An essential tool for gigging guitarists, bassists and any other string-instrument equipped musicians, the humble stage tuner doesn't just help you tune up, but helps you tune up in silence so neither the audience or your band mates have to hear it. The first step in any effects chain, stage tuners have a pedal-style housing so you simply plug straight in, hit the footswitch and get in tune.
The Best Stage Tuner for Any Budget
Right here, you'll find high-grade stage tuners made by names like Boss, Korg and TC Electronic as well as more budget-friendly tuning pedals made by names like Mooer, Behringer and Nux. You'll also find plenty of standard models with a compact pedal-style housing and super-compact stage tuners in a micro-pedal housing. If you're looking for a different kind of tuner, like a clip-on model which you can literally clip onto the headstock of your instrument without having to plug it in, then see our more general range of tuners. And if you're looking for a 'set of tuners', then you'll find them in our range of guitar machine heads.
Electric Guitar, Bass or Chromatic Tuning Modes
Many stage tuners will have multiple modes so they can be set to tune a standard six-string electric or electro-acoustic guitar or a four-string bass. You can also get newer models that offer a mode for tuning up seven-string electric guitars and five-string basses and you can even get models that support drop-tunings. If you rarely use standard tunings and need something that will help with alternative tunings, then you'll be fine, since almost any stage tuner will include a chromatic tuning mode.
Standard Feedback & Strobe Tuners
Most guitarists and bassists are used to standard tuning indicators, where some form of an arrow lets you know if the string is sharp or flat and reaches the centre as soon as the string is in tune. But if you demand a higher level of accuracy from your stage tuner, you might want to try a strobe tuner. While the display is read a little differently, the system guarantees more precise tuning, so can be worth the extra effort.
Buffered & True Bypass Tuning
The bonus of going for a true bypass stage tuner is that, when the pedal is switched off, there's no danger of the dormant circuit colouring your sound as it's sent through the rest of your pedalboard and to your amp. The extra bonus of using a tuner with a buffered bypass is that it compensates for the tone loss that happens when you're using a long chain of effects pedals and long jack leads. So if you have a small army of effects at your feet, and don't mind if your tuner adds a little bit of signal colouring, a buffered bypass pedal will be fine. But if you only use a few effect pedals, or you simply demand clean and uncoloured sound, then a true bypass might be a better choice.
