I've had it with Snark!

Jerryc41 said:

When the tuner is designed for other instruments, you have to either give the button one quick press or hold it for a couple of seconds. If you do it wrong, it selects another instrument - kind of a nuisance.

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In my opinion this problem only arises if by some accident you take the tuner out of chromatic mode.
I prefer tuners with only chromatic mode.

I have a tuner with modes for guitar, ukulele, violin etc. But I prefer the chromatic mode. It works for both my ukuleles and my guitar, and besides telling me if it is in tune, it tells me what note it is actually playing.

But every once in a while when trying to turn it off, I would accidentially change the mode.

I have these two questions.

I was under the impression that the Snark ukulele tuner was chromatic like their other tuners, but more sensitive to the higher frequencies of the uke. At the time I was looking at the SN6 reviewers saw no real benefit compared with the red or blue all instrument Snarks. Jerry and others who own them, can you comment? I haven't noticed any problems with my SN2 red tuners detecting pitch of my ukuleles (tenor, concert, and concert banjolele).

At the time my Snarks broke I searched online to find out how common the issue was. That was at least 5 years ago. At the time posters were saying this was only a problem with the SN2 red tuners. Has anyone had their blue or black bodied Snark tuner fail at the pivot?

I can understand the poster's comment that two years life for a $6 tuner is not bad. My Snarks lasted longer than that before they failed. It bothers me, however, that after all the years that Danelectro has been making these that, instead of fixing this weak point of their product, they have chosen to devote their engineering budget to creating new variations of the product, and expect the customer to replace or repair and otherwise functioning tuner.

In the meantime, other manufacturers are coming out with more robust products providing the accuracy and easy to read display of Snark with a more robust case. Jerry's example of Kliq uber tuner looks like one example. At twice the price of Snark I would consider it a better buy since the case would likely outlast the Snark at least by double. I have seen other tuners available with this type of case. I am enthusiastic about my Zenstrobe tuner, which uses LED's in a display similar in size and readability similar to Snark, but brighter in a robust case. It has the added function of strobe tuning which is more accurate. At about $35 it cost as much as three Snarks at street price. I consider it as much a good buy as Snarks, as it has the promise of much longer trouble free life. I decided that I only need the one tuner and swap it among my ukes and guitars. I still have one repaired Snark for a spare.

Just returned a Snark Tuner (ST-8HZ). It seemed to work ok with the basic readout, but couldn't do the hz part.

I bought my Snark in 2011. It is still all in one piece, working perfectly. I also still have the Intelli IMT500 chromatic tuner that I bought about twelve years ago. The hinge still works, but the swivel had to be immobilised 'cos it broke. Still works perfectly. I guess I'm just lucky.

John Colter.

If you have an older Snark still going strong this is all well and good however it may only really be evidence that Snark has let its manufacturing processes slip in order to just make more money in recent years. In guitar circles people are mostly complaining about the Snarks pitiful battery life. With Snarks, if its not one thing then its another.

I had five different snark tuners. All. Rose at the pivot joint at one time or another in had NS micro but fount in had hard time settling in and hard to tune. On the NS maybe I had a bad one. I liked the size and usually just left it on the headstock of my tune. I now use planet Waves Eclipse tuner. Good and sturdy but not bright enough outside. I’d NEVER buy another snark. Sorry. Still looking for a tuner that works for me!

Snark is such a popular brand that there are so many of them out there, even if 1% have issues, that's a lot of complaints. I'm not a fan of how they look, I much prefer a sleek style of a D'addario Micro. And admittedly I've had a lot of cheap tuners included with uke purchase or which I've bought online, but the functionality of the Snark tuner (SN-8 circa 2012, SN-2 -2017? in my case) seems so much better than any others I've owned - keeping in mind that I don't own more expensive tuners. If you pay more, maybe you get more. Maybe.

I've had my Snark for five years or so. It works fine, but I have had my eye on a Peterson strobe tuner for no other reason than it is $150. That may sound odd, but I am attracted to the confidence it takes to charge a ludicrous price for a product. I have a French salt cellar that I paid $80 for just because I liked its moxie

anthonyg said:

In guitar circles people are mostly complaining about the Snarks pitiful battery life. With Snarks, if its not one thing then its another.

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If a device is popular, you will see more complaints than you will about a not-so-common device. I have lots of different brands of tuners, and they all kill their batteries eventually. How new the battery is makes a difference. Those 2032 batteries will lose a lot of their power sitting in a drawer for a year or two. Snark is my preferred tuner.

