Sonic Research Turbo Tuner ST-122

It's pretty easy knowing the features it has. Quite straightforward

Hard to place a value on this since it's not an effect pedal. However, it doesn't colour your tone at all. And it DOES improve your guitar's tone by putting it into the best tune of it's life.

No problems yet. If this means anything, the company owner told me he's only had a couple of units returned so far. Literally two units. THAT's reliability.

These guys give you great answers and help. They're right here in the US and very helpful.

I can't stress the lunacy of buying any other tuner. This thing's $129 and is more accurate and easy to use than any Peterson which costs more. So why bother?

If you have not used a strobe tuner before, then you will have a period of getting used to the display of this tuner. My students often comment on how much they dislike this tuner (until they see how useful it is later on!). The functions are laid out in a way that is fairly easy to understand. This is the desktop version of their tuner (I think some of the reviews here mention stomping on it; must refer to the ST-200 stompbox version, which is also excellent. I don't recommend stomping on the ST-122!!)

The tuner is extremely responsive. While the display is very good, and strobe technology allows for so much extra detail to be shown, and accurate tuning, the real benefit of this tuner comes from the instantaneous response of the display. You cannot imagine how much time this saves! Whereas, with a cheaper needle-tuner, the unit sometimes "thinks" for a second before showing you the tuning, this one is instantaneous. I can tune up all of my guitars in 10-15 seconds now, to a very high precision. The precision of the tuner, also, is a benefit, but at first can throw you off, because when you hit a string, it will show the string start out sharp, and then settle kind of flat. For my students, they think that the tuner is sending them mixed messges. But, it is just hearing what the string's true tuning is, at any point. When you become familiar with the range of each of your strings tunings, then you can really narrow down exactly what range you would like them to have.

Stompbox version has true bypass, which is a godsend.

These are built very well. The desktop version is a plastic one, and the stompbox version is very heavy duty, with a rugged true bypass switch.

I emailed with questions about the tuner before I purchased. His prompt, lengthy, and extremely intelligently written and thoughtful email was the reason I decided to purchase from a company that I had never heard of. I am very glad I did. What a great product, and great customer support.

Both the stomp and desktop versions of this tuner have become invaluable. Being in tune is so much of an issue for guitar players. It's nice to "finally" have a tuner that is well designed and functional. I had a peterson strobo stomp, and it was nice, but kind of a headache, and made out of very cheap plastic. It was hard to read what was going on in the display. The turbo tuner is so much more practical and well thought out than anything on the market, and reasonably priced to boot!!! If the company ever goes under, I would want to stock up on a lifetime supply of their tuners. To break it down: Instantaneous Response, Good Build Quality, Extremely Accurate, Easy To See Display, True Bypass (on stomp), Customer Service, Low Price = Best Tuner Ever.

Very easy to use although I don't use any tuning other than standard. Tracks instantly and is easy to read unlike Peterson. I have owned two different Petersons and sent one back and sold the other.This tuner so easy a cave man can do it.

Totaly silent no noise at all. My guitars sound much better because this tuner is so accurate.I can tell a huge difference.

Best tuner out there at any price. Only problem I've had is the battery cover broke while changing the battery. Thats ok cause they sent me a new one at no charge.

Best I have ever dealt with. Two times I sent an email on Sun. night and got a response within an hour or so both times. What more could you ask for.

Simply the best.I've tried all of the so called good ones and none tunes as good as this one. Acurrate,easy and fast. Setting intonation much quicker also. worth every penny!

True bypass, plug in and tune up. I use mine with a pedal board power supply, so I don't bother swapping the battery, but it's not any harder than a regular MXR pedal (just unscrew the bottom).

I've not played around with the custom tunings, I don't use those much, it seemed a tad bit complicated, but it's nothing I couldn't handle with a few reads of the instructions. Besides, you're not setting custom tunings on stage during a gig, you're just tuning to them, and the Turbo Tuner is the quickest tuner I've ever used.

The screen is amazingly easy to read. It tells you either the note or the string you're trying to tune, and it finds it amazingly quickly and clearly tells you if it's in tune or not, and which way you need to go to get in tune. Some people have a hard time hearing if the note is flat or sharp, no worries with this thing.

