How to tune a ukulele with a guitar tuner

Hi there mates, Casey here. Say, you got your awesome brand spanking new ukulele and you’re excited to play. You did a bit of homework or tried a friend’s ukulele before and you wanted to do the same on your own ukulele and bam, it sounds weird or wrong. You just need to tune your ukulele correctly. For this to be done easily, you just use a tuner that usually comes with a starter kit. Problem is, what if it doesn’t? So here's how to tune a ukulele with a guitar tuner.

Though, conveniently, you’ve got a guitar tuner lying around because you play the guitar as well? Will this work too? Sure! Here’s how to tune a ukulele with a guitar tuner and how to make it work properly.

First, if you haven’t seen the first piece we made for tuning your ukulele using an ukulele tuner, you can read that too because the way we do it with a guitar tuner is almost identical? Cool right? It is because music instruments, albeit being wildly varied, derive from similar theories or discipline, which we sometimes call as scales or modes or whatever technical advanced stuff you’ll learn along the way. Still, we don’t have to worry about those for now because we aim to tune a ukulele with a guitar tuner and that’s what we’ll accomplish. 

Most clip on tuners for guitars, be it electric or acoustic works in the same exact manner that ukulele tuners do. In fact, you’re better off calling tuners as chromatic clip-on tuners. It won’t really matter if you’ve originally purchased it for your guitar or ukulele. The only significant difference is the size. Small chromatic meant for small instruments like ukuleles might not fit a guitar’s headstock, but most tuners that you can use with a guitar would easily clamp on almost all ukuleles. So there. They are all called chromatic tuners and we’ve got those out of the way.

Once you’ve determined the tuning you’re using, the same principle applies. You just need to make sure that you’re in chromatic mode. This is usually indicated by a letter C somewhere in your tuner screen. Also, make sure that you’re in 440hz reference for the most accurate representation of your ukulele.  Once set, you adjust each string individually with plucking individual strings to achieve the desired tuning e.g: GCEA. 

Learn the Ukulele With Bondi Ukuleles

There it is. Pretty simple right? Want a new ukulele that has everything else including a badass tuner along with pretty much everything you need? Check out our great selection of ukes for both beginners and advanced players, and our team is always here to answer any questions you have about our products. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us today to know more!