DOD FX12 Tuna Guitar Tuner

Pretty easy to use... step on it and it turns on. Step on it again it turns off... That is, when it wants to. Sometimes it wouldn't turn on. Other times it wouldn't turn off.

The only sound that came as a result of this pedal was me screaming, FIND THE NOTE! FIND THE NOTE!

The only thing I would rely on this to do is suck, and drive you out of your mind. This thing turns the simple act of tuning your guitar into pure hell. I think mine was possessed or something.

I called them to find out why this thing sucked so much. I ended up being put on hold. While I was on hold they played demos of their effects pedals. Guess what, the guy was out of tune.

I bought this at my local guitar store before my band's first gig. I figured it would be a good idea to have a floor tuner. This was the only floor tuner that they carried. When I took it up to the counter the owner of the store took one look at it and said "awesome". I thought he was talking about my choice in tuners. Little did I know that he was talking about the fact that he'd never have to look at this piece of garbage again. Unfortunately I was stupid enough to bring this thing to the gig after having a hell of a time with it at home. After the first few songs I tried it out again and ended up having to tune my guitar to the song that they started playing on the jukebox because they got tired of waiting for us to start playing again. I put this thing up on ebay the next day and ordered a Boss TU-2 the next day, and have been happy ever since.

I had this pedal a few years ago, and I actually had a nightmare that I had it onstage with me last night, which prompted me to check the HC reviews for fun and, lo and behold, everyone else hated it too! I guess I am psychic.

No sound should ever be run thru this piece of dogshit. Like everyone else said, why it was allowed to leave the factory is just one of those musical equipment mysteries that will live on in the souls and nightmares of those who actually paid money for it.

Fully reliable in that it never once worked. No crapshoot here!

I threw the goddamned thing out-- after I broke it open and mangled the guts so no one else would be stuck with it.

Yes I really got suckered into buying this at Sam Ash when the idiotic sales guy had to blow these out the door. I should have gotten the Boss, which I did get after trying to coax a tuned guitar out of this thing for a few weeks. I also bought a rackmount Korg which is like the Heavens opening up and shining light on my guitar compared to the Purgatoried dreck that the Tuna pedal made me wade through.

Put in the battery, plugged the guitar in it, looped it to the amp and had sound.
So far so good.

The pedal doesn't ruin the guitar sound, so that's good as well.

I was deeply, deeply ashamed first time i tried to tune my guitar with it (it's a f***ng tuner). After 10 minutes of me trying and 4 bandmates laughing i just stood there with a guitar that sounded like -*/-*/.
Had to tune it by ear.

After that i tried it a few times, new batteries, even with an adapter, but nope, never once worked.

Haven't dealt with the company. But if they answer phones like this pedal responds in tuning, then it will be horrible.

This must be the worst thing ever made.
I always figured DOD had a good series of pedals, but with this one, they completely ruined it for me.
How hard can it be to make a pedal that actually works?

easy. but what good does ease do you if it DOESN'T WORK...AT ALL!

with this pedal, you might be able to acheive that killer out-of-tune sound you crave.

might sound good if close-mic'd under the crushing might of my wrathful fist.

I don't think I have ever, in a lifetime as a consumer, bought anything that so plainly DID NOT WORK. I mean, it worked in the sense that it turned on and seemed to be 'hearing' notes, but was erratic and erroneous and showed no evidence of any merit.

I'm amazed that DOD actually let this product out of their factory. I've tried a couple since selling mine just to see if I got a lemon. Nope. Cheaper than a Boss, and very effective as an ugly paperweight, but utterly useless as a guitar tuner. I immediately sold mine on consignment at a music store and still feel guilty about passing on the curse to the next sucker. I should have drowned it in a sack.

I know you're supposed to write "Built Like A Tank" and "Cleans Up Great When You Roll Back On Your Guitar's Volume Knob" in every review, so there you go.

DOD kind of lost me as a potential customer when they started giving inane names to their pedals and, worse, REALLY inane names to their pedals' knobs' functions. I would have to overcome some serious FX12 Tuna skepticism before spending any dollars on a new DOD product.

I've been playing professionally for eight years and have tried a lot of pedals over the past 15 years or so. Generally speaking, even if I don't love a pedal, I keep it. I have a closet full of neglected pedals and it always seems like I cycle back to wanting to try one again.

With that in mind, remember that I sold the FX12 the same day I bought it.

On...Off...As long as you know what note you're going for it's easy.

I don't notice any loss in sound, though times it decides that instead of being a guitar tuner, it is going to be a home audio tuner. This has only happened a few times, but the radio signal came through quite excellent. Do they make home audio tuners?

Short of the radio frequencies it works. If you play a show, tune before you go on stage. Keep it up there and if you have to tune, I suggest adding the drum solo from In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida into your playlist. Get a second guitar and make somebody off stage keep it tuned and switch off if anything. Or buy a Boss.

Easy to use? Sure, except it never works - so 'easy' is true, but frustrating is the also true.

It doesn't let any hum through, only a slight pop when going to silent mode.

NO NO AND NO - Run from this pedal screaming to the hills.

1) While sometimes it does a pretty good job at at least finding the pitch that your guitar is tuning, it is absolutely NEVER right when the cents come into play. Most of my notes I tuned with this thing after spending a ton of time getting it to talk to me were wrong.

2) This pedal does not do a good job with running any power through it.. it order to use it, you have to kill your volume switch to almost nothing, at which time it will be a slow, inaccurate tuner.

Never had any experience with them. It was my bad for buying this pedal without researching it first.

