I feel dumb as hell, lol, but my brain is not cooperating. I have somehow managed to purchase not one, but two tuners that came with no instructions, and I have a couple questions about both. I’ve attached some pictures.
To start with, I got this little pedal tuner (assuming that’s what they are called). The listing for it called it a “Lixada Instrument effect machine Mini Chromatic Tuner Pedal Effect LED Display True Bypass for Guitar Bass” which is a crazy name for a product, lol. I don’t think I would be able to say it out loud without taking a breath.
I currently use a headphone amp and a little mixer that allows me to hear my bass and my tablet at the same time. The tuner came with no cords, no power supply.
so I assume I need another cord like the one that goes from my bass to the headphone amp, right? So it’ll go Bass>>Tuner Pedal>>Headphone amp>Headphones?
Do I want to get a very short cord? Or do I want a regular length cord like my other one for someday when I have a pedal board (I’m completely unfamiliar with pedal boards; as far as I know, it’s just a box you affix your pedals to)?
And then I’ll need some kind of 9 volt power supply? Is it normal to come with no power supply? Maybe I need to buy another one from somewhere else and hope it comes with everthing…
Then, regarding the clip on tuner (last photo):
first, in the photo attached, see the lines that kind of array out from above the E? What do those mean? Do I want full lines all the way across, or just a few, or just any?
Any idea how to tell if the note is flat or sharp (besides hearing it)?
The clip on seems sooooo much easier to deal with than the pedal tuner. Is there any reason not to just use a clip on?
Thanks for any input - I’m a little overwhelmed by all these wires and plugs lol, so let me know if I’m not making sense. This is longer than I wanted it to be, so thanks for reading it!
Your chain of pedals is roughly correct. The size of cable you need… doesn’t really matter. Whatever is going to be right for you eventually.
It is fairly common for pedals to come without power supplies, because PSUs cost money, and most people who build a pedal board get a single PSU with multiple cables that power all of their pedals, rather than messing with a dozen individual wall worts.
Those lines are how far above or below the target pitch the tone is. E.g. all those lines below in the photo mean that you’re a ways below E. You want to tune up until it is just the center line.
Clip ons are slower and less accurate than chromatic pedal tuners. They tend to really struggle with lower notes. They’re good enough for tuning at the start of practice, but when I’m doing a setup and adjusting intonation, I always use a pedal.
Pedal tuners are fast enough that you can see where you’re playing in real time (especially useful if playing fretless), they also usually have a quick and easy bypass switch that lets you silence your rig to tune up (or for any other reason).
For convenience yes, but if you wanted to use straight away, you could use the pedal in isolation if you’ve already got a cord going from your bass to the headphone amp. Ie, just plug bass into tuner, tune up and then plug bass into headphone amp.
Also, you don’t need another cable for your tuner. It’s perfectly fine to plug into the tuner, tune the bass, then once tuned unplug and plug into your amp. It does come in handy if you want to retune while playing, but strictly speaking it’s not absolutely necessary.
it is handy as a bypass if you want to put the bass down or switch basses without powering off the amp - which I don’t think is the case here. but it is handy
Hey, I have another question, if that’s cool. Since I posted this, I’ve discovered that my headphone amp (m-Vave Tank Mini) has a tuner function, accessed via the Android app. Any particular concerns I should have about using that?
