D'Addario Accessories Micro Banjo Tuner - Multi-color display - Digital Tuner - Non Marring Hoop Bracket - Fast & Accurate Tuning - Visual Metronome

Great tuner, attaches easily and stays out of the way until needed. Tuning appears solid.

After reading the reviews I was apprehensive thinking it may not fit. Many say they broke it trying to install. I thought the whole thing went under the brackets for the head. I found it fit perfectly on top of one and under two. There is enough flex for this fit. My brackets are 1.5 inches apart. In the first photo notice the half-circle opening at the bottom of the strap. That goes over one bracket the other two fit under the corresponding brackets. To install slide one side of the strap completely under the front bracket, then press down on the back of the bracket, so it will slide under the third bracket, while sliding the entire piece towards that third bracket.To make this easy to see you can remove the actual tuner from the bracket just slide it forward and it will come off. If you look at the underside of the tuner you will see a large and small hole on the strap. the tuner has a small knob on it. the knop fits into the large hole and slides to the smaller hole to keep it secure.Some have issues with instructions on the tuner's use. I found it very intuitive. once installed turn it on and pluck a string the tuner will respond with a note and some lines on either side of the note. tune to the point that the note you want has a small blue line on either side of the note. It seemed touchy on my banjo that is the best I could tune.

The best thing about this tuner design is that it can be permanently parked in a convenient spot on almost any banjo. It is really convenient that I don't need to track down the tuner and clamp it on somewhere every time I get the instrument out of the case. "Almost any" is a key point here and the only reason it gets four stars instead of five. If the typical bracket hooks on the average banjo are only a couple of inches apart the plastic arms on this unit will slip under a pair of adjacent ones. The tuner can slide back and forth a short distance but will then stay in place. I did find it would not work on one of my instruments with fewer brackets which are further apart because one or the other of the arms was always slipping out from under its bracket. I intend to improvise a way to extend one of them so I can use one of these on that instrument but I'd rather see the manufacturer make them maybe twice as long with break lines cast into them. That way they could be customized to fit instruments with different bracket spacing. Otherwise, this is an excellent unobtrusive, accurate and sensitive tuner.

As noted in the headline, you need a banjo with 24 brackets for this to fit well. I tried it on my tenor banjo with 18 brackets and it just doesn't work. But on my 24 bracket banjo it is perfect. I've used the guitar versions of this tuner and I'm very happy with all of them. This banjo centric tuner is no exception.

I have 2 of them they are outstanding. The tuner is small yet easy to see and use for the player. However, it is unnoticeable to others and functions very well. The black color makes it difficult for onlookers to see it attached to the banjo when placed on the top part of the rim near the neck heal. I use this product all the time and it works very well for me on both of my banjos. It is a good value for the money. The screen denotes the string that is to be played and is fairly easy to see. Of course, a good quality of the strings on the banjo must be used, in order for the tuner to function properly.

I just received this from Amazon and I have been experimenting with it on my Deering Goodtime banjo. It does fit in the hoop brackets and it does work. The deficiency is that although it can rotate just fine it cannot tilt. This means I cannot tilt it to get a direct look at the face of the tuner without tilting the banjo neck down. Not a killer issue, just that it is not as convenient to view as it could have been, if it had been designed to rotate AND tilt.I then fastened an ordinary NS and a Snark S-1 (the small Son of Snark tuner) to the headstock for comparison tunings. I had all three on at the same time. The banjo tuner was slower getting the tuning information displayed. Since the ordinary NS and this banjo tuner use the same head, I reason that the bracket is not receiving/passing the vibrations as strongly as the same device on the headstock. Note that the two tuners on the head always agreed on the tuning. The banjo tuner was often different, sometimes showing showing a different key. (Dunno why?) The Snark S-1 was the fastest to show the tuning and with the bigger and color display was by far quicker and easiest to read.In summary it is kind of cool, being designed for a banjo. I will keep it on my banjo and maybe I will grow to love it. Until then I will be using the Snark S-1 (aka Son of Snark) on the head of the banjo, for it's easy to read face, as my primary tuner. The NS tuner on the head is still an excellent tuner. I will keep it as a backup for the Snark. S-1. It takes almost no space at all in my case.

Have the people who designed this thing ever *seen* a banjo? It does not fit, in any fashion I can think up, any of my banjos. It's not a matter of the number of hooks, it's the fact that at best it rattles around -- this on high-hook-count Vegas as well as others. I'm sure it is possible to make a bespoke banjo tuner, but this sure as hell ain't it.AFTER A COUPLE OF DAYS: Got it to more or less work, once I used a metal pick (not a banjo pick) to get the residue of the adhesive plastic off the battery. It still wants to buzz and slide around, though. Its size is convenient enough, but this is more than canceled by an overly stiff on/off button. The door to the battery compartment, too, is apparently overly stiff, though perhaps I'm doing it incorrectly. I can't know, though, because it came, as mentioned, with absolutely no instructions. I can't believe the company was serious about this product.