Korg OT-120 Orchestral Tuner

As an absolute self taught beginner, I have found this instrument to be valuable and easy to use. I don't even play a piano, but my two sons and wife do. It costs over $200 per visit to get a tuner out to our rural location and I think there is only one tuner in town. Our upright piano requires constant tuning, and so I decided to roll up my sleeves and give it a shot, after all, if someone else can learn how to do it, so can I.Researching the Internet and Amazon, I found the tools and reference materials to make an educated decision on what to buy. I selected this instrument along with a book, "Piano Servicing, Tuning, and Rebuilding: For the Professional, the Student,..." and tools to make the necessary adjustments. Within an hour of receiving all the tools, I re-tuned four badly out of tune keys. The wife and kids were impressed and the tools paid for themselves after the first attempt. With the help of the book and the Korg OT-120, I should get better at it over time. even my 12 year old son understood what was going on as he watched me (his dad) adjust the piano strings back into the correct sounding notes.I haven't used the Korg enough yet to give a detailed review, but I just know when I set the dial for "Manual" and watched the meter needle swing to the center, I was getting the results my family was hoping for.The Korg comes with a very nice storage case and I did pay the extra money to get the plug in microphone. Maybe when I get better at it, I'll come back and give a better review. I just know this instrument works as expected and gets results.

I use this for tuning our church piano. The instructions on "how to use" could be better, but overall this is worth the money. For example, the meter offers "slow, medium, or fast" meter averaging, but no instructions when each might be best. I've found, generally, "slow" is needed for the bass notes, and the faster acquisition speeds are okay for higher notes. There also seems to be a slight discrepancy b/w when the LED's indicate "center" for a note verses the meter needle, leaving the user to guess which is right. If you have a good ear (which if you really need this meter, you probably don't), you can use the "tone" mode to discern the difference. Myself, I've found that as long as long as you're consistent in HOW you read the meter, your piano will sound pretty good. If you have electronic instruments in your band, you may want to get a reading on those first (which may not be tunable), to see how they measure up. Then tune your string instruments to match on the meter.

My Boss TU 12 tuner started to fail and this Korg OT 120 is a fantastic replacement. The tunings are very precise, and the tuner is easy to use. I do studio recording and precision tuning is essential. I love the analog meter. The digital display is a bit hard to read with the tuner standing, but very easy with it laying flat. Both mic and input tunings work well that way so the display is not an issue for me. I highly recommend this tuner.Follow up to this review. I am so impressed with this tuner that I bought a backup for my recording studio. This is precision tuning.

This is a fantastic tuner for the cello and practicing your intonation. If you buy it, I would also recommend buying the optional Korg CM-100L Clip On Contact Microphone For Tuners since it will allow you to use the sound-back feature, which is very useful for practicing intonation. This is how it works: You plug the clip on mic into the tuner and then clip it to your bridge. You then play a note, any note, and it plays back the "correct" pitch and you can move your finger a little bit until you match it perfectly and the needle is right in the middle. You practice both with your ear (move your finger until it sounds right) and with your eyes (once it sounds right, verify that the needle is in the middle). NOTE: The clip on mic is required because the built in mic in the tuner would just pick up the pitch that it is playing, and not your note. Also note, the feature works best if used with a practice mute on the instrument, since the sound the tuner makes is not very loud and can be hard to hear otherwise. I've used the sound-back feature for about a year and my intonation has improved a lot.