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Beating a dead horse? Tuner accuracy....come on!


watch4king
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  • 3 months later...

What happened to the tuner on this thing? It was never great, but it seems like it's nearly unusable since Firmware 2.20. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's deaf as a post. And deaf is it's default reaction to my Variaxes. It's also flat. I can recheck using SteadyTune on my Mac, and a great little Korg tuner I've had for many years, and they both show that it's consistently flat.

 

I nice, convenient feature, with a lovely display has become nearly worthless!

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What happened to the tuner on this thing? It was never great, but it seems like it's nearly unusable since Firmware 2.20. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's deaf as a post. And deaf is it's default reaction to my Variaxes. It's also flat. I can recheck using SteadyTune on my Mac, and a great little Korg tuner I've had for many years, and they both show that it's consistently flat.

 

I nice, convenient feature, with a lovely display has become nearly worthless

for you...

My Variax, guitars and basses can be tuned correctly with helix. (And other tuners ;-) )

Check the Helix tuner settings: In(put) for example.

Check the reference (440Hz)...

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I've never used a guitar tuner, you don't listen to your guitar via an external machine, so why would you use one to tune it?  The tuner can't respond to the individual idiosyncrasies of your guitar, it just looks for the fundamental frequency of each note, treating every guitar as thought it were the same, tuning-wise, which is balmy.  OK, they're a good guide if you're in a situation where you are unable to hear properly, but if you can, you should always tune using your own ears.  Learn a little bit about equal temperament, then tune by listening to the beat rates of intervals, it's far more accurate and will be tailored to the individual guitar.  As for stability, always tune from flat, bringing the string up a little at a time, taking it slightly sharp, then bend to drop it into place, taking up any slack.  All of this takes a little learning and practice, but is well worth it for accuracy and stability.

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What happened to the tuner on this thing? It was never great, but it seems like it's nearly unusable since Firmware 2.20. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's deaf as a post. And deaf is it's default reaction to my Variaxes. It's also flat. I can recheck using SteadyTune on my Mac, and a great little Korg tuner I've had for many years, and they both show that it's consistently flat.

 

I nice, convenient feature, with a lovely display has become nearly worthless!

Hey Teer,

 

We just had a long discussion on the forum concerning the tuner, you can find it here. http://line6.com/support/topic/27002-tuner/?hl=tuner A big bunch of users are having problems using the tuner. Apparently the best thing to do is to contact Line 6 directly. I'm still not sure how we go about that part but I'm open to suggestions.

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Hey Teer,

 

We just had a long discussion on the forum concerning the tuner, you can find it here. http://line6.com/support/topic/27002-tuner/?hl=tuner A big bunch of users are having problems using the tuner. Apparently the best thing to do is to contact Line 6 directly. I'm still not sure how we go about that part but I'm open to suggestions.

 

Best way to make this issue a higher priority is by opening a support ticket at http://line6.com/support/tickets/ 

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In a strange way the renewed focus on fixing the tuner is a back-handed compliment to Line6. There was a time when other issues were a higher priority for most users. Not saying that isn't still the case for many but it is a tribute in a bizarre way to how much has been added to the Helix that this issue is receiving this level of scrutiny. With that said a good tuner has always been IMHO a necessity and we are not there yet. Let's fix it so we can move on to complaining about issues that are a lot more fun to grouse about.

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  • 2 months later...

Hi Folks. I've had my LT for a few months now, and I've noticed (even with the latest firmware) that the tuner is not very accurate/precise (I haven't studied the above discussions re: definitions). Like others have experienced, it's about as accurate as my $12 Snark, which is to say, not good. I've found that to get a good tuneup, I have to creep up on the green from below (start flat) and go until I *just* hit the bar. And then try to do the same for the other strings. This always requires one more round, plus then some tweaking by ear. Not good. And the manual's statement about being perfectly in tune when the "< >" are both white - not true.

 

However, I think I saw a response from a Line 6 employee who said it was fixed? I tried to check the feature vote site, but it required registration, and then said I wasn't approved by the moderator. Would someone from Line 6 please comment on the status of improving the tuner? Thank you!

