There are metronome and tuner apps that are way more pleasant and functional than any hardware product, if you could shell out just a few bucks (< $10). You also have fewer batteries to manage.

The first three had an ad-free option around 10-15 dollars to unlock, which is fair but the price of a good hardware tuner that will certainly last WAY longer than any of those apps and will operate 10x better.

The first one without the subscription is the Boss tuner, which is free, but has spammy notifications for Boss advertisements.

The first one that isn't complete crap is in position 30 or so.

So yeah, I'm gonna diss something I didn't pay for, and I didn't even download. Simply because those products are better off not existing for me as a consumer, since they lead to confusion and redundancy and prevent me from finding truly quality things.

Considering the option I went for is buying a proper product with proper warranty, operates 100x better and whose manufacturer spent WAY more R&D than all those shitty small apps, I fail to see how I am the entitled one.

Also, my current tuner is Polyphonic (TC Polytune). I bet a couple of the 30 or so apps I saw might be too, but how the fuck should I know? There's nothing in descriptions. I'd rather spent the time getting some proper device than cruising trough shitty products that want to show me ads.

Also, my Polytune doesn't charge me extra for tuning a Ukulele. Unlike some of the apps in the store.

The only "entitled" people here are those SaaSholes flooding the market with copycat shitty apps.

They chose not to charge money for it. They chose to ruin it with annoying ads nobody wants to see. It is absolutely fair.

There is no shortage of well done apps that cost very little (most of them cheaper than the cheapest korg tuner) and packing in way more functionality. If OP's comment was something to the tune (heh) of "I tried a bunch of paid top-rated apps and I prefer my hardware tuner", I'd consider it a fair comparison.

Name three.

The problem with app stores (both Google's and Apple's) is that it's impossible to find those good quality apps for commodity needs, in the sea of advertisement/IAP-backed garbage.

The free one from Fender is not terrible - but still behaves like crapware.

So, cough up for Netflix, or move to an area where people have expended effort to make sure billboards are not permitted, or, I dunno, go watch the ponies. It’s all out there, just got to pay one of the prices.

If you don’t want ads, you pay, or pick up one of dozens of perfectly serviceable used hardware tuners on eBay for 5 quid all day long.

Edit: google "best tuner apps" and the two I use are consistently at the top. If those aren't in the top 30 of your appstore search, then we have a discoverablity problem, not a free or ad supported software problem. And again, if you picked random tuner from Amazon instead of going to store or reading reviews your experience might be the same. So - let's focus on what true issue / rage is, and compare apples to apples :)

And no, "just" move to another place is not a proper argument:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergo_decedo

I didn't mean to say “move to an area where people have expended effort to make sure billboards are not permitted”.

I meant to say “expend effort to make sure billboards are not permitted, or move to an area where people have expended effort to make sure billboards are not permitted”.

Absolutely nothing wrong with criticizing any of that. Paying for TV channels yet being forced to see ads is an indignity. Billboards and all other forms of advertising are nothing but visual pollution, cities that have banned them are nicer. Stickers on racing cars are also visual pollution.

You block them.

(Musician joke)

- you were satisfied with the software version of a solution;

- what drove you away from it was the ads,

You could have solved the ad issue by looking at OSS alternatives, to which you had plenty to choose from.

Saying that the HW version is better, when a (good version) SW was enough, smells of post-fact rationalization.

These is how each point of view is unable to be reconciled:

a) ads are annoying. But I will watch ads rather than pay a subscription any day of the week. I however will agree to a one time IAP because it doesn't litter my bank account history. People shouldn't be expected to keep an eye on more recurring payments than absolutely necessary unless they have a personal assistant. It's irresponsible to make them responsible for this

b) ads are great because of their ability to appear in searches made by customers who are looking for exactly what I am selling. Or rather, ads were great. Giants offloading billions on absurd ad spends made ad placement unaffordable to many sustainable businesses. Also, ads don't really work that well since Apple flipped the switch off on tracking. It would be great if ads worked and weren't abused by the extremely well-funded because they are a fantastic sales channel for medium and small sized businesses. But in their current form they are a scam or a marketing channel for the big monopolies (Amazon, etc)

c) ads aren't worth the money Google or anyone pay you for showing them on your app/website. I suspect apps keep trying to monetize via ads because they all want to be a "giant", and actually charging for content keeps you small and unattractive to capital

So my conclusion is that the only viable method of monetization is one-time IAPs or up-front software purchases and the only sustainable software project is one that aims to remain small. Everything else is smoke created by excessive capital that makes everyone's life more miserable.

