Originally Posted by Tim Bowen
I did my first outdoor job of the season two weeks ago, and it was, "oh yeah, right, the BOSS TU-2 in direct sunlight is not so good". I have a Peterson StroboStomp which is by far the best pedal tuner I've owned, and it's great in direct sunlight; unfortunately, it occupies a bit too much real estate for the small working board that I'm using these days. I was seriously interested in the Turbo, and asked very specific questions about daylight visibility at another forum, and was told in no uncertain terms that it was a no-go in this respect... (?) - so I passed. I have a bunch of outdoor jobs coming up, so I needed to figure out something. I bought a Korg Pitch Black a week ago, but I've only used at indoor gigs so far. It'll get the acid test as to visibility at a three hour outdoor job this Saturday.
I have some questions about placement and tracking regarding the Pitch Black, but I guess I should preface with some background. I know that the preferred placement of a tuner is first or very early in the chain. Whenever the "help with pedal order" threads pop up, I often mention that I place the BOSS TU-2 after my gainers; the reason for this is that, at least to my ear, the TU-2's buffer subtly reacts better with gainers best as placed after them. The BOSS has no trouble at all "seeing" a note and tracking it with this placement approach; if it did, I'd default to the slightly harsher tone of placing it before gain stomps.
Which brings me to the Pitch Black. I purchased it en route to a gig, so I just popped it in where the TU-2 had been residing, and did the show. It tracked six string guitar *reasonably* well, but was absolutely horrible with my 12 string guitar and mandolin - the display just jumped off the note extremely quickly, and it was quite the time-consuming pain in the butt to tune those instruments. Is the Pitch Black considerably more sensitive to placement within the chain than is the TU-2, as to accurate tracking?
If I'm going to re-route my board to place the Pitch Black first in line, my only shot at doing that in advance of my upcoming jobs, and properly testing it, is tomorrow evening. I don't mind spending the time to do it if it will definitely improve tracking, although I'd much rather spend the time working on tunes and parts. If tracking is generally an issue with the Korg, regardless of placement, I'll probably toss the TU-2 back on the board and deal with the visibility issues for a few more shows, as it at least grabs a pitch and holds it with all of my instruments.
Sage advice would be much appreciated!
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