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Hi Folks. I've had my LT for a few months now, and I've noticed (even with the latest firmware) that the tuner is not very accurate/precise (I haven't studied the above discussions re: definitions). Like others have experienced, it's about as accurate as my $12 Snark, which is to say, not good. I've found that to get a good tuneup, I have to creep up on the green from below (start flat) and go until I *just* hit the bar. And then try to do the same for the other strings. This always requires one more round, plus then some tweaking by ear. Not good. And the manual's statement about being perfectly in tune when the "< >" are both white - not true.

 

However, I think I saw a response from a Line 6 employee who said it was fixed? I tried to check the feature vote site, but it required registration, and then said I wasn't approved by the moderator. Would someone from Line 6 please comment on the status of improving the tuner? Thank you!

 

Tuning from below the note is always good practice, regardless of the tuner, imo. As far as the white brackets, I believe they both light up once you are in the +/-3 cent range.

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Hi Everyone. I went ahead and submitted a ticket and got the below anonymous response [2]. My detailed response to them with supporting links is below [1]. I agree with the above suggestions that, if we want progress to be made, we vote on the idea and also create a ticket - http://line6.com/support/tickets/ . I really do think this tuner needs some serious work to a product that is otherwise pretty amazing! -- matt

 

[1] My followup reply:

 

 

Thank you for the reply. I think that measuring tuner usability issues via the number of CS tickets is not the way to go if you want to capture how your users experience the tuner. This is because most people don't go the extra step to submit a ticket. Instead, they post to the forums and hope that you will pick up on that. Here are the top two threads (~200 and ~100 posts, respectively):

- http://line6.com/support/topic/21074-beating-a-dead-horse-tuner-accuracycome-on/
- http://line6.com/support/topic/20276-inconsistent-and-inaccurate-tuner/

Please read those and see that, while there are happy users, there are many unhappy ones like me. The tuner really does need work.

Here's a video that is representative of how inaccurate and jumpy the tuner is:

- Helix tuner VS Korg DTR 2000 -




Regarding IdeaScale, there are 39 tuner-related entries of which the top three (479, 389, and 148 votes, respectively) related to accuracy/performance are:

- Please make the Helix tuner more precise - https://line6.ideascale.com/a/idea-v2/788762
- Helix: Various Tuner Modes (Strobe!) - https://line6.ideascale.com/a/idea-v2/739898
- Increase granularity potential on tuner and add strobe function - https://line6.ideascale.com/a/idea-v2/805253

If you look at the Popular tab ( https://line6.ideascale.com/a/ideas/top?sortBy=votes&direction=down ) you'll see the tuner is on the first page of results.
 

 

Please, the tuner is an essential feature that is not working well, and it's tarnishing your otherwise stellar product!

 

 

[2] Original Helix ticket reply:

 

 

I'm sorry you're dissatisfied with the on-board tuner in HELIX. We have not heard back too much in the way of support ticket complaints regarding it's accuracy, but if you'd like for your feedback to reach the right people, we ask that you submit your comments, ideas, and suggestions to our IdeaScale where ideas are voted on, with commentary, sometimes by the Product Managers themselves

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  • 6 years later...
On 8/2/2023 at 7:13 PM, fazz1977 said:

 

The HX tuner is NOT accurate... not even close, it's sharp, hence why my pitchblack stays on my bass board.

Well, check the calibration.  It's easy to knock it off 440 -- touch the knob and it's now 443...

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On 8/3/2023 at 10:12 PM, themetallikid said:

Tuner works great for me......

 

OP resurrected 3 zombie threads, only has 5 posts, 3 of them are copy/pasted.    <insert rolling eyes emoji>

At least he's using the search function  :-)

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I have a Helix LT and did use a PitchBlack Plus for many years (great tuner that let me hook two guitars to my old pedal board and program the tuner for different tunings). When getting rid of most of my pedals I also tested/compared the tuner in Helix with PB+, no difference. Also tested it against both software tuners and a Boss tuner. PB and Helix tuners stood up really well. 

 

Since 2017 there has been at least one update addressing the tuner function and stability. I think it works just great, so easy to use. Sold my PB and only use the Helix tuner. Is there limitations, probably but nothing that effects me today.

 

Read an advice many years ago (just to add to theElevators point above), think it was on the POD HD forum – Guitar pickup in neck position, volume all the way up and no pedals between the guitar and tuner. Be sure to use fresh strings… worn out strings can be hard to get in tune. 

 

Has work for me anyway

 

//Per 
 

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