The Steel Guitar Forum

Peterson StroboClip Clip-On Strobe Tuner:
Anybody tried one yet?
I'm tired of changing tuners between C6th dobro and G tuned banjo. This looks like a way to do both fast and accurately with one tuner.
What do you think?

I have not used the strobo clip tuner, but I do use an Intellitouch tuner. It works great for tuning anything with strings. I have tuned banjo, mandolin, fiddle. guitar, bass guitar and steel guitar with this tuner. My original reason for getting this tuner was not that it will tune anything, but was because it can be seen in any lighting conditions. There are only 2 drawbacks to using this type of tuner.

1st, it can be difficult to find the "sweet spot", the spot where the tuner picks up the resonance, on some instruments. On my Sho Bud it's in the middle of the cabinet as you face the guitar to play. In the directions they tell you to experiment with placement.

2nd, these are supposed to work in live situations. I have found that it is difficult to use on the fly in live situations, especially if you are working with a loud bass player. That's when a good inline tuner is better. I would imagine these two issues would apply to any "clip-on" tuner

I usually tune my instruments, and the rhythm player in my band with this tuner. Being able to just go from instrument to instrument makes this a very quick and easy task.

AlOha,
Any one of the new clip on tuners will work on the banjo, the problem is that I like to "Just" tune the C6th Dobro and none of those tuners can do this quickly and easily.(-3 or -6, give me a break! These tuners are worthless in this situation).
I am hoping this new Peterson can fill that void with their "sweetened" pre-sets. And I only have to take one tuner instead of my usual 3.
Has anyone had any success with one?-Thanks

Garry, I have a Stroboflip. (Scored it new on eBay for $150. One of those "make an offer" auctions with a store.)
Seems to work just fine. Easy to see, etc.
Me being a newb, it also helps with checking pitch while playing. That's helpful, in my case.

I did have a small/slight guitar signal distortion issue, as well as some humming, but resolved those issues by running it from the second output jack on my Goodrich vp.

All in all, It's very easy to use & the sweetened settings are cool.

But again, I'm a newb to psg, so hopefully some advanced players will chime in some.


rd

Yeah Garry, I feel you on this. Like If they could make one where you could toggle between two or three presets without having to push the button a gazillion times!!! They're good products for the most part- almost perfect.

I have a Strobo Clip. It works very well as a clip on tuner. And it has the same "sweeteners" as in the StroboFlip for most string instruments. I believe there are 36 settings.

There are no Steel Guitar sweeteners, no input jack and no microphone. It is vibration sensitive only. I can't speak for bnajo, but it works well for guitar and Dobro. Actually, there are two settings for Dobro, with setting for other "Bluegrass" instruments.


My main complaint, is that the power button is very small and the menu items are also very small. I have to take it off the instrument to see to adjust it.

The Strobe display is fine and can be seen on the head of the Dobro very well when tuning .

If you play bag-pipes, it has a tuning for those.


Marvin.

Ron,

Peterson has a mod for the distortion. Some of the early Flips have clipping diodes across the input that are not needed. They need to be removed. You can sent the tuner back to Peterson or catch Sue at a show and she will do it in the booth. I think the next show she will be attending is Texas in March. Sue has very fast turn around at the factory if you send it to Chicago, usually about a week.

Feeding it from a second isolated pedal jack also solves the problem.


Marvin

Cool.
Thanx, Marvin.

rd

Hey, I appreciate all of your responses and any future ones
I thought I saw the "sweetened" steel guitar tunings listed in the PDF of the manual.
I think I'll stick to my 3-tuner ritual until I can test one of these in person and checkout if my ancient eyes can focus on the tiny buttons

I just received my stroboclip last week and it tunes every acoustic instrument we have as well as all of the electric guitars as well. I have a Banjo, Mandolin, Dobro, 5 electric guitars oh yeah 2 fiddles and a partridge in a studio It all boils down to that the stroboclip is as accurate as their other tuners and it uses a vibration method (sort of) to tune an instrument and it it sensitive enough to tune an electric guitar as well as an acoustic.

It sells for a price that is so competitive that I don't think any other brand can beat it's price. The darn thing even tunes a bagpipe LOL.

I have a frined that has an acoustic upright piano and he says he can even use the tuner to see how far his piano is out of tune.

I think this stroboclip will end up being one of their biggest sellers!


Bob

Does it have the C6th steel guitar setting?

I don't think it has a C6 preset like the Flip...

This is Peterson's 1st firmware release on the Stroboclip the smart money is on them adding more settings to it if they think it will work good by clipping it on the steel. We'll just have to wait and see

Has anyone clipped it on their steel yet Chime in if you have! If I don't see anyone posting about it I'll call Marshall at Peterson and see what he knows.


Bob

I got a Stroboclip this weekend, and it seems about perfect for the instruments I play (ac. & elec. 6-string; 8-string G6 reso; C6 lap steel [low6- & hi8-string]; bass & ukelele).

It'll be interesting to find out what my mando-playing friends think of it, and I've yet to see how it works for sax/horns...

Does it have the E9th setting?

Stu Schulman wrote:Does it have the E9th setting?

No - and I would be surprised if they ever introduced it, as it would seiously affect the sales of the more expensive units that do have this tuning.

Not sure how old this thread is but I just bought a Strobo-Clip and it's a fantastic tuner...I play E9 pedal steel and have a Rittenberry and it works a charm so far, but I haven't tested it live, however it seems to work great on many locations around the steel cabinet, is quick, tunes just as well if not better than all the in-line tuners I've got including a Peterson Strobe Tuner app on my iPhone which is a fantastic tuner...it's just all smiles with this little gem of a device. So much easier for me as a steel player than mucking around with an in-line tuner. It can just sit on the cabinet and you can kill the volume with the volume pedal to tune. Easy, and a great quality fast accurate little tuner.

I'll echo someone else's comment about its price being about the same as other higher end clip tuners like the TC Polytune Clip...no comparison in my book, Peterson has it hands down!

Highly recommended!