How accurate is the Kemper Tuner?

    So,how accurate is the Kemper Tuner? I wan to buy a TC electronic polytune tuner just for perfect tuning of my guitars before a CD recording. Do you think that will be useful to me because of the quality of it or Kemper's tuner is equally good?

    Never had a problem with built-in tuner in terms off accuracy, but TC Polytune off course has the ability to show all strings tuning at once. If it's not dealbreaker for you I would at least give a try to onboard solution.

    Seems very accurate to me.
    Tip for recording:


    If possible, tune in the segment of your neck where you play the part in.
    Typically, also perfect intonated guitars, are a little sharp below the 12th, and a little flat above the 12th. (Rules of nature and a little impact of the nut hight)
    Prs guitars are in tune below the 12th, and a little sharp above.


    No matter how accurate your tuner is, you always have to make compromises by ear.

    I also like to tune with repeated hits of a force that I will typically use in a tune...
    If I tune using a nice girly gentle touch I I'm always sharp as the tuner shows me flat.

    A guitar will never be perfectly in tune with itself all the way up the fretboard anyway, so there always has to be a slight compromise to get all the different intervals to sound right.


    Anyway, back on topic, I have compared the Kempers tuner to my Peterson, and it hangs right with it.

    Kemper Tuner is really good.


    One thing that confuses me is that I recently purchased this new TC Polytune Clip tuner which has received some good reviews, but it tunes always flat compared to Kemper. Have checked the settings are similar (A=440).


    ?(

    Great discussion.


    I have found the KPA tuner to be very accurate compared to external tuners (my lead player's).


    As for the discussion on guitar tuning, there are a number of factors for getting the best tuning you can achieve.


    As discussed, it is impossible to have perfect tuning for the following reasons:


    • When you strike a string harder, it wiggles more, making the string tighter .... going sharp. It will go flatter as it settles down. This is just physics at work.
    • Depending on how the neck is setup, having the strings farther away from the frets at any point in the neck means you are stretching the strings more at that position (usually the strings are a bit higher off the neck at the base of the neck vs the top of the neck.
    • When you first bring a guitar in from a cold place, the strings will be tighter. As you play, your fingers (which are relatively warm) will make the strings go flat.

    As mentioned above, some guitars simply have intonation that is not as accurate at some places in the neck as others.


    Personally, I take great pride in having my guitars in very good tuning throughout the night. Power cords with distortion ring true and have better harmonics when the guitar is tuned well. The tuner in the KPA is a pretty good tool for getting the best tuning you can get.

    Quote from Morph

    Good thread this, here's what the Guild of American Luthiers has to say (courtesy of Eltham Jones, Edge Guitar Services). Worth e read if only for the science.

    The guitar is an untuneable instrument - same as the piano.
    Thats the reason why there exist the "well tempered piano".
    We should also talk about the well tempered guitar :rolleyes: .
    The tuning of a guitar is alway a compromise.

    I have to say that the tuner of the Kemper is the best tuner I've ever had!
    I checked out a tuner in the early 90s with a similar function and the costs at that time were round about 500 DM. That was the best tuner I've ever seen till I bought the Kemper.
    Since I use the Kemper my guitars are in the best tune I've ever had. This is not a fishing for compliments. That's a reallity.
    And the hints of @Sharry are true.
    I add: 20 minutes warm up and then tune. ;)

    Quote from Sharry

    The guitar is an untuneable instrument - same as the piano.Thats the reason why there exist the "well tempered piano".
    We should also talk about the well tempered guitar :rolleyes: .
    The tuning of a guitar is alway a compromise.

    I heard people say that a number of times on a forum, but wasn't equal or well tempered tuning (in fact 2 different things) a way to make a instrument playable in every possible key instead of just one or a few keys, by having your 12 semitones in an octave divided by the twelfth root of two instead of the perfect fractions they should be?


    Whereas the Piano's tuning is "stretched" because a string also acts as a rod and isnt a mathematically perfect string, therefore has its harmonics not in the mathematically perfect positions. To minimize the difference between all those strings root frequenties and their harmonic frequenties with one another, so to minimize the dissonance, the tuning is stretched.


    But a piano tuned in a more perfect tuning will still be "stretched", and a guitar with its frets differently positioned for a more perfect tuning will still have its strings stretched when pushing it to the frets

    Quote from jpoelmans

    I heard people say that a number of times on a forum, but wasn't equal or well tempered tuning (in fact 2 different things) a way to make a instrument playable in every possible key instead of just one or a few keys, by having your 12 semitones in an octave divided by the twelfth root of two instead of the perfect fractions they should be?
    Whereas the Piano's tuning is "stretched" because a string also acts as a rod and isnt a mathematically perfect string, therefore has its harmonics not in the mathematically perfect positions. To minimize the difference between all those strings root frequenties and their harmonic frequenties with one another, so to minimize the dissonance, the tuning is stretched.


    But a piano tuned in a more perfect tuning will still be "stretched", and a guitar with its frets differently positioned for a more perfect tuning will still have its strings stretched when pushing it to the frets

    The part that you're overlooking is that a guitar cannot be completely in tune with itself-period. If you tweak it to be perfectly in tune for an open G chord, it's going to sound way out with an open D chord (try this yourself). Altering the fret spacing won't help, as the intervals shift with every key you play in. That's why there are "sweetened" tunings-they're a compromise so that everything sounds reasonably good.