I assume that harp experience applies to electronic tuners for the lute. The
Korg is well respected in the harp community, but I'll add another one to
the list. I use the Zen-on Chromatina 331 (about $80 US). It calibrates to A
438 through 445 in increments of one. It has a needle that swings from -50
cents to +50 cents with markings at intervals of 10 cents (and enough swing
to eyeball to about 2 to 3 cents). A pair of red lights show below or above
pitch (and both light when with in a cent or so of exact). Absolute pitch is
shown as lights on a diatonic scale, with a "sharp" light added if
appropriate. Inputs are built in mike and direct pick up (and there is an
output for those with an electrical instrument, which I don't have, so the
tuner can be "in-line" with the speakers). I find it works well on the harps
when the pick up is clipped to the sound box, and works well on the lute
with the pick up on any peg.

One negative, it seems to have some memory of a sound. The string must be
fully damped before striking it again or the machine gets a bit confused.
And a caveat for all electronic tuners, even when using a pick up you may
get false readings (although so false as to be obvious) if you have
background sound. The mike is supposed to shut down when the input plug for
the pick up is inserted. But when I first got this for the harps I was
tuning with the TV on (it takes quite a while to tune 52 strings) and got
false readings. I blocked the mike with foam and tape, then finally realized
that it wasn't a false reading, the TV sound was resonating the harp
soundbox (a lot bigger than a lute) - the mike wasn't interfering, it was
the resonation from the ambient noise. So if a tuner seems "jumpy" it may
not be the tuner but the noise, even if using the direct pick up.

Best, Jon


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