Tuners
I notice David mention how some tuners are hard to work with and it resonated with me. i certainly have found a few tuners and apps which weren't really practical because they were so unstable.
so i thought i'd mention the Korg CA 40. JimiLee suggested this unit to me. i believe he recommends it to all his students, so its tried and true.
i found this to be a really practical little tuner when i was developing draw bend technique. i'd recommend it to anyone who feels the need for a visual reference in practice situations where HarpNinja (say) isnt practical.
It seems that the TM-50 is now the upgrade of the TM-40.
I also found the TMR-50 wich has a mic to record what you are playing and a USB port to transfert what was recorded to you PC. I have no idea if it is good or not, just thought it was interesting.
I have an android app called PitchLab. It was free and works better than my $100 Peterson Strobo, which never worked at all.
Then I got the $4 'Cleartune' app, but it won't respond to the low notes.
same experience for me with cleartune app. Too inconsistent. But the Petersen app seems ok...if only I trusted it...I just don't know...
most tuning I do is for customers and I stick with tried and true...I had a lull in demand for repairs and started to do some maintenance on my own harps but I decided to leave tuning until the end of the process then tune them as a batch...left it too late, procrastinated and now the jobs are flowing in again...but I will use the Peterson app when I tune my own. If it works reliably it would be a boon.
tried the Peterson app tonight. Could not get a consistent reading from it. The korg responded predictably the Peterson app was high and low. It would tell me the reed was playing flat so id tune up. The korg showed that I'd sharpened pitch as expected, so did the app. I'd play another note, come back to check the original, now it's flat again but the korg showed no change. I will stick with my korg.
The Korg TM-40 costs more (unless you wait for it to be on sale... it can be from $26-71 compared to the CA-40 at $13-36), but also has a metronome, with sound/flashing LEDs, and a pendulum display. And you can use both the metronome and the tuner at once.