Hi all,
There's been a lot of interest in PolyTune on TGP and a recurring theme is why it isn't as accurate as some of the strobe tuner available and how accurate it really is. So I figured I'd give you bit of inside information from the PolyTune development process and shed some light on some of the thoughts that went into designing the pedal.
I'm the product manager for PolyTune and as such the main responsible for the pedal. I have been working on the project for almost a year and a half - from the initial idea to the finished product - so this information is straight from the horses mouth.
The accuracy of PolyTune, it is indeed +/- 0.5 cents in chromatic mode, but like most other tuners out there we have purposely chosen to have a wider range around the target pitch for each note to make tuning easier.
Without getting too nerdy about how the chromatic tuner in PolyTune works, we've made a sort of software "magnet" or "tractor beam" - designed to give you the sensation that its easy to get the string to pitch without overshooting. When moving towards the pitch there's a high degree of accuracy required, but once you're "in the zone", it will take a little more effort to get it out of the green area again.
I realize that some people swear by their strobe tuners and the increased accuracy they provide and that's great. But from our user tests most guitar players were frustrated even with the 0.5 cent accuracy of the chromatic tuner in PolyTune, finding it hard to get a perfect "green arrow" without constantly overshooting and having to start over. This is why we're using a slightly bigger margin around each target note - something the Boss TU-2, TU-3, Korg PitchBlack and most other tuners out there are also doing.
PolyTune isn't trying to compete with strobe tuners in winning the "accuracy-race". It isn't really harder to do an ultra-precise tuner and all strobe tuners are at least in theory infinitely accurate - it's the display that sets the limit to how small tonal differences can be shown. PolyTune has more than 100 LEDs so that's definitely not what's limiting the precision.
In my opinion, once you get beyond a certain accuracy it gets a little pointless as the guitar is an extremely sensitive instrument that will go several cents flat or sharp just by the amount of pressure you put on the neck, the force you apply to the string, the pressure of your palm on a floating bridge, etc. to warrant ultra-precise accuracy in a tuner. It might be great for setting up intonation, but in a live situation I personally find it total overkill.
That's why our goal with PolyTune was to make a tuner that is precise, feels great (I'm sure most of you have tried tuners where you felt there wasn't a connection between how much you turned the tuning peg and how the tuner reacted to that) and is fast to use in a live situation - which is where the polyphonic tuner really shines. And when striving for that goal, you'll have to find a compromise between precision, speed and ease-of-use.
Back when I was using a strobe tuner I found myself rarely tuning until the movement of the display was absolutely still. Over time I got to know the tuner well enough to know when a little movement was good enough to get back to playing without the singer running out of one-liners or the drummer throwing his last stick at me. So I wasn't really using the accuracy provided, but found a work around to make the tuner usable for me in a live situation. Now, I'm in no way saying that the above applies to everybody, but I know that I've talked to a lot guitar players who feel the same way.
So the philosophy behind PolyTune is that it shouldn't be necessary to learn how to use a tuner, it should work and respond as you expect right out of the box and get the job done as fast as possible with a satisfactory result.
Cheers,
Tore
Allerdings dauert da wieder das Stimmen etwas länger, wegen der hohen Genauigkeit.