No loss of sound quality, it's true bypass. When you stomp on it, it mutes the output so you sound more pro. ;)

It's built like a tank. I've been stomping on this thing for a few months now, gigging here and there, and it's just chillin' on my pedal board. I was worried that the screen would be fragile, but it's recessed well, no big buttons to catch your foot on and break off, everything is very flush to the face of the pedal, very well layed out.

Answered my questions when I was ordering, and I love that there's a re-calibration service for little or no (if covered by warranty) cost.

Yes, it's pricy for a tuner. I used a $20 tuner before this one and didn't have any problem with it. Why upgrade to this tuner?

I wanted something that was on my pedal board, ready to be stomped on, so I could quickly tune my guitar without any unplugging and replugging of my cables during a show. It's also the most accurate tuner out there, yes, more accurate than the Peterson tuner (strobostomp I think it's called) by a factor of x5. And cheaper and smaller and... you get the point. ;)

This will be the last tuner you ever need to use or buy, I love it. Precision enough for intonating guitars, etc, but still easy enough and rugged enough to use at gigs and jams.

This is absolutely the easiest to use tuner I've ever tried. Unlike the Peterson Virtual Strobe tuners, the display is very easy to read. There is absolutely no ambiguity about which note is playing or whether it is sharp or flat.

The reason I got this instead of the pedal version is the built in microphone. This is very capable and able to pick out the played note in a noisy room.

The only missing feature, which the stomp version has, is a large LED display of the note being read. This is a fairly minor detail. I don't have the best ear, but I at least know when I'm playing a wrong note. The note is displayed in the LCD screen. This is really more accurate than the LED, because it shows you exactly which note it is, i.e. A4, A2, etc.

The manual is very clear, even though it's not really needed. I found it pretty intuitive to figure out the various features.

This will make any instrument sound better.

I'm using this with every guitar I own: 6 and 12-string acoustics, nylon string classical, numerous electrics.

I run this at the beginning of my signal chain, I haven't noticed any noise from the tuner. I just leave it plugged in, and turned on, all the time.

From the very first time I tried the tuner, every guitar sounded so much better. Then I intonated all my electrics. I had no idea they were all so far out of intonation. Now they all sound even better.

This seems to be pretty solid. I don't anticipate any problems.

My amp has a built in tuner (though not as accurate as the Turbo Tuner). I think this should be enough back-up.

Also, I always have a tuning fork for the ultimate in reliability.

Fortunately, I haven't had to use their customer support. From every review I've read, this company, their customer support sounds great.

I play a little bit of everything. It doesn't matter what type of music one plays, it needs to be in tune. Even if your music style requires a different (or offset) tuning or temperament, this tuner will work great and make you sound better.

I've tried other strobe and virtual tuners in the past, and always had difficulty reading the display. This one is incredibly easy to read.

Any changes in tuning are instantly registered on the display. Since I've had this tuner, I'm able to tune up and set-up intonation quicker and easier than ever.

Very easy to use out of the box. Straight forward instruction manual. Clearly marked buttons and easy to read LCD (backlight). I bought this to replace my Boss TU12 that I have had since 1984 which is a good tuner but not near as accurate as the Turbo tuner. I read a lot reviews about the Turbo tuner before purchasing and they were all positive. It costs more than the standard electronic tuners(Boss,Korg,etc.) but it was much less than a Peterson. For a few more dollars than Boss TU12 I got a strobe tuner that is down to .01 cent accuracy. I always wanted a stobe tuner from the first time I saw the old Conn but could never afford one. The turbo tuner is affordable, very accurate and portable.

Have not used it inline between guitar and amp do not plan to. Hangs off a volume pedal tuner out jack. So my tone should not be affected.

Looks well built. If it lasts as long as my TU12 did (24 years) then I will be extremely happy. I do not think much could go wrong with it unless it is subjected to electrical or physical abuse.

Awesome customer support and shipping. I ordered on a Monday at lunch and had it Wednesday afternoon(shipped cross country) with a 9V Energizer(my favorite) battery already installed! WOW! I'm impressed!

I noticed an immediate impact on my guitar's tuning. I have a 1958 Les Paul Reissue and it can be very sensitive to tune(Klusons!). The Turbo tuner has allowed me to get spot one with my guitar's tuning and intonation. Thanks Sonic Research for making a great American product. I was looking to get a Peterson but I read a lot of reviews and I'm glad I did. The Turbo tuner was less money, grabs notes quicker, I can see it clearly from a distance and it fits in my guitar case. Also, it has a great internal mic.