My first tuner was a Snark SN6, & it's still going strong, with just one battery change so far, so that's just over 4 years, I haven't even needed the back up tuners I bought (just in case it failed).

Croaky Keith said:

My first tuner was a Snark SN6, & it's still going strong, with just one battery change so far, so that's just over 4 years, I haven't even needed the back up tuners I bought (just in case it failed).

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It's funny when we're at a jam session, and there are several identical Snarks on the table. They're popular, and they mostly look alike.

TC Electronic Unitune guys and girls. It is darn spartan and even hard to operate for changing tuning from our standard A 440Hz. Just 2 push buttons. It won't tell what octave the note is either. Even the note is kind of hard to read on the display. It has the strobo mode too, but it is annoying to use and definately not needed for uke, so I never use.

Where it is excellent is the stability of display and the fastness of tuning. When the battery starts to die, like every 6 months in my usual every day tuning of ukes and guitars, the display goes dimmer. So then it is time to change.

It seems now available in Thomann: https://www.thomann.de/fi/tc_electronic_unitune_clip_tuner.htm

The clipping part is VERY strong metal one, so it wont ever brake. The tuner itself is just cheap plastic. In all it is quite light weight still and small, despite the metal clip.

First tuner I bought was a D'Addario because I liked the small profile. It would not give a reading for the A string. Returned it and bought a Snark. It would not give a reading on any string. Returned it, bought a different model of Snark and (fingers crossed) it has worked fine.

I think these clip ons are much handier than a phone app but they sure seem to be inconsistent and unreliable.

I use the Planet Waves Eclipse Tuner for Uke, Guitar & Bass. Don't have a problem with any of them. Battery life is possibly not the best, but the tuner is very durable, easy to use, picks ups well on all the instruments I've used it on and has a really easy to read display. Happily recommend it.

tm3 said:

I think these clip ons are much handier than a phone app but they sure seem to be inconsistent and unreliable.

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My phone app works fine if I'm sitting there alone in my basement without my washer or dryer running in the background, but you get into a group situation where everyone is tuning or noodling and the phone apps just get confused. I can't comment on Snarks. I've never owned one. I got a tuner as part of the package with my first ukulele and it is still working fine. But I do see a lot of them at my group strumalongs and no one complains about them.

Jarmo_S said:

Where it is excellent is the stability of display and the fastness of tuning.

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This particular point is unfortunately a fault and not a feature as its a demonstration of tuning insensitivity, not tuning fastness. In the real World of stringed instruments the pitch can wander around a little and a tuner that doesn't display this pitch wander is a tuner that has been deliberately set to be insensitive so that it appears to be more stable.

anthonyg said:

This particular point is unfortunately a fault and not a feature as its a demonstration of tuning insensitivity, not tuning fastness. In the real World of stringed instruments the pitch can wander around a little and a tuner that doesn't display this pitch wander is a tuner that has been deliberately set to be insensitive so that it appears to be more stable.

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You can't tell any about the sensitivity of a tuner just by looking at the display. The so called needle vibrations can be mathematically reduced. Rather I think the sensitivity of a tuner means that it senses small string vibration also well, that the Unitune does.

You can't make a working strobo tuner without advanced filtering with something like our less than optimal strings.

I certainly don't like tuners with wobbling needles also with the more standard and to me preferred way of tuning. Just my opinion.

Jarmo_S said:

You can't make a working strobo tuner without advanced filtering with something like our less than optimal strings.
I certainly don't like tuners with wobbling needles also with the more standard and to me preferred way of tuning. Just my opinion.

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And there is an easy way to satisfy your requirements. Its cheap to. You just make the tuner insensitive to small fluctuations and it has the added benefit of making the tuner seem "stable".
Win win for some. On the other hand, there are expert uses in the World who understand what's going on and demand accuracy and if the side effect of accuracy is some wobble then so be it. I'll take the wobble.
Stable devices are made for amateurs and more sensitive devices are made for experts and this is not unique to ukulele/guitar tuners either.

Oh and I went all these years like 20-30 of mine, just using a tuning fork and my ears. I really did that.

I have learned much to appreciate the tuners, and I must say Unitune is one of the best. You should perhaps go to floor tuners if expecting something better, but I doubt.

How ever we were even able to make music before the tuners? We had our ears and our limits in that and also some interesting instruments that were not quite in tune like your super idea.