Is it me or is this guitar tuner plugin just plain wrong?

Dr. Varney

Dr. Varney

Pimp
Honestly, I'm getting a bit dissapointed with half the VST plugins I download, thinking/hoping they will answer problems for me for $0.

Of course, I can't tell if it's the VST or something I am doing wrong but...

When I plug my guitar into my tuner, it just works.

When I plug through into tune-it VST, it seems to be indicating a B when I am clearly hitting the E string. My real tuner says it's an E and the online guitar tuner at Gieson is telling me I'm hitting an E - so why would this VST be playing up so badly? It's just a tuner! I wouldn't have thought it were rocket science!?

Thanks

Dr. V
 
It has been my experience, the free plugins are the ones that crash the host DAW programs the most. HOWEVER, there are many good ones that don't. But I find the "obscure" ones tend to do that much more than the ones that might come with a program or that have the funds (purchase price) to test them a little better, rather than using the public as "beta" testers.

no experience with your particular tuner plug.

I find it mainly with VSTi too and not so much with effects/processors.


kinda...like you get what you pay for.
 
Dr. Varney said:
so why would this VST be playing up so badly? It's just a tuner! I wouldn't have thought it were rocket science!?
Click to expand...
I blame it on the boogie. :D
Dr. Varney said:
Honestly, I'm getting a bit dissapointed with half the VST plugins I download, thinking/hoping they will answer problems for me for $0.
Click to expand...

Maybe there's no such thing as a free lunch !





Seriously, technology is sometimes weird. Great but weird.
 
Just a wild guess, and probably wrong, but.....

Is it possible it has different modes for different instruments. Maybe right now it's on "Harmonica" or "Tenor Sax" mode. I think an "E" on guitar is a "B" on a sax....or something like that. :eek:
 
I can't speak for plug ins 'cause I don't use any.

But as a piano tuner, I can tell you that having a precise tuner isn't quite as easy as it seems.
Tuners are all over the place. I could take a dozen guitar type tuners and check them with my 1000 dollar peterson and everyone of them would probably be a little different.
Hell, even organs like they use in church can be ........ I've seen Baldwin organs that were a quarter step off!
:eek:

Hammonds are all about the same because of how they produce sound (spinning tone wheels) but other purely electronic organs are all over the place pitchwise and these are things that sold for 7 8 ... 10 thousand dollars.
So I have to think that technically, it must be harder to 'read' a guitars output and say where it's tuned at than it would seem.
 
RAMI said:
Just a wild guess, and probably wrong, but.....

Is it possible it has different modes for different instruments. Maybe right now it's on "Harmonica" or "Tenor Sax" mode. I think an "E" on guitar is a "B" on a sax....or something like that. :eek:
Click to expand...

E on guitar (a concert pitched instrument) would be an F# on a tenor sax and a soprano. On an alto sax it would be a C#.
Altos are Eb instruments ...... so is a Bari.
A soprano and a tenor are Bb instruments.
And where they get that from is they take C on the instrument and then whatever note that translates to for concert pitch is considered the key of that instrument.
So on a tenor sax .... it's always a step up from the concert pitch ..... for alto it's a step and a half down from concert.
Flutes are C instruments so they're a concert pitched instrument.
Clarinets are Bb except and alto clarinet if Eb I think. Trumpets are Bb .......

Pain in the ass sometimes for beginners but I've gotten to where I don't really think about it.
 
Lt. Bob said:
E on guitar (a concert pitched instrument) would be an F# on a tenor sax and a soprano. On an alto sax it would be a C#.
Altos are Eb instruments ...... so is a Bari.
A soprano and a tenor are Bb instruments.
And where they get that from is they take C on the instrument and then whatever note that translates to for concert pitch is considered the key of that instrument.
So on a tenor sax .... it's always a step up from the concert pitch ..... for alto it's a step and a half down from concert.
Flutes are C instruments so they're a concert pitched instrument.
Clarinets are Bb except and alto clarinet if Eb I think. Trumpets are Bb .......
Click to expand...
Exactly what I meant to say. :D
 
One way to think of the whole counterfeit note thing is:

If you asked a Bb instrument guy (like a trumpet player) to play a "C" and then went to the piano you'd find he'd played a Bb.

If you ask an Eb alto sax player to play a "C" and check it on the piano, it's an Eb... and so on.

The instruments are named after "what note you'll get if you ask the guy to play a C".

Personally I absolutely hate and refuse to use tuners. I smash them if I see them. Tuners are all off. I tune my synths by ear every gig and to me the right pitch varies with light conditions (believe it or not) and if you get it right it makes a huge, massive spiritual difference. I rarely play A440, I've been around A339 for a while.
 
Over the last few years, I make a point of tuning up before every session. I used to 'tune by ear'. Little did I know my ears were full of hair ! I assumed that so long as my bass or guitar was in tune with itself, everything was gonna be alright. Ha ha ha Oh what a fool I was ! Overdubbing was a nightmare by day....thankfully, someone invented the pitchwheel. Still, I inadvertently learned about quarter tones !! :laughings:

Lt. Bob said:
E on guitar (a concert pitched instrument) would be an F# on a tenor sax and a soprano. On an alto sax it would be a C#.
Altos are Eb instruments ...... so is a Bari.
A soprano and a tenor are Bb instruments.
And where they get that from is they take C on the instrument and then whatever note that translates to for concert pitch is considered the key of that instrument.
So on a tenor sax .... it's always a step up from the concert pitch ..... for alto it's a step and a half down from concert.
Flutes are C instruments so they're a concert pitched instrument.
Clarinets are Bb except and alto clarinet if Eb I think. Trumpets are Bb .......
Click to expand...
I got a friend of mine to play a bit of clarinet for me the other day on a ditty I had. I had played it in G but at capo 3 so it was in Bb. But I'd forgotten that. So when my friend who is an absolute instrument whizz was having a hard time playing to my weird timing and notes, I raised a quizzical eyebrow and he said something about it being in a really difficult key so I asked him what key it was and he said some convoluted key that I can't remember but I laughed and said I hadn't written it in that key !
Still, it makes the world go round, is the spice of life and all that.....
 
Tuners can be fussy about level and distortion. Also about any other oddity to the signal such as DC offset. When you plug a guitar into a hardware tuner there is a very direct signal path which is (hopefully!) easy to fault-trace. When using a VST plug-in to tune a guitar the signal path is vastly more complicated.

I'm impressed that you consider the VST to be 'just' a tuner - I wouldn't like to have to code one myself...
 
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