Very easy to use. I think I looked briefly at the manual when I got it. Otherwise I just fooled with it for a couple of minutes and figured out most of the features I need to use. Using it is pretty simple and logical. Obviously, the operation was well thought out.

It's not really an effects pedal and I haven't hooked it up with an electric setup. However, It's supposed to be pretty high impedance so I imagine there would be little effect on the sound.

I've only had it for a few weeks but so So far it seems very dependable. I would use it on gig without a backup.

At first I thought it was another cheapo imported simulated strobe tuner. So I sent email through the web site not expecting to receive a reply. I was quite surprised at the reply from the company owner and designer who obviously knows a lot about tuning and inharmonicity.

I've played acoustic guitar for about 20 years. Mostly folk. And for 20 years I've used a Boss TU-12H. I was looking for something better. Possibly a Peterson Strobe tuner, but I didn't want to spend the $500+. I was seriously considering the Peterson Stroboflip when I found the Turbo Tuner while searching for reviews.

My guitars have never sounded better or more in tune. I enjoy playing more than ever now. Having your guitar in tune is definitely a motivation to play more because you feel like you play better and you sound like it too. This tuner is very accurate.

The turbo tuner responds instantly when you play a note. No lag time whatsoever waiting for digital processing. In auto chromatic mode it catches the note very quickly. It's very sensitive. It even works across the room or in a noisy place. When it's real noisy sometimes I have to set it to manual mode and it still works well.

As far as I can tell this tuner is a real strobe tuner, because you can see harmonic content in the strobe pattern, and not a virtual strobe like most every other tuner out there I've looked at barring the real expensive Peterson models. Albeit the display doesn't supply as much feedback as say an old Conn Stobotuner. But this is probably a more limitation of the display size and doesn't affect the accuracy of the tuner for fundamental notes which is most likely better than an old Conn. I really don't see a need for reading complex harmonic content unless you are tuning a piano or pipe organ or building steel drums etc.

The great thing is getting a tuner of this accuracy that will fit in my guitar case. For such a simple looking tuner, It has everything I think I'll ever need as a guitarist.

If it were lost or stolen I would definitely buy another.

Lastly, I hope Sonic Research will expand on this technology to make a bench model with even more features.

I got this thing a couple of months ago and have been using it consistently since. It has some very powerful features, and at the same time is very intuitive and simple to use. The manual tells you everything you need to know, but you don't really need to read it again after the first glance through anyway.

As soon as I first turned this thing on, it took me about 1 minute to add Buzz Feiten tuning offsets and save them to a custom named tuning. I also set it to default to this setting on start up. BFTS is the primary reason I bought this tuner, but I've since discovered it is so much more convenient than all my other tuners in every other way, that it gets used all the time.

When connected inline there doesn't appear to be much tone suckage, but I'm sure the purists out there would prefer to run it in a loop of some sort just to be sure.

It feels pretty sturdy, but isn't in the same league as something like my Boss TU-2 pedal tuner. I definitely wouldn't want to put this on the floor at risk of being stepped on. But, overall it seems at least as good, if not better construction-wise than the Boss TU-12.

I haven't had to go there, so I wouldn't know. But, going by their sales side communications, I wouldn't be too worried.

I've used MANY other tuners over the last 20 years and this one is the fastest and most accurate by far (although I haven't owned a Peterson tuner). The LED display is clear and the auto mode is extremely fast at finding the right note - way faster than the Boss and Korg units I own.

One other thing worth noting is that this thing is super sensitive. I can leave it on the floor in a relatively noisy room and tune my acoustic while standing up. In fact, it's so sensitive and stable that I rarely bother to plug guitars into it and just use it's inbuilt mic.

It doesn't have an audible alert, but it is so clearly visible with it's rotating LEDs even in shaded sunlight. (In direct sunlight you can't really see the LEDs, but a hand shading it is all it needs to be visible again.)

For the price this goes for and the features it offers, I'm yet to find another tuner that comes close. A few months ago I was GASsing for a Peterson, but this has me completely satisfied.