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Early History In 1948, 10 years after the invention of the strobe tuner, Chicago-based Peterson Electro-Musical Products began building instrument tuners under the direction of Dick Peterson, a pioneer of solid state electronics. The first Peterson tuner was the Model 150 in 1952. This was updated to become the Model 200 in 1959 and the design was advanced to solid state with the Model 300 in 1966.
Realizing the need for a lightweight but accurate device, Peterson engineer Bill Hass built the first battery powered handheld tuner, the Model 70, in 1964. |
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Look Familiar? The first Peterson strobe tuner, called the Model 400, was introduced in 1967. It was the first solid-state strobe tuner, did not require calibration, and allowed musicians to select one-cent increments. This was a major breakthrough for the strobe tuner and helped pave the way for Peterson to become the leading tuner company in the world.
With rock musicians´ increasing fascination with all things technical and the accompanying strive for perfection in the audio arena, the strobe tuner began to be a common sight on stage and in the recording studio. Many will recall first seeing the mysterious flickering dials behind such luminaries as the Grateful Dead, The Who, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young et al. Peterson tuners also took their place as a must-have in the road cases of their touring crews, which continues today!
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Stage and Studio By the 70s, the guitar community had adopted the strobe tuner backstage and in studios, but the everyday player wanted to have a tuner that was within their budget.
Many companies, most of which are now long gone, entered the tuner market with a great variety of tuning types using everything from LEDs to flashing numbers and needles. Satisfying the desires of some of the market, a few companies survived and did well with their consumer grade tuners.
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Model 100 In 1980 Peterson introduced the first dedicated guitar tuner, the Model 100. The Model 100 used the strobe concept to create a rolling LED display indicating the error in pitch by the speed of the rolling LEDs. This is not the same as what people are calling “strobe mode” in some of today’s tuners. Peterson's strobe method even in the 1970s allowed much better accuracy than the consumer brands of then and today. The Model 100 found great success in the early '80s and was sold for nearly a decade.
Interestingly, in 2006 a company introduced a tuner using the same LED strobe method that Peterson used in the Model 100, touting it as new. “What’s new is old”? |
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