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| Intellitouch PT1 Tuner | 
 enlarge | Brand: Intellitouch
Category: Musical Instruments
List Price: $69.95
Buy New: $37.94
You Save: $32.01 (46%)
Buy New
Avg. Customer Rating:  (13 reviews)
Sales Rank: 137
Color: black
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Special Features: Designed to tune many wind and stringed instruments, including violins, french horns, electric/acoustic guitars, basses, banjos, mandolins and more. One-handed, easy-to-attach clamp. Stores in its own custom carrying case. Intelligent recalibration. seven octaves, 27-6000HZ, 30 hours continuous tuning, 1.25" wide, 6" long, .75" thick, 2 ounces, 6 volts, CR2032 3-volt coin cell, two batteries required (not included)
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 4 x 1.4
MPN: PT1
Model: PT1
UPC: 651244500018
EAN: 0651244500018
ASIN: B0002F7GSW
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 The Intellitouch is DEAD! Long live the Intelli IMT-500! June 24, 2006
24 out of 27 found this review helpful
I'm afraid the Intellitouch has lost all its stars!
My original review was titled "DEFINITELY YES...or maybe DEFINITELY NOT (NOT--see Added in edit 2)". It appears below. It started out as a (properly!) positive review when there was no real alternative clip-on tuner, but the Intelli IMT-500 changed all that. The edits described a gradual but dramatic shift from the Intellitouch to the Intelli. It's no longer gradual.
I'm blessed with an abundance of jams where I live. I attend about 2 each week from among the 5 that interest me. Given the cost of the Intellitouch, one might expect people to keep using them rather than abandon them. However, that's not what's happening. The change has occurred so quickly that it would be impossible for someone unfamiliar with the Intellitouch to tell that it ever dominated the market. I decided to document the switchover. See Customer Images.
Also, I was wrong below when I said that the Intellitouch was easier to stuff into a pocket. I've discovered that if the Intelli is folded just right, it fits quite comfortably into a small cellphone/camera case that is even easier to deal with than the Intellitouch's case.
Bottom line: Avoid the Intellitouch. Get an Intelli.
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DEFINITELY YES...or maybe DEFINITELY NOT (NOT--see Added in edit 2)
There's no middle ground with either model of the Intellitouch tuner. You'll either love it or hate it.
The main reason why people hate them is because there are so many situations where they do not work well. In particular, they have trouble with the bass notes of dreadnought sized guitars. The more overtones the instrument produces, the worse the Intellitouch behaves. If you've no other source of amusement, find someone trying to use an Intellitouch to tune the bass string of a Martin rosewood dreadnought.
Intellitouch users come up with ingenious workarounds for when the unit misbehaves. The most popular are
* to place the tuner in a different position on the instrument. Sometimes moving it just a little bit on the headstock will do the trick.
* to pluck the note very gently with the fingertip rather than a pick. This minimizes the effects of overtones and often cures the problem.
* to tune to an octave or harmonic.
* to not worry about the letter in the LCD display. (It will often display a B when tuning to low E.)
* to keep plugging away until the tuner registers properly. However, once the tuner has stopped registering, I find that plucking a string repeatedly--hard or soft--doesn't help. I quiet all the strings and pause to let the tuner "reset".
* to give up, that is, to tune the first 5 strings with the Intellitouch and tune the 6-th string in the relative way by adjusting the tuning peg until the note at the fifth fret of the 6-th string sounds the same as the open 5-th string.
This is enough to make you wonder why anyone would own one. There's a one word answer: CONVENIENCE!
* If you play in a group, you'll quickly appreciate how a clip-on tuner let's you tune even when others are playing.
* If you play outside of your home or apartment, you'll quickly appreciate how easy it is to carry with no wires to tangle.
* You might not realize how often you tune in low-light situations until you see how often the Intellitouch's backlight proves useful.
I used to be an Intellitouch basher because of the situations where it wouldn't work well. However, the more I found myself moving around at festivals and jams, the more I grew to appreciate the Intellitouch's convenience and backlight. Now that I've years of experience with it, I have to admit that it's my tuner of choice for outside the house. Now, you can be amused at *my* rationalizations of why its problems aren't really problems.
