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== Tuners ==
Even the most advanced players use some kind of tuning tool to help them. '''If you don't own a tuner, buy one. If you have or download a smart phone, there are free smartphone tuner apps out thereapp. ''' There are 3 kinds of tuners. The best kind for electric guitar is one you can plug the electical output of your guitar directly intothe deveice. The other two either use a microphone or a vibration sensor to get an electrical signal to analyze, which can introduce noise. The vibrational ones can also get broken from a hard shock. A tuner app on a phone will use a microphone - with electric guitar it can be difficult to play loud enough so that the microphone can pick up a clean signal.
Most tuners only tell you how close you are to a target note (A, B, C, etc), not what octave that note is (A2, C3, etc). You should be able to tell if you are a whole octave off, however. If you are an octave below, the string should have very little tension and may not resonate at all. If it does resonate, it will likely flap against the frets. If you are an octave above, the string will be extremely tense, to the point where it will be near breaking. It's always safer to go lower than higher. So if your target note is E but the note on your tuner is A, and you are unsure if you need to raise or lower the frequency, try lowering it down to E first. If the string is now way too loose, you went the wrong way. no harm done, just tune it up to the next highest E.