I've never had good results with tuning apps on my phone. Usually because of background noise - which is where the Snark shines, working through vibration!

Also I thought poly was virtually indestructible, those guitars never age...

If you want something permanent, I can recommend a D'addario. They can attach to the tuner screw and won't be in conctact with the wood.

(Obviously you might need an absolute reference if you don't have absolute pitch)

Steel core strings (on guitar) have a much higher coefficient of thermal expansion than gut-core strings (on orchestra instruments). If you start a concert at dusk your guitar will go quite a bit sharp if you have a cool breeze blowing across the stage after the sun sets.

Some of the playing styles require large bends or use of a tremelo which is much more likely to throw some of your strings out during a performance. Having a pedal means you can quickly re-tune between songs without having to blast it over the PA.

Also at an orchestra it is expected that the crowd will be relatively quiet so that the musicians can hear their instruments while they are tuning. At a rock concert you will have a tough time hearing your instrument while tuning, and you don't necessarily want to subject the crowd to your tuning noise over the PA.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I should add - most other string instruments aren't fretted so the musician has the opportunity to correctly intonate a slightly off-pitch string. The frets on guitar means the strings have to be perfectly tuned unless you can bend them in (which isn't really a standard skill)

I love how that innocent question reveals how a popular phrase for objects (i.e. "guitar tuner" instead of "violin tuner") alters public perception. It hides that fact that other stringed instruments like harps/violins do use outside aids (electronics, smartphone apps, or websites[1].)

Some observations:

- guitars are more common than violins, so the tuning object that's more common is ... the "guitar tuner"

- other stringed instrument musicians like harp and violin players also use so-called "guitar tuners" or metronomes that generates a reference pitch A440. Plenty of Youtube tutorials showing harpists/violinists how to use guitar tuners.

- formal vs informal cultural background of the instrument: the "orchestral" instruments like violin have a more formal structure (school ensembles) so you often end up in a situation where a student violinist has no idea how to tune their instrument because "my music teacher always did it for me". Likewise, piano players pay "piano tuners" to tune their instruments. On the other hand, guitars are more of a "folk" instrument (home playing, campfires, self-taught, etc) so guitar players have more a DIY attitude for tuning from the start.

[1] https://violinspiration.com/free-online-violin-tuner-with-mi...

Pianos need regular tuning too, done by experts - they change tone depending on weather, temperature and humidity as well, so they have to be in a stable environment if at all possible. But these people can mostly tune them by ear, or they will have a tune fork for the base tone (A I believe) and work from there.

So if I have a violin in my mitt, and I tune my A string to an A from the lead violinist, to put my instrument into tune, I must get the E string to be a perfect fifth above the A, the D string to be a perfect fifth below the A, and the G string to be a perfect fifth below the D. The perfect fifth relationship has the higher string vibrating three times for each two times the lower string vibrates, plus a tiny adjustment to get the frequency ratios of the twelve half-steps in an octave all equal. The adjustment is very small (about 0.11%), you could tune a violin with the fifths all exactly 3 to 2 so that, e.g., the google tuner could still show all four strings as in tune. And the 3 to 2 ratio is about the easiest interval less than an octave to do by ear. So most violinists, cellists, etc with good ears do fine without tuners.

The guitar has an interval of a major third between the G and B strings. The integer ratio of frequencies for this interval is usually given as 5 / 4, but the adjustment to even out the steps in the octave is larger, about 0.79%, and you cannot tune the other notes on a guitar at showtime by moving the frets around, so tuning the guitar (and other fretted instruments) is more like tuning a piano than tuning a violin or cello.

