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The Roadie 2 can tune your guitar automatically

The Roadie 2 can tune your guitar automatically

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The Roadie Tuner is one of those feel-good Kickstarter success stories that makes the whole experiment worth it. It's a quirky solution to a common problem, and it actually shipped to its backers! The tuner works by pairing with a smartphone to listen to the string you're plucking, and then robotically rotating your instrument's tuning peg until the string is in tune. It didn't change the world, but it worked well and removed some of the stress of the tuning process.

Now Roadie is back for round two, and this time it's leaving the smartphone behind. There's a built-in screen on the Roadie 2, which lets you select the tuning you're going for, and there's also a built-in microphone. Roadie 2 can additionally read the vibrations of your instrument to help you tune in a noisy environment. The smartphone app still works for some more in-depth features, but now it's optional, reducing the number of things you need to juggle to get to EADGBE.

Roadie 2 will retail for more than the original, at $129, but it's available to Kickstarter backers for $89. There's also a Roadie Bass version for people like myself who have given up on the more difficult stringed instruments but still want to join the jam.

Roadie 2 is supposed to ship in October of this year, and it's already met its funding goal.