The Steel Guitar Forum

Does anybody know something about the "Peterson strobo" tuner? I seen a steel player useing one and he said it was the best and easiest tuner ever made for the steel. Input anybody?? Jim

James the Petersen Strobo HD is the one you want - portable, has a litium battery so charges with a USB cable like your cellphone.
The best feature is the "sweeteners" ... it has several for Pedal Steel, plus a multitude of other instruments as well ... a couple of the PSG sweeteners are based on the old Jeff Newman offsets - you just pluck the string, and adjust till the strobe stops moving and your done - no need to memorise any settings or carry a chart around with you.
Just the cats meow !!

You can also get a bracket for the tuner which attaches to the leg of your steel so it's right there at hand.

You lost me somewhere...I use a Boss tuner and set my strings to the E9th tuneing. What is meant by "sweetners"?. I play through a transtubefex with lots of different settings...some of Jeffs Newmans ....Very puzzled????

The sweeteners are programming the notes so that the chords are "beatless."
The Peterson, being a virtual strobe, can't tell you that the C#s are about 17 cents flat, so it programs it to tell you that 17 cents flat is in tune.
The Petersons are very well built, and their customer service is absolutely outstanding.
However, I dislike the premise of programmed tuners: I prefer using a needle-type tuner (or a virtual needle, as in my phone app), and pointing the needle at the adjusted value, rather than programming it to tell you that 17 cents flat is in tune. As I don't have a PC anymore, I also don't like that the newer Petersons cannot be reprogrammed on their own: if I had one and wanted to adjust a value, I'd have to go to the library and plug it into the library computer.
That said, they are simply outstanding at what they do. I recommend them for anyone who doesn't share my idiosyncrasies.
To see what the sweeteners are doing, here's the Buddy Emmons tuning chart with all its values (these are very close to the numbers in the Peterson tuner): http://www.buddyemmons.com/ttchart.htm

Thanks guys for the info...Seems electronics is taking over the world and doing your work for you. Don`t know if simpler is good or bad. A person looses the meaning behind doing things by just pushing a button. After while you kinda forget which note had the ups/downs in cents...(You might say you loose your centes...HA HA

I particularly enjoy the large, backlit display and the built in stand features on the StroboPlus. I place mine on top of my amp and use the tuner out function in the rear. As mentioned, another plus is that there are no wall warts or batteries to be concerned with! Normally plug mine into the 12V outlet in my van on the way to a job to ensure that it is fully charged. On the negative side; from my experience, placing it in the signal path somewhere between the guitar and amp or running it from the second output of your volume pedal (unless it has a designated 'Tuner Out' jack) has a tendency to alter your tone and at times will actually cause distortion.

I never placed my Boss tuner in line as I could tell it altered the tone but I never notice any change with the Peterson.

I have a Strobo Plus HD and find it to be an outstanding tuner. It is very stable and has a long battery life. It is especially valuable to me when I play with others, as it is often too noisy to tune by ear.

Having said all that, when I am practicing, I more often than not tune by ear once the root is in tune.

One problem with a sweetened tuning is you may find some notes are not so sweet when played against a fixed pitch instrument that is using straight up tuning. Tweaking your bar position/slant will help...

Lane, as with all Petersen tuners, you can actually put in your own settings - there are several banks allocated for this very purpose.

Indeed, Paddy. But does it show you that, for instance, you're 17 cents flat of ET, or does the strobe stop at the [deliberately chosen] wrong point? I think it's still helpful to bear in mind we're deviating from the tone that the rest of the world calls C#.
Also, others have pointed this out as a positive, but while they say you CAN hook up the tuner to a computer to create a custom program, I don't think it's a positive that you HAVE to. I don't have a Windows machine or a laptop handy. If I wanted to create a custom program, I'd have to take the tuner to the library and hope their tech department has allowed me to access peripherals from their machines, because they're no longer fully autonomous. Or mail it to a friend.

Again, my only objections to their products are in the concept/philosophy. Their products are very well built and very well executed. Their customer service is utterly outstanding. And it's possible that my reservations stem from the fact that I'm a goofball.

I do believe that when you put in your own offsets you can see the cents/hertz on the display, but I don't think they are visible once you save it all and call up the preset to use it ! -- I could be wrong on this though.