Tuning by ear is nice and is a great skill to develop. For beginners, developing this skill takes time as you would have to undergo some form of ear or pitch training to go along with it. Even when professionals are concerned, tuning by ear is still prone to human error, and mechanizing the process with a consistent chromatic tuner is advisable. Even if tuners are accurate, some in particular are only calibrated to a certain instrument, the logic being that each unique instrument has its own blend of fundamental frequencies and overtones that give its character. Compounding these tuning dilemmas are the fact that some historical authentic performance groups even demands a different tuning reference very different from the modern reference of 440 Hz. Meeting all these demands is the new Meisel COM-80.

The COM-80 is a new clip-on battery-operated chromatic tuner which is useful for tuning any instrument. For more precision tuning, it has calibration options for certain instruments such as guitar, violin, bass, and even ukulele. This tuner features an extra large backlit screen which changes from red to green when your instrument is already in tune. Reference pitch of A can be calibrated from 410 Hz to 450 Hz in 1-Hz increments, and resetting it back to the default of 440 Hz can be done by simply powering it off and back on. It runs on a one 3V CR2032 coin-type battery and has a battery-power-saving function where it turns itself of after 3 minutes of being idle. The COM-80's small size can fit into most instrument bags or cases and also has a silica gel padded clip so you will never have to worry about getting your instrument's finish ruined by it.

FEATURES:

• Tuning Range: A0 (27.5Hz) to A3 (1760Hz)
• Calibrated tuning for: Guitar, Bass, Violin, Ukelele and Chromatic.
• A Calibration: 410Hz-450Hz in 1Hz steps
• A= 410Hz – 450Hz
• Silica-Gel Padded Clip
• Weighs 1 oz.
• Battery: 1 CR2032 3V coin type (supplied)

The Meisel COM-80 has an MSRP of 34.95 USD.