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Usually I use a headstock electronic tuner. Then I remove it, play a bit, and try to hear if the guitar sounds good to me. Usually I need to adjust the 2nd and 6th strings a tiny bit flat compared to the tuner readout, for the guitar to sound right. Sometimes I'll go through a routine to check all the strings against the A string, using a combination of fretted and harmonic notes.
Electronic tuners are very cool, but in my opinion they're not enough. I still have to tweak it according to my ear.
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01-12-2026 09:53 AM
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I never tune using open string notes.
Open string notes don't really represent the fretted notes.
(Obviously, I'm expecting the Guitar's intonation to be a high standard.)
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Good point Guy. I will try tuning to fretted notes. Im not sure my ears are good enough to tell the difference but then again, they might be. Sweeter is better.
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I tend to only tune the low E string with a tuner, then I tune all the other strings from there using octave harmonics (against fretted notes where necessary). Mainly because that’s how I tune my classical guitar and I’ve got so quick at it, that I now do it that way on electric guitar as well.
Harmonics on the 7th fret should not be used for tuning though, they muck up the equal temperament.
I find using a tuner on all strings individually doesn’t seem to work so well and takes longer (I always dislike the result and end up adjusting it all).
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My guitars are all different from each other, with different bridge and tailpiece arrangements (archtop with trapeze + floating wood bridge and tune-o-matic saddle, semi with trapeze + fixed tune-o-matic, strat with whammy, LP with stop + tune-o-matic, flattop with pin bridge) and different necks that react differently to tuning changes on each string, as well as to changes in temperature and humidity. So I can't apply a single routine to tuning them all. In general, I tune the open strings with a clip on-tuner (Polytune) at the beginning of a playing session and leave the tuner clipped on. If I hear things going out of tune as I play, I tune again. If I can't get a guitar to stay in tune under otherwise stable circumstances, I change the strings when I have a chance. Intonation on my flattop acoustic is a little fussier than on the others, and it sometimes takes some back and forth between open strings, fretted strings, and chords to get it sounding right enough. But open strings are fine on the others.
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FWIW, not much is my guess, I generally use a two-step process. Assuming the tuning is pretty far out, I do a quick tune of the open strings to get them near pitch, but I'm only looking for close, so that the neck is pulled to near the final relief. If I try to tune exactly from the start, the tuning of individual strings will be off and I have to go back and retune. Getting it all close in a quick go actually saves me some time. After the open strings are more or less tuned, but usually off by a few cents, I start again, tuning using the 5th fret. That's somewhere near where I mostly play, and close enough for equal temperament. The G string is always off if tuned open, and sometimes other strings. Not a lot, but enough for me to hear. Tuning to the 5th fret makes intonation acceptable everywhere. No notes will be perfect anywhere using equal temperament, but all will be close enough. Tuning to perfect pitch anywhere makes tuning worse everywhere else, and if the open strings are tuned perfectly then they will be sour everywhere up the neck. This is why equal temperament was invented, and why electronic tuners instead of ears give better overall results. Tuning to equal temperament at the 5th, or any other, fret won't give absolutely perfect sweetness anywhere, but close enough everywhere. Tuning by ear will always result in sweet spots and very sour spots. The laws of physics cannot be violated.
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I tune using a Peterson tuner (StroboClip HD | Peterson Strobe Tuners) quite possibly the best guitar tool investment I have made in the past 10 years. It is deadly accurate and easy to use. I use for all set ups and shop work because of accuracy and ease of use. Now the only thing I can say is that I generally get the high E with the tuner then use harmonics at the 12th fret and 7th fretted. I ring the B string to match the fretted B on first string. My ear can hear 3 cents off pretty easy and under that things can vary just in the attack used on the string to pluck it.
Then I go back and check various harmonics against fretted notes. I might hit the A harmonic 5th string then check it with fretted A notes elsewhere on the guitar. In the end my ear counts as much as the Strobe tuner even though it is incredibly accurate. Tuning can be tricky in the sense that strings can ring out at times depending how you pluck them and over time they do lose the ability to intonate. I also am not a fan of brand-new strings, to me they sound the best after a few hours of playing and all the stretch is out of the string. I also find the tunomatics for a standard archtop guitar with say 12-52 strings are not better at intontion than an ebony saddle compensated from e to e by about 5/16's. If you manage to get the harmonics dead on then the guitar will be out of tune in other positions in different ways.
The moral of the story is you try and get the guitar in as close to being in-tune as it can be depending on your playing style. A jazz player in the middle of the neck has very different needs for being in tune compared to the Blue Grass rhythm player on his Martin D.
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Excellent, very true.
Originally Posted by deacon Mark
My old Peterson Strobe Tuner pedal stopped working last year.
I've probably not been as accurately in tune since.
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Open strings with the tuner in my pedalboard.
I've tried tuning to fifth fret notes, but it doesn't make much difference.
I check tuning frequently, since my main guitar, a Comins GCS-1 tends to drift and I've been unable to solve the problem.
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Anyone familiar with the Guild of American Luthiers Data Sheet #45? It supposedly explains how to tune a guitar as nearly perfectly as possible, in equal temperament, by ear, using only an E reference note. Here's an article about it with a reprint:
How To Tune The Guitar To Perfection
tl;dr
Tune string 6 precisely to real E.
Then use the string 6 harmonic at 12 to tune open string 1 and string 4 fretted at 2 in precice unison in their respective octaves.
Then use the open string 4 harmonic at 12 to tune string 2 fretted at 3 and string 3 fretted at 7 in precise unison.
Then use string 3 fretted at 2 to tune open string 5 in precise unison in its octave.
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Use electronic tuner. Check intonation. Despair that all the chords still sound out of tunes.
Hopefully it’s just physics
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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IME the main causes of tuning drift are rough nut and saddle slots, and failure to pull the strings before and during tuning. If you tune down, the string doesn't fully unwind from the capstan because of its inherent stiffness, and the thicker the core, the more effect this has. Tugging on the string tightens the wind on the capstan, so the string doesn't slowly slacken as the wind tightens from string tension. Rough slots can bind the string just enough to cause the string to be tuned high or low as the string forces its way through the bind. Tugging on the string can force the windings through the bind. But of course these are not the only culprits, and some guitars just seem to drift for unknown reasons.
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No more tuning open strings. I tune an Ebmaj7 chord at 6th pos. This represents a good sampling of inharmonicities, string deflection, and is in the middle of the range I play most often.
Then, I played each open string and used my tuner app to measure the actual frequency of each open string. Finally, I took all 9 of those tuning offsets(I have 7 and 9 string guitars), and programmed a custom tuning file into my Sonic Research ST122 Turbo Tuner and now it is stored forever. I no longer need to make little corrections because the open string tuning file has it all baked in. My chords are perfectly in tune, as well as a guitar can yield, that is.Last edited by mikeSF; 01-13-2026 at 03:55 AM.
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Thanks for the responses. Every experienced player has a method that works for them. Individuality!
Once I get my imperfect, equal temperament guitar into tune in my own personal way, part of the fun is using finger pressure to minutely correct or alter the tuning of each note I'm playing. If I have time, that is.
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For our mental well being, we've got to accept that the guitar will never be accurately in tune.
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Been attempting it since 1980….try tuning a mandolin! I never tire of watching Tony Rice tuning up. He has an unusual method…starts at 2:33
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