouble reading my red Snark in bright sunlight, but the blue Napoleon is easy to read.
I still need the Snark with the mic option to tune instruments like the hammered dulcimer of Autoharp, but for guitar, banjo, mandolin or ukulele, the little blue Snark is my go to.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/NapoleonGtrBas--snark-napoleon-tuner-guitar-and-bass


Snark!!!MG.jpg
 
This is my favorite clip-on tuner: TC Electronic UniTune

Only available at Sweetwater.com, I believe.

Not cheap, but they work great, and come with candy!

I like UniTune as well. They are half the price of Peterson but seem to have similar accuracy. The metal clamp is certainly much sturdier than Snark. UniTune is currently $30 at Sweetwater, but I have seen them on sale for $20 and $25 in the past. It comes in black and white colors and sometimes the prices are different.
 
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I have one Snark & a few D'Addario Eclipse tuners. I like them about equal, except that I can see the Snark better outside and in bright light situations. The shape of the D'Addario Eclipse is less bulky & fits in my gig bag pocket better. My Snark has gone missing, so I'll pick up another at my local guitar & uke shop next week when I'm in the vicinity.
 
There's a person I follow online who does a lot of ukulele repairs and they strongly suggested the TC Electronics UniTune. It is only available through Sweetwater, but has a sensitivity even greater than the Peterson Clip-On Strobe Tuner...and it's just less finicky overall. And it's much less expensive than the Peterson. So right now, of all my tuners (with the exception of my Jowoom Smart Tuner, which has a completely different purpose) I do like this UniTune. Recommended.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...-on-chromatic-tuner-noir-sweetwater-exclusive
 
I have a Peterson strobe HD but have been using the aNueNue Surfboard tuner recently. I like it better than the Snark and even if not quite as accurate, I can dial it in faster than with the Peterson.
 
I'm a big fan of the Unitune as well; sturdy, small, easy to use, very accurate & fast, and the display is very bright and easy to read.

(There is also a Polytune, which has a few extra functions - those aren't applicable to the uke though. Otherwise, it works the same and they can sometimes be cheaper, for some reason)

In Europe they are available in several places, like Thomann; smaller music stores and shops that sell materials for guitar builders also often have them.


The only downside is that it doesn't swivel in as many directions as a Snark does - but that does make the Unitune sturdier and more compact.


Oh, and it is also *much* more sensitive than a Snark. I have been able to use a Unitune for several instruments that didn't vibrate very strongly, where the Snark didn't pick up anything.
 
This is my favorite clip-on tuner: TC Electronic UniTune

Only available at Sweetwater.com, I believe.

Not cheap, but they work great, and come with candy!

I will the 4th or 5th to recommend the TC Electronics Unitune. I own many different brands of tuners but once I got these, I bought the three pack deal, I don’t use anything else
 
D'Addario Micro Headstock tuner; also seems to be sold as "Planet Waves PW-CT-12 NS Micro Headstock Tuner".

Clip-on and keep-on. Small, cheap, and has a tri-color screen display that can be rotated in 90-degree increments (the orientation of the displayed information rotates in 90-degree increments while the physical display remains static).

So affordable and convenient that I have one for each uke that I use regularly.

Learned about this tuner from Ben Rouse's uke-collection video https://youtu.be/pm691xS70mk (see the 5:20, 8:09, 10:37, 12:10 marks).
 
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I like the Snark Super Tight as it can be used for different kinds of instrument and has a bright and large display that I can read without glasses. The first one lasted about six years and then did not pick up the vibrations any more, so now I am on the second one.
 
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