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For many years, guitarists struggled to get and keep their guitars in tune. Then came a miraculous little electronic device called a tuner.
 What’s a tuner?
A guitar tuner is a small, battery operated mechanism that can handle a number of tuning functions. The most common is the standard guitar tuning (E,A,D,G,B,E). Tuners can be bought at music stores or online stores and are relatively inexpensive.
Tuners have a built-in microphone to pick up the sound of an acoustic guitar, and many come equipped with an input for electric guitar tuning.
You may also plug the wire from your acoustic guitar pickup into the input jack. If there’s a lot of noise in the room this may be a good step to take because the tuner’s microphone will pick up the background noise and may hamper the tuning process. Plugging into the input disables the microphone.
Some higher-end acoustic guitars come with a built-in tuner. Also, you can find online tuner software that can be downloaded or used directly from the website.
The software is fine for tuning at home, but I recommend a portable tuner, especially if you play outside gigs.
Steps for using an acoustic guitar tuner
Some older tuners may require using a knob on the tuner to set which string you’re tuning. Newer tuners pick up the pitch automatically and do not require that function. In any case, the process of using a tuner is pretty obvious and easily understandable.
- Place the tuner on a nearby table. Make sure it’s turned on.
- Pluck the low E string. A meter or flashing light on the tuner will tell you whether the string is flat or sharp. Adjust the tuning knob accordingly.
- Repeat the above step with the other strings.
- Fine-tune the guitar by repeating the process.
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