The other complaint some people have with the Intellitouch is its scale. It indicates whether a string is tuned by displaying up to 3 angle brackets on either side of the name of the note. When the string is tuned accurately, the Intellitouch displays 3 brackets on each side of the letter denoting the note being played. The brackets disappear from the left of the letter as the string goes sharp and from the right of the letter as the string goes flat. The complaint is that the scale is supposed not to be sensitive enough to do its job--that there's too much wiggle room within what the Intellitouch tuner calls "tuned". I don't see it, or rather I don't hear it. I don't have problems with its accuracy.
Some comments:
Any tuner with an input jack (typically used with a cable to tune electric guitars) can be turned into a clip on tuner by adding a clip-on tuner pickup such as a Signalflex SF30. That's what I do at home with my Korg and Seiko tuners in preference to my Intellitouch.
After letting Intellitouch own the clip-on tuner market for years, other companies such as Korg and Seiko have released their own clip-ons, but they haven't caught on, yet. I'm not sure why except, perhaps, that those who have an Intellitouch aren't eager to spend the money on another expensive tuner while those who don't already own a clip-on tuner are impressed by the sheer numbers of Intellitouches around.
Finally, regardless of what tuner you use, always tune up, never down. That is, if when the note is overshot so that the string becomes sharp, drop the tension and tune up once again until the target is achieved. When a string is loosened it sometimes continues to slip a bit until the tension equalized between the pin, saddle, nut, and tuning peg. This is less an issue when tightening a string.
Bottom line:
The Intellitouch is extremely convenient if you play with others or outside the home. Those who already own tuners with input jacks should consider getting a tuner pick up such as the Signalflex SF30.
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Added in edit:
I'm a sucker for new gadgets. I recently got an Intelli IMT-500, which, unfortunately, Amazon does not yet stock (as of mid-September 2006). The Intelli beats the Intellitouch (unfortunate similarity of names, that) in every way but one. The Intelli is more sensitive. The Intelli's scale is easier to read. The Intelli's backlight is brighter.
The *only* problem the Intelli has is that it folds up into a cube that is awkward to fit in a pocket. I'd even be a bit nervous having it in a gig bag's pouch for fear of what might happen to the guitar's top if the bag/cube got whacked just the right (that is, wrong) way.
I now almost always use the Intelli, with the Intellitouch reserved for situations like jams or festivals where I'll find myself walking around and wanting a tuner in my pocket.
I am also noticing a gradual but dramatic shift. Those who've already invested their money are sticking with their Itellitouches for the moment, but all the new tuners I see showing up at jams are Intellis.
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Added in edit 2:
The more experience I gain with the Intelli, the less I use the Intellitouch. The Intelli is *much* more responsive and its meter is *much* easier to use. I knew I was accepting compromises with the Intellitouch, but until the Intelli came along I didn' appreciate how many. The ONLY advantage the Intellitouch has is that it's easier to fit into a pocket, but the Intellitouch is large, so that works only if you'll be standing most of the time.
Were there no Intelli, I'd stand by my original Intellitouch review. But there is, so I can't. Skip the Intellitouch, get an Intelli. Now, if only Amazon would carry it. No big deal, though, since they are readily available on line and are making big inroads into music stores.
 ***LIFETIME WARRANTY AS OF 2006*** June 1, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The company is now offering a lifetime warranty on any tuner purchased in 2006. If you have an older model you can send $25 and they will replace it with a lifetime warranty 2006 version. Regarding the comment of the person who bought it and couldn't get it to tune while bowing, the manufacturer has a different product (CenterPitch Universal) for bowed or wind instruments. Best tuner I've bought ever!!!!
My favorite tuner for many reasons! September 3, 2005
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
I have owned many electronic tuners over the years. My favorite was the little square Sabine tuner until I found the intellitouch tuners. Here are my reasons.
1. Diplay is easy to read without your glasses and it is lit with red light so you can see it easily at night--even if you are almost blind without your glasses. :)
2. You can leave them clipped to your instrument while you are jamming so that you do not accidently leave them lying around somewhere and lose them at others' campsites.
