Fast, bright, sleek, accurate and polyphonic, the TC Electronic PolyTune chromatic tuner is pretty hard to top. Even so, TC refused to rest on its laurels. First, it developed the ultracool PolyTune iPhone app; now it’s introducing the PolyTune Mini, which provides many of the PolyTune pedal’s features in a box that’s about half the size of the already compact original.
FEATURES
Despite being much smaller overall, the PolyTune Mini has a large display that features 110 bright LEDs, just like its bigger sibling. Operation is also the same—strum all six open strings to instantly view which strings are out of tune, then pluck individual strings to automatically switch to Chromatic mode. The PolyTune Mini also provides modes for Dropped, Capo and Drop D tunings. These include five dropped tunings (Ef to B, in semitones) and seven capo tunings (F to B, in semitones), as well as drop D. The modes are accessible via the side-mounted tuning button (Dropped and Capo modes) and by holding down the footswitch (Drop D mode).
In creating the Mini, TC did away with a few of the PolyTune’s features. The sacrifices include Bass mode, the needle/stream display toggle, pitch-reference calibration (the Mini is A440 only), the USB port (for software updates), automatic dimming, the nine-volt power output, and optional battery operation (a nine-volt adaptor is required but must be purchased separately).
PERFORMANCE
Despite these omissions, the PolyTune Mini delivers all of the essential functions that made the original model so successful. The bright display and Polyphonic mode let you tune up astonishingly quickly and accurately, and true-bypass switching lets you tune in silence. If space on your pedal board is limited and you can live without the original PolyTune’s extra features, the PolyTune Mini is an excellent, more affordable alternative that delivers the performance guitarists need without any compromises.
THE BOTTOM LINE
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The PolyTune Mini may be half the size of the PolyTune, but it delivers all the fast performance, accuracy and essential features of the original model in a sleek and slender unit.
Chris is the co-author of Eruption - Conversations with Eddie Van Halen. He is a 40-year music industry veteran who started at Boardwalk Entertainment (Joan Jett, Night Ranger) and Roland US before becoming a guitar journalist in 1991. He has interviewed more than 600 artists, written more than 1,400 product reviews and contributed to Jeff Beck’s Beck 01: Hot Rods and Rock & Roll and Eric Clapton’s Six String Stories.
