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What makes Laidman & Katsura tuners better?

Our pitch-recognition algorithm! Some of our competitors have nice graphics, we give them that. But, they can't touch our proprietary pitch-recognition algorithm which is extremely accurate and fast.

Why is fast important? When you're tuning an instrument you are engaged in a type of "closed" loop -- you play a note on your instrument, view the error on screen, and make an adjustment on your instrument to reduce the error. The process repeats very tightly until the note is "in tune", which means the error signal is minimized to an 'acceptable' degree. Now imagine that the tuner takes some time to make a determination, then as you make your adjustments you are actually tuning to "stale" data and you may overshoot the target, repeatedly. Or imagine that the error signal is not accurate, then your correction is meaningless. This "closed" loop system is well understood in the machine control industry where it is called "servo" control. Any delay or inaccuracy in determination of the error signal greatly decreases the fidelity of the system.

Most tuners that you find elsewhere take a full second to make a determination. We make an accurate determination within 45 milliseconds. That's less than 1/20 of a second. So next time you try another tuner, make a mental assessment of how long it is really taking to come to a decision. If the needle starts off to the left and appears to "charge up" to the final value, that's a tip-off that they are actually entertaining you, giving you something fun to watch, while they are still working on a decision. Or, notice if the needle jumps around and/or gives false note readings, that's an indication of pitch inaccuracy, or inability to recognize the waveform of your instrument.

Our algorithm works on a wide variety of instrument waveforms and we even show you when we are "locked on" to the instrument waveform with our tracking indicator, something our competitors don't have because they probably don't want you to know when they are having trouble! We used over 100 different test waveforms during the development of our algorithm (including human voice) it all works seemlessly without any special configuration or setup required. Our pitch-recognition algorithm has been refined over a period of 10 years!

We encourage you to compare our products with all competitors, including hardware tuners found in music stores. We are not aware of ANY product - hardware or software, that can rival our pitch-recognition algorithm!

Why is the serial number i purchased at the web store not accepted?

Make sure to enter your name and serial number EXACTLY as they appear in the order confirmation email. (Upper/Lower case matters.) We recommend that you copy/paste BOTH your name and serial number in order to avoid typing mistakes. DO NOT COPY BLANK SPACES AT THE BEGINNING or ENDING OF YOUR NAME OR SERIAL NUMBER.

Do you accept purchase orders, or checks?

Sorry, we don't. If you're a teacher, you might consider paying out of pocket and have the school reimburse you. Our preferred method of payment is through our store. If you are placing a large order and absolutely can't use our regular payment channels, then please contact us to discuss other arrangements, but we normally prefer that you simply use our store.