Korg DTR-1 Digital Tuner

The Korg DTR-1 is a strobe, rack-mounted tuner, and comes with a comprehensive manual.

The DTR-1 produces very little background hum. At the moment I'm using it with a late 60's Hiwatt valve amp and cabs, but have used it with modern Trace gear in the recent past.

It's never given me a moments concern.

I've never had any problems, so can't comment.

I play bass in a band doing mostly Blues Brothers and soul type numbers, but in my own time love to play the bass lines of a UK punk band called 'The Stranglers'. I've been playing for around 10 years. If the Korg was stolen or lost nothing else would replace it. It has a very clear display from miles away, can be muted easily, and even displays the note you are playing. My only gripe is the price, being incredibly mean, but then it is the best product in the world in this field, and probably costs a lot to produce. The construction looks and feels first class.

This is a very easy tuner to get the hang of. I dont have a clue how to use the tone generator, I dont get it I dont want to get it, and i dont care if i dont get it. If I do figure it out its just another hasstle, and i'll break something. Three tuning modes that are great! Cent tunning mode is very accurate, Hertz is more accurate, and strbe feature is just incredible. This tuner is a must have for tunning freaks. The cable check is extremly useful, my friend bought one of these things just for that, now he loves the tuner as well.

I played with the tone generator, and it sounded good i guess. I really dont know how this tuner sounds from your guitar to the tuner to the amp, because I have mine hooked to the slave out on my amp. But it shouldnt have much affect on sound loss, or at least for $300 it better not!

I would definatly rely on this. I have had it for a little under a year, and it hasent let me down yet. No backup required.

Never needed them...

Very cool, and accurate. Not too sure about the tone generator, dont know what it does. Check some other reviews they might discrbe it better than i can.

Real easy. I bought mine 2nd hand (mint condition) and didn't come with a manual, but this thing is a no brainer. The only thing that took 2 seconds to figure out was how the tone generator worked. But as soon as I pressed both "sound" buttons I was ready to cook.

It's great that you're able to select (by footswitch if you want) to mute the unit or to select either input.

ok this is where it goes wrong. this unit costs quite a lot of money, it can do a lot, but they should at least be able to built a nice buffered signal splitter with a direct link between input (buffer) and output to prevent the signal going through the whole system. cause the noise this unit adds is just plain awfull. It's like there is a distortion pedal on at a lower volume while you playing clean. I guess this is due to the digital section, cause a lot of other (esp. older) digital gear had the same problem.

I've never placed a tuner in my signal line and never will. If you do, please find a way to get them out, cause the suck all your tone away and add horrible noise. I simply use an fx send of one of my rack gear pieces which provides the unit with signal.

There is one other minor point. If you turn the unit off it will always start up with input 1, 440 hz and at with the "cent" mode. For me this is perfect. But if you use input 2, are tuned to 438 hz and prefer the strobe mode... I just think that for this price you should be able to preserve your last setting.

Ok. It's a great unit that works good, tunes very nice, has a tone generator (real nice), 3 different tuning modes and a cable check function. But the sound degration is horrible and it always starts up in one setting, not the one you were last in. For the rest, it's just beautifull. But if you don't use the strobe function (I really do not prefer it) and could do without the large display of the note, then the DTR-2 is a nice option.

This tuner is an overpriced version of the hand-held DT1

For sound quality read accuracy, in this case, very disappointing, I wanted a tuner to gig with AND do set ups, but this thing is a joke. I really wanted a strobe but didn't have the $$$. In my rack, it hummed & buzzed. The "strobe mode" is an LED chaser sequence which has nothing to do with strobe tuning/accuracy. Either a tuner is accurate or it ain't, this ain't. My advice: buy a $20 tuner, it works just as good.

I brought it back after 3 days playing around with it. I'm now looking for a Peterson strobe (anyone got an old one?), they're expensive but what the hell, nothing else around seems to cut it.

I called them to give em a piece of my mind, but I only got some keyboard guy. He was friendly but you could tell he knew nothing about their tuner line.

Tin box with Xmas tree lights

The DTR-1 has a lot of features, some of which aren't simple to use. However, as far as tuning goes, it's really simple. Just plug into the front input and pluck away. The big, fine-resolution LED display, along with the display showing the exact note, make is super easy to tune.

I can't imagine running my main signal through the tuner on its way to the amp so I've never put it directly into my signal chain. Otherwise, the idea of sound quality is non-applicable for this item.

