The 7 Best Bass Guitar Tuners of 2023 (Clip-On, Pedals, Automatic)
On the lookout for a Bass Guitar tuner? From small clip-on tuners to the tuner pedals, there are many options a available to help you tune your instrument to perfection. This article lists some of the best ones available.
The development of cheap and good quality tuners have really made it accessible for any bass guitarist to easily keep their instrument tuned.
From cheap to premium options, you will find everything you might need on this list.
We have chosen both clip-on tuners as well as tuner pedals on this list. We’ve also included the ‘roadie bass’, which is an automatic bass tuner, that turns the pegs on your bass by itself!
The 7 Best Bass Guitar Tuners of 2023 (Clip-On, Pedals, Automatic)
1. KLIQ UberTuner
We start off this list with a lightweight champion of the masses. KLIQ UberTuner is a clip-on small tuner with a bright big LED screen. Apart from bass, it can be used for guitar, violin, ukulele and any chromatic tuning you need. It can cover the range from A0 to C8 notes and has a reference pitch from 430-450 Hz.
The head of the tuner is rotatable for 360 degrees and can be tilted for 150 degrees. This is enough to give you a good look at the screen wherever you put the tuner. The UberTuner is robust and will last you a long time, compared to the cheaper models.
2. Boss TU-3
Boss TU-3 is an heir to one of the most famous and most valued tuner pedals in the history of music, Boss Tu-2. And it lives up to the family name. This is essentially a pumped-up version of the TU-2, as it comes in a classic Boss stomp-box pedal case, with a LED meter built-in.
It doesn’t have any other options, but it does tuning masterfully. You can change the brightness of the LED lights to adjust them to the sunshine or stage lights, so you can be sure you’ll always see what you need.
The precision of this tuner is great and it’s a really big addition to any pedal board, especially if you’re a pro looking for sturdy quality items. It does come at a larger price, but you do get what you pay for.
3. D’Addario NS Micro Clip-On Tuner
Another clip-on tuner, D’Addario’s NS Micro Tuner is a small, effective tuner for serious musicians. It comes from a renowned company for guitar parts and it represents the company name well. This tuner can be bought in a clip-on version, without a clip or universal version.
Due to its design, it’s really elegant and stealthy, so your audience won’t really notice that you have a tuner on your guitar at all. It comes with a nice colored screen, that’s very bright to see, but because of the build of the tuner won’t be noticed by others in the audience.
It covers standard 430-450Hz reference pitch and can be used on any string instrument. This is a budget-friendly, high-quality small tuner good for both amateurs and pros alike.
4. KLIQ TinyTune Tuner Pedal
Another item from KLIQ, TinyTune is a bit of a different tuner than the previously mentioned UberTune. First of all, this is a tuner pedal. This means that the tuning is more accurate than on the standard clip-on tuner. Standard on the clip-on tuners id +/- 1% precision, while here it is 0.5%.
TinyTune is, as the name suggests, tiny. It comes in an aluminum casing, with a bright big LED screen. It doesn’t have any additional buttons, but only those needed for a tuner to work.
It has a really good tuning ability and it doesn’t bring any noise while turned off in the pedalboard. For the price, this is a low budget, good quality tuner pedal.
5. Korg Pitchblack Advance Tuner Pedal
Another high-end tuner pedal, Korg’s Pitchblack Advanced pedal is a high-quality, sleek–looking tuner pedal. It comes in a robust aluminum casing which has really nice looks to it, making it different to the standard square box look of guitar pedals.
It has a tuning accuracy of 0,1% margin of error, meaning it’s as close as you can get to the perfect tuning. Also, it has a bright LED screen that can be changed with buttons on the back.
The great thing about this pedal is that it also has a DC output, so you can also charge your other pedals on the board through this one. It also comes with a true bypass, meaning that your sound will not be in any way affected when you’re not using it.
6. ROADIE BASS
ROADIE BASS is meant to be used only on bass guitars. It also conveys a novelty concept of automatic tuning. On all the other tuners you have to physically play the string and then tune it by hand and the tuner just shows you when you’re right or wrong.
ROADIE tuners are automatic, so you just need to put them on the peg of your guitar tuner and voila, it will do the magic itself.
This tuner comes with a bright LED screen on the side of the tuner, and a wheel that you turn to pick which note you want your string to be tuned to.
This is a great thing to have if you’re often changing the tuning of your bass guitar, but you should be aware that it does come at a price. But, this is the future of tuning after all.
7. TC ElectronicPolyTune 3
TC Electronic PolyTune3 is one of the best tuner pedals in the world. It’s small, compact, robust and gives you unprecedented quality and precision when tuning. It’s a no-nonsense tuner, without any other additions, but boy is it good for tuning.
It has an in-built buffer, from the same maker. This means that the preferred position of this pedal is in the front of the pedal since it enhances the signal coming out of your guitar and enables it to go through even longer cables without losing the sound quality.
Also, this tuner comes with a very precise strobe tuner that helps you tune to the 0,1% margin of error, meaning it’s perfect for recording sessions. You can also use the poly tuner, where you can strum all of your string all at once and it will automatically show you which ones are not ok so you don’t have to go through all of them.
For this quality of tuner, it comes at a reasonable price, so you should definitely consider getting one.
Conclusion
We hope that his article has shown you what options are out there on the market and you can make your choice.
If you’re an amateur you probably won’t need deadly accuracy of some more expensive models, but you can rely on cheaper ones for day-to-day tuning and playing in your house. If you’re a pro, it’s probably worth investing in a premium model.