For a guitar it's easier because you have frets, so you can play the fretted note on one string that should have the same pitch as the next (open) string up, then you just need to compare two pitches that should be equal, rather than hear an interval. (I'm not a guitarist so I don't know if that's considered a good technique.)

Perhaps it's just not considered such an important skill in the small groups people typically play the guitar in.

EDIT: I might have confused things indeed. If you fret, you should not carry the error. Usually, an practical way to tune two string is to play harmonics and listen to the "beats" between them. That will carry the error. Fretting should work, but in practice does not really because that suppose that your intonation is perfect (ie the fret are perfectly placed), which they usually are not, especially on acoustics with no easy way to set it up.

That makes tuning a guitar a much more complex thing in principle, with choices and trade-offs to be made, so maybe that's a better explanation for the prevalence of tuners.

Edit: Hmmm, thinking about it the guitar should be easier to tune to equal temperament (if that's what you want) as presumably the frets are equal-temperament semitones apart. For that tuning, it's the violinist who's "carrying the error".

Guitars are made of wood, which bends (both the neck and the top) as one adjusts the tension of the strings. As the neck bends, the length of the string between the bridge and nut changes, and the height of the strings above the fingerboard varies in quite a complex way along the neck, changing the amount of tension added by pushing the string down to hold it against the fret. Similar changes in frequency occur as frets and fretboard wear down a little, increasing the distance needed to properly fret a string.

The neck and top will warp and bend with age, with changes in temperature and humidity. And after a guitar has been played a while, it will have been worked over by one or more guitar technicians. There are so many variables that nothing can be taken for granted. Using accurate electronic tuners is presumably the simplest and fastest way for guitarists to maintain respectable pitch in most musical presentations.

Neck adjustment needs to be done because seasonal moisture changes can change the bow of the neck. Depends on guitar. This is mostly for proper playing action, so strings don't buzz but aren't too high from the fret board either.

Intonation needs to be changed when you change some other things, like the things mentioned above or string gauge for example. There a tuner is very handy, you can compare the string fretted on the twelvth fret to its harmonic there. The differences are small and hard to hear.

Same things apply for electric basses.

Don't know how things are dealt with on a violin or cello, but the lack of frets certainly makes some of the adjustments unneeded.

With guitar, you only adjust these things when doing maintenance, not in the back room and certainly not on stage.

Otherwise I'd spend 5 minutes each time trying to get it sound right and then redoing it after playing something, because I didn't get it fully right and I realise it once I play something I'm familiar with.

Another issue is that guitars are often played in a amplified live setting. You want to be able to adjust your tuning while the rest of the band is playing or other noise is present, and you don't want the audience or others to hear you tuning (so you can't hear it yourself either).

I can tune my guitar relatively but I can not for the life of me tune it with from an external reference pitch like a piano key. I use a tuner if I need to be in tune with other instruments.

Press any of the keys and the same key on a different octave, together. For instance, Do and Do. Do you hear that slow oscillation of the sound going up and down? That is because the piano is not in perfect tune. If you were to try that on a concert piano before the show, the sound would be perfectly stable.

> g**mn ad platforms

I can't for the life of me figure it out. At first I thought you meant "gaming" because of pointless "gamificiation" (no, I don't want to collect a gem and get virtual rewards for "streaks" every time I tune my guitar to encourage me to engage with your app every day) but that doesn't quite fit, nor does "Google"

Swearing is allowed on here, you won't get banned. And we're all adults here, we won't be shocked or offended by bad language.

Alternatively, don't swear at all, there's plenty of other ways to express yourself. But don't do this shitty middle-ground bleeping things out bit, we're not stupid.

Maybe not to start with, and those Snark tuners certainly are indispensable if you need to tune your instrument in a noisy environment. And perhaps I'm just showing my age here. (We didn't have digital tuners when I was a kid, or at least I could never afford one.) But I would guess that learning how to tune your instrument the analog way is a useful step in developing your musical ear.