Photo: Steven Siewert, The Australian

]]> http://www.nickcoleman.org/blog/index.cgi?post=trendsetteruke%21201106272312%21general%2Cmusic/feed/ http://www.nickcoleman.org/blog/index.cgi?post=ukuleletuner%21201105091930%21general%2Cmusic http://www.nickcoleman.org/blog/index.cgi?post=ukuleletuner%21201105091930%21general%2Cmusic#comments Mon, 09 May 2011 19:30:00 -0700 Nick general music http://www.nickcoleman.org/blog/index.cgi?post=ukuleletuner%21201105091930%21general%2Cmusic/ I bought a ukulele about a month ago, to the growing horror of my neighbours. I always wanted to play a musical instrument, even taking piano lessons several years ago, but it always seemed to involve a big expense and a huge time commitment. Then local TV showed The Mighty Uke, a documentary highlighting the often quirky but always fun ukulele. I was hooked. Only four strings and a short neck make for easy chords. And you can buy a cheap one for $30. Done. The next day I drove to a music shop and bought one.

One thing I learnt early is that an out-of-tune uke sounds terrible. I don't have a great ear for tuning so I figured a digital tuner would be the go. The local shop was selling them for $40—more than the price of the uke!—so ebay to the rescue. This little beauty cost US$10, delivered from Hong Kong to Australia. I don't know how they can make money at that price, but, hey, I'm not going to argue.

Four weeks later (I guess it was on the slow boat from China) it has arrived. It's a neat unit, quite tiny, that you clip to the end of the neck. You can swivel the display to see it whether the instrument is on your lap or being held.

It has a ukulele mode, so you just switch it on and twang each string. A meter indicated how far off key you are and you just tune until the needle is centred. As well, there are three LEDs, a red for flat, then a green for on-the-money, then a red for sharp, that light up to help if you can't be bothered looking at the meter. (Click the images for a larger view.)

It can work either from a built-in microphone or from sensing vibration in the neck. The latter is better in a room with noise; I noticed it became confused with TV noise when using the microphone.

As well as that, it has a metronome, and a tone generator for those who like to tune by ear.

The impression so far is that it seems like a good little unit, especially at the price. If that changes, I'll report back, but right now I'm pretty happy with it. It's an Eno brand, model number EMT-320.

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