3. You do not have to be embarrassed if you accidently pick up someone else's tuner at a jam session. Black sharpie warnings will not show up on the black tuner. That was what I hated about the old Sabine wood tuners. Folks would write--"this tuner does not belong to Mary Cox" in black sharpie on the wood. :)
4. It is fairly inexpensive and the company backs them well. It is quick and cheap to have a broken one fixed.
5. Some folks do not like these tuners (I'm not sure why)and will send you theirs because they buy something else. At least one nice person sent me hers when I lost one of mine. It works great and I'm still using it. I left my other one sitting on a bench in the park and of course it was gone when I went back. :)
6.We do not care about tuner fashion. We do not care about cool or uncool--we just want tuners we can read and not lose. :)
My husband and I have three or four of these kicking around the house all the time--and we love them. Keeps us in tune and we lose less of these than any other brand.:)
 Just for style points, you need a Korg, an off-brand, a gold tone tuner August 3, 2005
26 out of 41 found this review helpful
Looking back it appears that what is involved is a lack of quality control by Intellitouch. While a number of people report the problems that I report, other people I know whose judgment and knowledge is impeccable report no such problems and adore them. Some must be OK, but many must be crummy.
The Intellitouch Tuner's seemed to be the rage of Bluegrass and singer-song writer players around here about 10 years ago. They looked cool clipped onto the end of a banjo or guitar or fiddle. They provided an image of the player as someone who was concerned with her or his tuning at every second of a performance.
A fool and his money were soon parted and I bought one. I must say that I have about 8 different tuners for my guitars, banjos, and my fiddle. I find the Intellitouch to be the most useless one I have ever bought other than cheap 5 or ten buck tuners that don't last after a month of use. I advise musicians who care about the grind of working on stage or playing at home to get a 20 buck kord chromatic and, if you need to worry about tuning up while band members or an orchestra is also tuning, get a cheap pickup clip for it.
The intellitouch's systems with arrows is hard to figure out and much harder than a simple meter dial. It is really hard to figure out when it is on the other end of a guitar or banjo from your eyes and is too big to fit on a fiddle and not effect your playing.
I think if you need to know whether you are in tune WHILE you are playing by wearing one of these things, you really need to do some work to train your ears to hear proper tuning, and to school yourself so you recognize proper notes. You also need to figure out how to adjust the tuning gears and pegs on your guitar or banjo properly or insure that your setup is ok on a fiddle, or perhaps get a decent fine tuning tail piece for your fiddle. If you have to lean on this strap on to do it, you just aren't doing your business right!
The Intellitouches are not reliable at all if the battery runs down. Moreover, instead of using AAA, AA, or 9-volt batteries like most other tuners, batteries you can easily install and pick up in any store, these tuners use special batteries.
I use tuners to check the intonation of my fiddle as I struggle to learn the instrument. I also use tuners to check the intonation of my slide playing on electric and acoustic guitar and on banjo. Any tuner with a dial is much easier for you to get a read, particularly while you are playing or practicing than these intellitouches.
Of course, if you are either playing electric instruments or using a pickup on acoustic instruments, these tuners are useless.
The basic 20 buck Korg Chromatic has all you will ever need in a tuner. If you have to tune up in the middle of music or other musicians tuning get a little clip on pickup to clip to your instrument's bridge.
I have found that cheap no-name guitar/bass tuners have features these dont have like a setting to memorize alternate tunings. Moreover Korgs and most other dial tuners have calibrations for you to tune with added cents which may be useful for the classical violinist trying to tune even tempered.
If you are interested in style points, particularly if you play bluegrass or old time music as I do, try the Gold Tone Bluegrass tuner that has all the dial functions plus settings for G banjo tuning, guitar tuning, and fiddle or mandolin tuning.
Tuning For Dummies February 9, 2005
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I bought this as a beginning violin student a few years ago. I got tired of waiting until my lessons for my instructor to tune my violin. You simply attach it anywhere on the instrument and pluck the strings. The number of arrows on the left and right of the display tell you if the string is flat or sharp. Your goal is to get a readout of 3 arrows on each side. Too few on the left? It's sharp. Loosen peg. Too few on the right? It's flat. Tighten peg. Tune and pluck, tune and pluck...bingo! Everyone I've shown it to wants one. It's a little expensive, but if you want a fast and easy way to tune, this is for you.
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