TC Electronic PolyTune Clip review

The world's first polyphonic headstock tuner

  • £35
  • €48
  • $49.99
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A polyphonic tuner for your headstock.

MusicRadar Verdict

Far from the cheapest headstock tuner, but aside from that polyphonic display, it's extremely accurate and rather cool!

Pros

  • +

    Very accurate. Wide jaws fit all kinds of headstocks.

Cons

  • -

    Expensive for a headstock tuner. Some issues when using polyphonic display.

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The Clip is the world's first polyphonic headstock/clip-on guitar tuner. Based on the PolyTune pedal tuners the Clip is little longer than a nine-volt block battery, about half the thickness, and is attached to a stainless steel clip with rubber pads designed to protect the headstock you clip it to.

Its jaws are wide, too - even thick classical guitar headstocks are no problem. The tuner moves through one plane - it doesn't swivel 360 degrees - but the display does reorientate depending on if you have it on the face or rear of your headstock.

In Use

In PolyTune style, you strum all the strings to instantly tell which ones are sharp or flat. When you start tuning the individual notes it displays in either needle chromatic mode (with an accuracy of +/-0.5 cent), or the strobe mode (+/- 0.02 cent). You can change the standard A440 reference and you can switch to bass mode (not polyphonic).

The only oddity is that when you've tuned up according to the chromatic or strobe displays, the polyphonic display says you're still not 100 per cent in tune.

Dave Burrluck
Dave Burrluck

Dave Burrluck is one of the world’s most experienced guitar journalists, who started writing back in the '80s for International Musician and Recording World, co-founded The Guitar Magazine and has been the Gear Reviews Editor of Guitarist magazine for the past two decades. Along the way, Dave has been the sole author of The PRS Guitar Book and The Player's Guide to Guitar Maintenance as well as contributing to numerous other books on the electric guitar. Dave is an active gigging and recording musician and still finds time to make, repair and mod guitars, not least for Guitarist’s The Mod Squad.