« My Favorite Tuner »

• The Korg Pitchblack is the best pedal tuner I’ve ever owned. I’ve went through the Johnson Chromatic floor tuner, the Boss TU-2 and now I’m sticking with the Pitchblack by Korg. The Pitchblack not only looks sleek, but it also takes up a little less space on my board than the other two did. The reason I prefer this tuner is simple; it just works better. The tuner quickly picks up the signal from my guitar and the LED’s smoothly light up letting me know when I’m close to true pitch. The note you are closest to shows up in a large and easy to ready note name display. The pedal is much easier to read in the light than any other tuner I’ve used which comes in handy when playing outdoor festivals. The Pitchblack is built very well and has been used for several gigs without a hiccup. The housing of the pedal is made out of a die-cast aluminum and the jacks and bypass switch are top notch, so reliability should not be an issue. The screen has an eleven segment LED meter which makes accurate reading a breeze. It has a tuning range of E0 (20.60 Hz) to C8 (4,186 Hz) and an adjustable calibration that goes from 436Hz to 445Hz. The pitchblack's LED meter can be switched among 4 display modes including: Meter, Full Strobe, Half Strobe, and Mirror. Meter mode is just like a needle meter, if the light is to the right of the center the note is sharp and to the left of the center it is flat. When the green light in the center is lit you are in tune. Full strobe mode will have the LEDs streaming to the right if the instrument is sharp, and to the left if the instrument is flat. The streaming will stop and both tuning guide LED lights with be on when you are in tune. Half strobe mode is a mix between the last two modes. The LEDs will stream similar to full strobe mode, but the center green LED will light up when the instrument is in tune. Mirror mode lets you meet the LED’s from the left and the right into the center spot when the instrument is in tune and the green light will be lit. This pedal has 100% true bypass so tone robbing is not a problem. I do not notice it in my signal path at all. The pedal also has a silent tune feature that lets you tune without the crowd having to listen to you search for the right pitch. A 9V DC output jack lets you power other pedals off the power going into the tuner. Tuning is very important and this pedal is worth every penny. Quality isn’t cheap, but with this tuner it’s reasonable. A reliable tuner is a lifelong investment. Overall this is a very sturdy and reliable tuner that is easy to read in all settings and works great without hogging a lot of floorspace. If I had to go out and buy a new tuner today the Korg Pitchblack would be my choice time and time again.