Electronic tuners have to have a ‘window’ of frequency that is acceptable. If the window is narrow, then it is very very difficult for the human to hit the exact spot where the light turns green.

But if the window is wide, the tuner is easier to use, but one string might actually be flat, and it’s inside the window, and the next string is sharp and it’s inside the window, and they are way the hell off against each other. Therefore, you will have better luck with any tuner that lets you see yourself getting closer to the correct spot. So this suggests a priority for tuners –

• A strobe tuner is best but they are expensive and large;
• A virtual strobe is next best (Peterson makes good ones)
• A tuner with a needle would be next best, if they’ve done a good job with it;
• A tuner with a row of lights next best; and
• A tuner with a single red/green light not very good.

Of course, if you tune carefully and often, then your ear gets better and better, and after a while you’re using the tuner, but your ear is telling you the truth.

In the end, the entire point is so that the instrument sounds good while you play it. And nothing helps like practice. Practice tuning.

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Not really. Of course, the better you tune up, the better you will sound. However, the Feiten system is installed by making small adjustments to string length at both ends of the strings. On one end, the nut (or zero fret) is moved slightly. On the other end, the string saddles are adjusted to +/- a few cents here and +/- a few cents there.

The result is kind of like the ’stretch tuning’ commonly used on pianos to make them sound more ‘in tune’ to our ears. Pianos have used this advanced ’stretch tuning’ system for 700 years. But guitars never had such an adjusted tuning until Buzz Feiten, a southern California studio musician, developed the system.

A guitar has to have adjustments in two dimensions. Adjustments *along* the length of the string, and adjustments *across* the strings (one string against another). It’s not a perfect system, but it sure sounds a lot sweeter than no system at all!

Because the adjustments are already done, at both ends of the strings, you can tune up any way you wish.

So tune up using any method you like — tuner, ear, harmonics, beats — and it will sound better than a normal guitar, because the string saddles have offsets, and each string is biased a little against the other strings. There is a suggestion in the Mobius Megatar Owner’s Guide for one way to tune up, but you can tune it any way you wish, and it will sound more ‘in tune’ than would a normal guitar tuned up in the same way

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