3 Responses to “Seiko STX1 Chromatic Clip On Tuner”

1. Denis
   November 26th, 2009 @ 3:34 pm

   I purchased this tuner locally earlier this week. Amazon would have been cheaper but I couldn’t find any reviews on the web and wanted to check it out carefully before I purchased it. I love it. It does everything it is advertised to do and does it well. It picks up the signal when you pluck a string and gives a good clear identification of the note everytime. When the green light comes on you are in tune. I did experiment with the high and low ends of the green light range and there was no noticeable change in sound nor was it noticeable when using a normal mic tuner along with the Seiko for comparison (change in light color on the Seiko versus needle movement on the Sabine).

   When tuning with an ensemble, it does pick up the vibration in your guitar created by other instruments while you are idle but as soon as you pluck a string it immediately responds correctly to your guitar and doesn’t seem to be affected by the other instruments.

   I don’t usually write reviews but because there is so little out there right now about this tuner I just wanted to share. Hope this is helpful.

2. Raeanne
   November 26th, 2009 @ 4:47 pm

   I play upright bass, and many tuners have difficulty hearing the low notes and simply won’t register when I’m trying to tune the A and E strings. This tuner does a great job of picking up the low strings. It clips nicely onto the bridge or onto the side of the peg box and hears the bass clearly in either location. It also hears guitars well when clipped onto the headstock.

   On the negative side, this tuner has a fairly slow response, so it is hard to use on an instrument with quick decay, such as a banjo. You have to develop a technique of repeatedly plucking the string to get it to register the note long enough for tuning. If the banjo has a capo on, I’ve found I need to clip the tuner to the neck just behind the capo, or sometimes even switch to microphone mode and hold it right next to the string I’m tuning (which kind of obviates the convenience of having a clip-on tuner.)

   On a violin, I clip it to the sides of the neck just below the nut, which works quite well for both full-size and fractional (kids’) violins. This works much better than attaching to the scroll, which is difficult to do (and it doesn’t seem to pick up well there anyhow.)

   In summary, this tuner works great for upright bass, well for guitar and violin, and just ok for banjo. I like it better than my Intelli for my bass, because it doesn’t buzz/rattle the way the Intelli does. (However, it isn’t totally silent. Just a lot quieter than the Intelli.)

3. Bayarmaa
   November 26th, 2009 @ 7:19 pm

   Background, I play classical music, viola, and have been professional for 35 years. I’ve been through quite a few tuners in that time. I use a tuner regularly as I practice.
   I suppose it is possible that I got a slightly defective unit, but it acts like just a poor tuner. I clipped it to my scroll, it’s bigger than I had expected and would seem huge on a violin. It usually takes 3-4 seconds to figure out what note I’m playing and dances around with the pitch lights for longer before it (usually) settles on one. Several times though it never figured out even an open string, especially the D. Yesterday I saw that I could NEVER use this while practicing, so today I decided to just tune all my strings with it, and finally gave up in frustration. And this thing is expensive too. I hope they will take it back.
   I recommend getting a Korg CA-40 Chromatic Tuner with the Korg CM-100 Tuner Clipfor less money ( I did reviews on those too) and you’ll have a truly fine tuner setup.

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