Techie Tuesday: StroboPick

Function over form. 


What's the difference between a fish and a guitar? You can't tune a fish...And I can't really tune a guitar.

But now for only $34.95 I can - with the aid of the ugly, but utilitarian, StroboPick.

StroboPick is a miniature stroboscopic guitar tuner.

By shining a flashing light at a vibrating string you can clearly see whether the string is in tune with the light source. StroboPick emits 6 light frequencies matching standard guitar tuning with great precision.

StroboPick is a passive device - it does not plug into your guitar, doesn't have a microphone or any other sensor. It does not know what note you are playing. It simply emits light at the required frequency. StroboPick makes it very obvious for you to see when a string is out of tune.

For your convenience, StroboPick has a tiny speaker (the black cylinder on the left). The speaker simultaneously emits the tone corresponding to the string you are tuning. Every press of the button on StroboPick advances the frequency to the next string, from low E to A,D,G,B and finally high E.

Many musicians know about the high accuracy of stroboscopic tuners. StroboPick is no exception: it is possible to tune your guitar to as close as 1/10 of 1 cent (1/1000 of a semitone) simply by tuning until the colored reflections on the string stop moving. If you don't care about such precision - just tune until the reflections sort of slow down!

See it action! It's rather cool yet could use a makeover.


(Via Gizmodo)