Open tuning tuners

sgosden

Am I right in thinking 'open tuning'is where you can just strum it open and can tune each string at the same time? 
Are there any pedals/rack units that can do this in a drop C tuning?

ICBM

Open tuning means that the guitar is tuned to an open chord.

I think what you mean is a TC Polytune - I'm not sure if there are any other companies who do one. It does up to five semitones down OR Drop D, but it doesn't seem to do both at the same time… I think. So no Drop C.

sgosden

The poly tune  is what I was thinking of, not sure where the idea it was called open tuning came from.

Suppose I could just barr across the second fret for a rough guide of it'll only do  drop D. 
Not ideal though.

english_bob

ICBM said:

Open tuning means that the guitar is tuned to an open chord.

I think what you mean is a TC Polytune - I'm not sure if there are any other companies who do one. It does up to five semitones down OR Drop D, but it doesn't seem to do both at the same time… I think. So no Drop C.

Those products are called polyphonic tuners. Digitech had one as part of the Hardwire series, and Korg makes the Pitchblack Poly. Heh. Just looked on google shopping and NUX have a Polytune ripoff too.

FWIW, you can use the drop-D and "capo mode" on the Polytune simultaneously, so drop-C should be possible, although it can't do any other altered tunings in polyphonic mode- no open G, D, DADGAD etc. It works as a regular chromatic tuner though, so you can still tune up your guitar the old fashioned way.

ewal

I use loads of different tunings (mostly open tunings with a D root) and use a standard Boss tuner in chromatic mode.

sgosden

I've got a korg rack tuner I use for chromatic, 
What I'm aiming for is something I can run a split out to the front of stage where my floor controller is. 
So that in between songs I can just strum and make minor adjustments of what's needed without going completely stage silent. 

english_bob

ewal said:

I use loads of different tunings (mostly open tunings with a D root) and use a standard Boss tuner in chromatic mode.

You'd have to. None of the current crop of polyphonic tuners can cope with anything more exotic than drop D and/or standard tuning +/- some semitones. In a few years we might get the next generation of polyphonic tuners that can identify what tuning your guitar is in, and whether it's in tune.

paul_c2

How would it know you're in an open tuning, or severely out-of-tune of a different tuning though? As above, with current technology best bet is a chromatic tuner.

english_bob

paul_c2 said:

How would it know you're in an open tuning, or severely out-of-tune of a different tuning though? As above, with current technology best bet is a chromatic tuner.

Admittedly, there isn't a great deal wrong with just using a good quality plain old one-string-at-a-time chromatic tuner, but if you're a company that's hitched its wagon to the whole polyphonic tuning thing I guess you'd want to ride the train as far as it goes. FWIW, if your guitar holds its tune reasonably well it is significantly quicker to use a polyphonic tuner, and you can check very quickly between songs in a set that you're still in tune.

The Polytune (and other polyphonic tuners, I guess) works on the basis that you tell it in advance what tuning you're in, from the range of possible alternatives- currently standard tuning +/- so many semitones or drop-D +/- the same amount. The technology that distinguishes six different pitches and attributes them to the correct string is already there. It does this on the basis of being told, somewhere in its programming, what the six "right" pitches are. I guess it depends somewhat on how it works out which pitch is coming from which string, but I don't see why it couldn't be programmed to use whatever pitch you like as the "right" one for each string (no doubt it would struggle if you had two strings tuned in unison) and thus work for any altered tunings you wanted to use.

I would imagine that the tricky part is making that functionality in to something that the average player can understand how to program. Maybe if TC created a Toneprint enabled Polytune that could accept Toneprints of different tunings, or allowed the user to design their own altered tuning in the Toneprint editor. The current Polytune can switch between standard and Drop-D tunings by pressing and holding the footswitch, so I don't see why you couldn't program it with any two tunings in those two slots, or indeed with some way of scrolling through multiple pre-programmed tunings.

If you use multiple tunings on the same instrument in the course of a live set, having a polyphonic tuner is less useful since you can only re-tune one string at a time (that's when you need those magic tuners from the 2015 Gibsons), but if you have several instruments in different tunings it's well worthwhile. In my last band I spent most of my time on a standard tuned electric guitar, did a few songs in drop-D, and had a couple of songs that used a lap steel in open D. My Polytune had me covered on the electric, but it would have been great to be able to quickly strum-tune the lap steel.