Tuning used to be a necessary evil. The last barrier before you could get truly rocking. But now, tuning is ready to get blasted into the 21st century with PolyTune™, the stomp-box-sized tuning miracle from TC Electronic. The magic lies in an approach to tuning aimed at speed, accuracy and ease of use. With PolyTune, you simply strum all strings on your guitar or bass at once, and it will immediately tell you which strings need tuning. It really is as simple as strum, tune, and rock. This leap forward in tuners allows you to get in tune fast, and back to doing what you love—playing.
Strum, tune, and rock
Providing an instant overview of the pitch of all your strings, PolyTune is an invaluable tool in live settings, where it is essential to be in tune quickly and ready to play. Crowds don’t want to wait around, they want to rock, and, let’s face it, so do you. Besides live use, this stomp box will deliver like no other in any situation where you want to get tuning out of the way and focus on play.
Fever pitch
Equally effective for guitar and bass, PolyTune is extremely flexible as well. The reference pitch can be set to your preference and ranges from 435Hz to 445Hz. This guarantees you’ll be able to play along with anyone, with any instrument and in any situation.
Drop it like it’s hot
If you are a guitarist that likes to play at a different pitch than standard, this is your go-to pedal, allowing for dropped tunings from E-flat all the way down to B.
Chromatic champion
Besides the Polyphonic tuner, PolyTune has a chromatic tuner that can hang with the best current tuning technology out there, with an amazing 0.5-cent accuracy.
Tuning modes
The two separate chromatic tuning modes cater to your individual preferences and needs. Needle mode is for those that are used to the classic view on a tuner. Stream-mode is for musicians that want a little more real-time information. The Stream mode measures even the slightest pitch variation and instantly feeds the info back via a rotating motion on the display.
Tuning magnet
Key to both these great chromatic modes is an ultra-fast and precise response, which is achieved via the use of the unique tuner magnet feature. This slows down the needle once you get close to the desired pitch, making it much easier to get the job done quickly.
MonoPoly
Whether you want to use the polyphonic tuner to get in tune, or prefer to go the chromatic route, this pedal has you covered. PolyTune features “MonoPoly”, a unique patent-pending technology that recognizes whether you play one or more strings and instantly replies with the appropriate poly- or monophonic tuning mode.
Total recall
Of course, all of these amazing features would not mean a thing if they were a pain to use or set up. So, TC Electronic added some traits to ensure this tuner is calibrated to the guitarist. Unlike most other tuners, PolyTune stores your preferences. From pitch reference to tuning mode, it hangs on to this information even after it is powered down, making sure you only have to set how you want things to happen once. The next time you power up again, it will show you the settings, so you instantly know everything is exactly how you want it to be.
Tuning as it should be
PolyTune provided a chance to build the ultimate tuning tool from the ground up and finally get rid of some of the current tuner drawbacks that guitarists run into time and time again
A strong display of innovation
Guitarists that play gigs recognize the nightmare of an unclear display, due to for example bright sunlight, an overeager light technician or a stage smoke machine gone bonkers. PolyTune offers unprecedented visibility using an ambient light sensor, which automatically matches the brightness of the LEDs to its surroundings. PolyTune features 17 LEDS which allow for a higher resolution. The LEDs themselves are bright and focused to ensure optimal visibility at all times. And as an added bonus, the 100 LED matrix can give you information right on the display, so you won’t have to go dig for the manual mid-gig.
Size matters
PolyTune will brighten any pedalboard, Its small footprint design means that PolyTune doesn’t take up more of your precious pedalboard real estate than absolutely necessary.
Spruce the juice
Battery changes are a breeze thanks to the one-screw, easy access battery compartment. In addition, when powered by an external 9V DC power supply, the 9V DC out can be used to power other pedals on your board.
True bypass
The true bypass feature ensures PolyTune is only there when you need it. It allows for your carefully sculpted tone to flow unaffected when the pedal is bypassed and for silent tuning once engaged.
More talk about the TC Electronic PolyTune Mini pedal. They’ll be showing this off at NAMM today. No word on release date or price yet on this guy. I’m sure it’ll be a very hot item for 2012! They mentioned that this includes the Drop-D tuning upgrade as well (not sure if they released that update for their standard pedal). The bummer, just like anything, is buying something cool and then finding out a short time later, there is a better version. Just like computers, TVs, etc. Sucks, but that’s life. I know a lot of people picked up the current version of the PolyTune and are now bummed that they should have waited for the mini.
