Guitar tuners are an essential part of getting your instrument ready to play. Using an electronic tuner means that you no longer have to rely on tuning by listening. This provides a welcome break from thinking you’ve nearly got the sound right to actually seeing it’s there on a dial. A good guitar tuner, be it for an electronic or acoustic guitar, will have a good display which shows not only when the string is in tune but also sounds to tell you.
Acoustic guitars made from wood generally flex a bit so as you tune them and change the tension on one string, it affects the tension on the other strings. This in turn changes the tuning. An acoustic tuner is great here as you can make several tunings to iterate to the point when the whole guitar stabilises and is in tune. It might take two or three goes until the guitar body firms up.
There’s also a difference between steel and nylon strings to consider. Nylon strings often take a bit longer to settle down so you’ll need a bit of patience. Going through the iteractions using an acoustic tuner is invaluable here. If you find your guitar struggles to stay in tune it could be the tuning forks or maybe the fact that your strings are just too old. Have a look at them to see if they have been flattened at the contact points on with the fretboard.
