TubaForum.net

Joking aside, I'm not that old. I'm about to be 41. Been playing music basically constantly since I was 8. Piano - trumpet - tuba; added in guitar, bass, lute. Some more serious than others.

I have always had a Korg tuner and metronome. Just the little ones. They're simple, easy to use. Work great. It has never occurred to me to use anything else or that they're inadequate.

I was helping kids out before a youth symphony rehearsal tuning. I tuned the first few kids with my Korg. And at that point I could do a couple violins by ear so I gave the tuner to a kid so she could tune herself. I turn around, and there's a few of them standing around this tuner completely unable to sort out how it works. Because apparently we all do this on our phones now? It didn't even occur to them that (a) this was a dedicated tuner and that (b) anyone would have a simple, dedicated tuner that only did that one thing.

Just because I'm apparently in the stone age, my 10yo knows how to use the tuner and metronome and is very fluid with them. And that's what she'll use because I won't use a phone or iPad for practice unless we are doing a recording. I never practiced with a cell phone in the room, and I don't see a reason to start now.

It also makes me wonder what I'm missing and whether it's worth it. A lot of virtuosos were made with less technology than even a Korg tuner.

I prefer my trusty TM-40, but I do have two iPhone apps that I’ve had downloaded since I got an iPhone in college in 2010: “Cleartune” and “Tempo”. I prefer the dedicated tuner.

Pretty much the same as Blake. I do have an app on my phone, but my TU-12H is my workhorse.

I use the “iStroboSoft” tuner app on my phone. I was having real trouble one day getting it to work, and the player next to me told me to disconnect the noise-cancelling Bluetooth headset from my phone.

I really don't want to be setting my phone on a music stand (risking having it fall on the floor) and apps' main motive is to spy on those who download them.

I had a small Korg tuner/metronome (I suspect I left it somewhere), and now have retreated back to a (smaller) Korg tuner (I might replace the thing I lost, but I'm really not missing it) and an ORIGINAL (with the clear-plastic WHEEL) Dr. Beat as my metronome, as the subsequent versions (and I have one of the subsequent versions) take too long to change the tempo, whereas the wheel can change the tempo nearly instantly.

OK...I also own a pretty cool (bought really cheap) drum machine, but I don't find myself using it all that often.

.

On the phone at work: Peterson iStrobosoft

At home:

the elephant wrote: Thu Oct 02, 2025 11:09 am On the phone at work: Peterson iStrobosoft

At home:

If Wade wants to go old school, then here’s my tuner. I guarantee nobody has ever knocked it off a music stand. The downside is that, being water cooled, it’s sometimes hard to hook it up to the plumbing at gigs.

MikeS wrote: Thu Oct 02, 2025 12:17 pm

the elephant wrote: Thu Oct 02, 2025 11:09 am On the phone at work: Peterson iStrobosoft

At home:

If Wade wants to go old school, then here’s my tuner. I guarantee nobody has ever knocked it off a music stand. The downside is that, being water cooled, it’s sometimes hard to hook it up to the plumbing at gigs.

I ran into the same issue, so I finally broke down and invested in one of these...
Mrs. bloke told me she would no longer go along with me to rehearsals (to carry it in, fill it up - 1/2 gal. of gas and 92 gal. milk jugs of water, and hook it up), so I bought some wheels for it at Harbor Freight...voila !

I have a friend who teaches, and brought in the ubiquitous radio alarm clock from the 80s as a case study in design.

Apparently it met fresh eyes, and so was a perfect choice for what he wanted to teach (and i'm not even sure it mattered what he was teaching)

humBell wrote: Fri Oct 03, 2025 7:00 am I have a friend who teaches, and brought in the ubiquitous radio alarm clock from the 80s as a case study in design.

Apparently it met fresh eyes, and so was a perfect choice for what he wanted to teach (and i'm not even sure it mattered what he was teaching)

My parents got one as a wedding present in the 80s and still have it. I think it’s a GE? Faux wood paneling?

Smartphones are for convienience, not quality, or "best of breed.

They can do a lot of things . . . but very few of them terribly well or "best of breed" Think more of it as a "portable revenue generator/billing/advertising/data harvesting system" that occasionally does something useful by accident. . . .

Perhaps I too am showing my age, but I try to avoid using the thing whenever possible in favormof getter solutions.

Music: CD's, tapes, vinyl (just got that back up and going), or radio.

Nav: Dedicated GPS. I've had the web crap run me into blizzards and inecplicably long routes way too often.

Tuner: Petersen StroboPlus or StroboClipHD

Camera: Semi-pro level Nikons

Phone: Landline when near one. Never had itnhave bad signal/noise/dropped calls.

etc. etc. . . .

(and no a$$bag company can decide to force obsolete my tuner, making me buy another expen$ive billing system (with more spammy ads than the last one!)

Grrrr. . .

tadawson wrote: Fri Oct 03, 2025 9:19 am

Nav: Dedicated GPS. I've had the web crap run me into blizzards and inecplicably long routes way too often.

Google maps usually does well for me, but it really does get too clever sometimes. I ended up stuck in Boston in traffic, and Google maps was sending me on an insane route to try to avoid it. I ended up giving up and turning on my old Garmin that I still had in the car. Didn't avoid the traffic, but it also got me out of the city.

Google is the turd that ran me through 50 miles of unplowed rural 2 lane (some darn near dirt) roads after an ice storm in central/upper WI, instead of the clear US highway that was maybe 5 miles longer (and hours faster) parallel to it, with no discernable way to consider weather or traffic, or choose route optimizations. It also requires prescence of, as well as pi$$ing $$$ into, mobile service - not a given

Never again!

arpthark wrote: Fri Oct 03, 2025 8:28 am

humBell wrote: Fri Oct 03, 2025 7:00 am I have a friend who teaches, and brought in the ubiquitous radio alarm clock from the 80s as a case study in design.

Apparently it met fresh eyes, and so was a perfect choice for what he wanted to teach (and i'm not even sure it mattered what he was teaching)

My parents got one as a wedding present in the 80s and still have it. I think it’s a GE? Faux wood paneling?

I'll ask my friend about how the class went (as it was a year or two ago, and had design elements in it. I kinda thought it was an inspired choice, as it is clearly good enough you still see them in just about every hotel room, but something no one growing up with a smart phone would ever see the use of.

I see those at my favorite thrift store all the time (it gets a lot of stuff from downsizing older people) and I think I have four of them in my house. I use the alarms to announce cat feeding times (they know they are getting fed when the alarm goes off, and no point bugging me at other times) and they don't tick and keep me awake. I don't know what other people use, but you can see glowing red numbers in almost every room.
That same store sometimes has fantabulous grandfather clocks, and I always am tempted but decide it isn't something I really need. I've seen old guys there who just bought one, grinning from ear to ear.

love this