Snark SN-8 Super Tight All Instrument Tuner

The BEST! I bought this on a recommendation from a friend in Indianapolis who is a guitar player in a band. He said, for the money, this was the best tuner to get. I bought it for my husband as a stocking stuffer, and to quote him, "If I had a room of guitars, I would have a Snark on each one." Easy to use. Quite reliable and accurate.

I play mandolin and a tuner like this gets attached to the head above the tuners. It gets the vibrations and ideally gives an accurate reading. This one is very sensitive and the very colorful, visual face is easy to read and makes it easy to adjust the tuners to get each string perfectly tuned. And it is rechargeable and comes with the cord to connect it. I am happy to not be using those flat round batteries that my older tuners used. I always had trouble getting them to work after a battery change. This worked perfectly just out of the package.

I decided to gamble on a contact tuner for long tone practice because of the instability of cheap mic tuners and online tuners. For some reason, they had a constant problem with arbitrary twitches that had nothing to do with actual changes in pitch or even ambient noise. Sometimes they would read out a note that had nothing to do with the note I was playing. Maybe the harmonic richness of the tone was causing spurious readouts somehow. And for eleven bucks......hey.There's no point in pretending that this little unit is anything more than it is - a light-duty piece of equipment to efficiently fulfill rudimentary tuning and timekeeping demands. The banana arm between the clip and the display isn't robust and the ability of the ball joints to withstand the wear of repeated adjustments is suspect. Best to keep adjustments to a minimum. The clip has rubberized contacts and a strong spring. It is reinforced with deep ribs on the spring side. The plastic arms hinge on the pivot directly with no bushing. The on/off and metronome tap buttons have a solid click feel, the pitch buttons not so much. The unit runs on a lithium watch battery, which is included. It's extremely light.Power on is indicated by a single white backlit LCD bar. Input lights up a tuning bar and a readout of the note. All pitches are read out as naturals or sharps, no flats. The unit powers off after two minutes with no input. All in all a very power-efficent and readable system good for a variety of light conditions. The display has one green in-tune bar, and five each for sharp and flat bars. The bar resolution is apparently about ± 5 ¢. That may not satisfy some ensemble tuning demands. The metronome speed is set by repeated clicks on the metronome button, with adjustment using the pitch up/down buttons on the back. The flash of the heart icon keeping time is not completely crisp. The transpose system is clunky for anything but setting a capo on a guitar and the setting is reset to concert when the tuner is turned off. Not worth the bother for horn players. Better to just think in concert.This thing works beautifully when clipped onto the bell. The grip is firm and stable. The display response is quick and stable. The display shows changes in pitch right at the instant they can be heard. The bar display is well set not only for showing relative pitch, but also movement of pitch, because adjacent bars light up and there's some flutter when pitch changes slowly. The only problem picking up the pitch from a low Bb to altissimo A on a tenor was a minor glitch that occurs from C1 on downward. At specific volume levels, the pickup drops out. The pickup recovers when volume is either increased or decreased.The usability far exceeds that of table top tuners with an unlit needle meter type LCD display. It's nice not to have to stand in one spot to get a good pickup or viewing angle. Angle fade on an unlit LCD tends to make one dependent on the three LEDs on some tuners, but then you're stuck with less feedback than you get from the Snark. Better to just get this functional clip-on cheapie, or invest in a good tuner with a backlit needle meter LCD display and audible metronome if your needs are more exacting.

It's a nifty little device. My brother-in-law recommended it to me after I asked everyone else in our Bluegrass group to "please speak in G" one too many times while tuning with other devices.It's a little fragile with the two swivel joints, but so long as you practice a bit of caution, there's no reason it shouldn't last. The rubber grips do just that: grip. Once you have the Snark on your instrument, it's on until you take it off. I've only had it for a week now, but I can see how those grips may wear away at the varnish over a long time with frequent use, as they warn in the documentation.The display is crisp and fairly bright, but since there's no way to lock it into a particular viewing angle, I've noticed that is has a tendency to slowly swivel downward as I play, making it harder to see at times. However, the ability to get EXACTLY the viewing angle I need trumps a little squabble with gravity every time.As far as tuning goes,I side with the majority of the other commenters: it's quick and easy to tune with. I don't make a living playing music, but it's more than good enough for jam sessions with the family, or for a local gig. I've used it with great success on guitar, mandolin, ukulele, and acoustic bass. The only instrument that's given me any trouble is the 5-string banjo, and that's because the 5th string terminates so far up the neck compared to the others that it's hard for the Snark to pick up the vibrations from it. To compensate, I just have to pluck that string a little harder than I do the others, and it picks up just fine.All in all, for less than $15, it's an amazing little tuner. It clips securely onto your instrument, tunes accurately enough, and displays brightly enough, and you don't have to have everybody talk in unison while you use it.