Ask A Sound Guy

The BOSS TU-88 Tuner with Headphone Amp.

BOSS announced some new tuners yesterday, and I’m not sure how many people are excited.  I know I am because I think good tuning is essential… but I can see why most people aren’t into them.  I’ve had this conversation many times: “Do I really need a tuning pedal? They cost so much and they don’t DO anything?”  I get that.  They’re boring and expensive – not a good combination.

But at least SOMEONE out there is making lots of different kinds of tuners – giving you knobs and blnky lights fanatics some options.   Check out the press release if here if you’re interested.

There’s the ginormous TU-1000 for the stage-monkey who NEEDS everything to be BIG.

The TU-12EX for all of you acoustic guitar players that bought the TU-12 and want to spend more money replacing something that probably still works great (this is actually a compliment to BOSS).

The TU-12BW for Brass and Wind which comes with fancy all-white iPod styling and clip-on contact mic, which seems kind of badass.

Last there is the TU-88 which is kind of a hilarious tuner.  It has all the tuning functionality of a normal – unplug-your-amp tuner PLUS the ability to play through effects and mix that with an “mp3″ input.  So basically you can jam to the latest killer’s track complete with your metal zone pedals all on your headphones… not sure why anyone would need this ability – especially because you get the same functions with just about any DAW/interface.  Even a $20 Behringer Mixer will do the same stuff.  But they made it, so its my duty to inform you of it’s existence.