Built well though you need to keep it in a sturdy rack if you're going to gig with it. Mine is a few years old and still works perfectly.

I've never contacted Korg about the DTR-1 but have dealt wit them before regarding an amp. They're a huge, multi-national corp., don't expect very good customer service. However, they have a decent website that has info you can download so that's a plus.

Well worth the money. I've wanted one for years but the price was too much for me to justify: Who spends $200+ on a tuner? I lucked into finding a used one very cheap. I LOVE this thing; it makes tuning a snap and it's very accurate. If I had known then what I know now, I would have spent the money years ago to buy a new one. It's great, especially if you gig because the large display makes it easy to read. A few months ago we played an outdoor, unshaded stage at a festival and tuning was a nightmare because the glare made reading my little tuner very difficult; our other guitarist couldn't even read his LED tuner. The DTR-1 wouldn't have those kind of problems...

Very easy to use. You can use the DTR-1 to tune in three different ways: either by connecting to the front of the unit, including the unit in your effects loop, or by not plugging in at all and using the external microphone.

No noticable degradation in signal strength or sound quality. Noiseless.

I've only had this unit for a week but it's bomber. The construction is great and it seems dependable. Due to the nature of the DTR-1 (I mean, hey it's only a tuner) I wouldn't have a huge problem if it flopped on a gig though I'm not anticipating that happening.

Called them to get a new manual (the unit I bought didn't have one). They were polite and expedited my request.

When you see players that have lights flashing all over their rigs (usually Fusion or Jazz players), chances are they have a DTR-1. Even if you're not connected to the unit, if you have the internal mic turned on the tuning lights will flash and fluctuate with you as you play. You can disable this by simply pressing the "mute" button, but I have had several people tell me that the thing looks cool. Also, with the mic input mounted on the front of the unit, horn players in my band can walk right up to my rack, hit a note and instantly know if they're in tune or not. People don't make a big enough deal about the internal mic but I think it's significant. I don't believe the DTR-2 has one. All in all, musicians only have to do two things to be good in my book: play in tune, and play in time. The DTR-1 will help you and make the first one a no-brainer.

I took this unit out of the box and right into my rack. I use the rear plug cause I send it an out signal from my Roland GP-8 so I can make a mute patch and tune on the fly. I mean while the band is playing I can do a quick tune is seconds! Lots of options for type of tunning but I use the center tune on stage. It's easy to see.

I use a fairley complex setup so I don't install the tuner inline. I tried but it sometimes gets a little noisey. So sending it it's own signal in a mute patch is perfect.

This rack goes in the truck all the time and I never had a problem with the tuner. I've owned it about 6 months now and I don't know how I got along without it! I used a strobe tuner for years and I liked it but you have to tune in the dressing room or unplug and tune. This setup lets me tune any time I have to, even in the middle of the song.

So far I've never needed any service or talk to a tech. From the performance so far, it doesn't look like I'll need them.

I've been playing all types of music for 30 years and just about tried every type of guitar equipment. If this unit was stolen, I would run to buy another one. Believe me I've tried them all it seems and by far this is the one. It's easy to use, very easy to see,and dependable as hell.

Plug in and you can tune. Simple.
You can tune in three modes. In hertz, the standard.
In cents, for fine-tuning and strobo-tuning with a lot of flashy lights.
the unit also holds a cable-check function, which has proven to me as very useful. Tuning lights are red when offset, green when centered and a big red display showing the tone.
Tuning to other frequencies than 440 Hz is also possible.
The front display is readable over 5 meters (15 ft) away.
The unit is very easy to use.

You can plug in at the front or the back of the unit.
the front input overrides the rear input.
there are two selectable inputs on the back.
If you insert this unit between the signal and amp, it adds a little noise in highgain settings, hardly noticeable.
Very responsive tuner, it can even tune from distorted signals coming from a FX-loop.
I now feed it from the speakersim output of my marshall JMP-1, and it's not in the signal path. Response is immediate, whatever the setting on the JMP-1.
Because it does add noise when inserted in the signal path no maximum grade. Otherwise perfect.

I've had it for over three years, no malfunctions whatsoever.

Never dealt with 'em.

If lost I would definately replace the unit.
It is very responsive and the display is very readable even from a great distance.
Great product! although it's more expensive than a regular tuner, I can recommend it for those of you who own more rack-gear. Just plant it in your rack, and you can tune without rewiring anything or without setting it up in an awkward position (i.e. at your feet between other pedals, where you might stomp on it or on top of your amp where it falls of during playing)