I've tried this thing through all kinds of gear and it still does not impress me. Trust me, spend the extra money on a Korg or Boss stage tuner and save yourself A LOT of hassle and heartache.

how can a tuner be hard to use? Mostly, it takes FOREVER, IF EVER to center on the pitch... I find myself wanting to throw it out the window in frustration every time I try to use it.

I noticed no discernable signal loss when I played through it.

Somehow this pedal fell apart while I WASN'T USING IT. A very poor build quality. Not only would I not use it without a backup, I wouldn't use it AS a backup! Get a BOSS.

I've been playing guitar and bass semi-professionally for over 20 years. As tuners go, this is the worst I've experienced. I have a little 10 dollar Korg that works better than this. This pedal wishes it was a BOSS TU-2, so just save yourself the trouble and get one of those.

Yes, it is easy to use. Don't be deceived by this rating, though. You step on it, it's on. You step on it again, well, it might be on, or it might be off, depending on the weather, presence of sunspots on the sun, electromagnetic interference from UFO's, whatever.

Let's just be right upfront about it: This Damn Thing Never Worked Right. You want details? OK, here we go. It took far too long to find the note. When it did find the note, there was no guarantee that it was telling you the truth; I found myself tuned sharp/flat of the REAL note, many many times. The switch was erratic at best. There were times when it would come on, times when it wouldn't come on, times when it came on and wouldn't turn off, and of course the times when I was trying to use it and it suddenly decided to take a nap, so I had to turn to the bass player and say "Hit me an E, will you?" and just tuned by ear. Nothing I did to help it seemed to make a difference; it performed equally poorly when there was a battery in it or when it was plugged in via adapter.

I am not a pedal abuser. That being said it wouldn't have mattered if I was, because many times the thing didn't work at all anyway. When it did work, it was completely erratic. Dependable? I could depend on it to screw up my effects setup. Did I use it on a gig without a backup? Yes, I did, and I ended up stopping the gig and unplugging the damn thing and removing it from the pedal chain.

DOD is a decent company, but I just didn't have the time or the money to deal with sending this back to them. I have dealt with them in the past and they're pretty cool, but in this case I didn't bother.

This is a wretched, awful piece of garbage. I actually got rid of this by deliberately leaving it at a gig. When I was breaking down my gear I left it at the end of the stage, packed up the rest of my stuff and walked out the door. Goodbye, farewell. It's possible that it could be a good doorstop or paperweight, or possibly something you could use to break into a car or hit somebody with, depending on what kind of person you are. It was a nice heavy chunk of metal, which is about the best thing that I could say about it.

Since I abandoned it, I have been using an Arion HU-8500 stage tuner with a broken battery door that is around 15 years old. It works better and is far more reliable, and it gives me the right note in the right tuning every time. No, I am not kidding, I swear. The Arion is the best onstage tuner I've ever had and I'm buying another one.

Please avoid this alleged "tuner" at all costs. It's completely useless.

easy to plug in...never worked though, so i guess i really can't rate this "ease of use" section.

didn't notice it colouring my sound when i plugged in and played through it...click off and killed the signal like it should...so i guess this section gets a ten only cuz of technicalities

never worked for my practices or my shows. it was embarrasing to even try to get it to work w/ other people around. it was honestly a piece of shit. and i'm glad i got rid of it, even though i paid 35 bucks for it. i think i left it on the hood of my car when i went to sell it to some used gear place...of course it fell off when i was on the freeway or something...i didn't really care. it got the death it deserved

man who cares, if it doesn't work i don't want another one. i want my friggin money back! i didn't even try to contact DOD. they suck.

the dod tuna sucks. get the boss tu-2...it works sooo great. it's definately worth the money. go to musiciansfriend, or print out the price from that website and take it to guitar center or something...that's what i did.

The manual was minimal, which was appropriate; it's a simple tool. It is easy to use--when it works. After not using it for several years, I just broke it out at a gig last week and to my surprise, it worked fine. Read on.

I used to use a small rack with a Sabine rack tuner, which was a great no-bullshit unit. When I got rid of that setup, I missed having an LED-based chromatic tuner, so I bought this. I don't notice any signal degradation, but it's pretty overtone-sensitive. The LEDs hunt around a lot with some guitars on the bridge pickup, more so than the Sabine did. Playing 12th-fret harmonics with the neck pickup selected helps this a lot, but if your intonation is out that's going to be a frustrating approach. My bass player has the Boss tuner pedal and has tried this in place of it and says it sucks compared to his. I've tried his and found it to be quicker to use and easier to tune to onstage...more LEDs, so you can sneak up on the correct pitch without overshooting it so easily. The Tuna could use an extra LED step or two.

In a word, no. It has refused to work on several occasions. While it's the only DOD pedal I've had that has no footswitch problems and still has its battery door, several times I've tried to tune and the only light I got was the "on" light. A new battery didn't help. Sending it back to DOD for repairs didn't help either. Read on.

The DOD folks were pretty responsive at first, as far as issuing a return authorization number. They had the pedal for many, many weeks, though, and I finally got it back after two or three calls to them. It was accompanied by a scrawled note that read "cold solder joint," which I think was tech-speak for "fuck, I don't know what's wrong with it" or "it worked fine the whole time we had it."
Even with its new, presumably hot solder joint it worked for about half a gig and crapped out on me again. Since then it's been a crapshoot. Sometimes its fine, sometimes its dead. I wasn't going to send it back again. And I lost the mail-order receipt, so I couldn't return it.

A good idea and a potentially useful product that got let out the door a little too early. Or maybe I got a lemon, but the other reviews here indicate that DOD rushed this one into production or something. I'd say go for the Boss unit. To me, the cute name and fish scales are goofy and in no way make up for the fact that pedals should be trouble-free for years. It's hard to justify sending them back to the company for repairs.