HARDWIRE
HT- 6 POLYPHONIC
TUNER
BY JASON SHADRICK
We all remember the first time we strapped on a guitar and strummed
what we thought would be the chord that
would lead us to fame and fortune. If you
were like me, it probably didn’t sound that
great due to both nonexistent technique
and not understanding what “playing in
tune” meant. Looking back, I spent quite a
few hours bashing away on my blue-green
Ibanez before truly understanding how I
should be using those shiny tuning pegs
on the headstock. Of course, since then I
embraced sonority and became a stickler for
playing (and staying) in tune.
At this past NAMM show, Hard Wire
introduced the HT- 6 Polyphonic Tuner.
The basic idea behind a polyphonic tuner is
that it enables you to strum all your guitar’s
strings at once and tune the ones that need
it without pushing any buttons. The HT- 6’s
rugged casing seems capable of standing up
to the roughest gig conditions, but despite
its workhorse exterior, it also has a few bells
and whistles inside.
Bright Lights, Big Display
Like most pedals, the HT- 6 can run either
on a 9-volt battery or with an optional
AC power supply. And as with many of
the more competitive pedal tuners on the
market, the HT- 6 can provide up to 1000
mA of power to other pedals in your signal
path. Two thoughtful inclusions for players who gig a lot are the glow-in-the-dark
sticker for the footswitch and the hook-and-loop pad for easily adding the HT- 6 to
your pedalboard. You can tell the engineers
at Hard Wire took a lot of time to think
about the design of the HT- 6’s display. As
soon as you fire it up, you’re greeted with a
cavalcade of LEDs bright enough to catch
your eye on most stages—and I was able to
read it better in sunlight than other LED-equpped tuners I’ve used.
USB port
Six easy-
to-read
Five tuning
modes for
guitar and
bass
LED strings
Two
display
modes
Note
readout
Hard Wire’s designers also clearly took
time to make the display more intuitive
than other tuners by using a vertical readout. Similar to what you’d find in tablature, standard tuning (E–A–D–G–B–E) is
displayed bottom to top. Besides featuring
multiple tunings for guitar, the HT- 6 also
works with 4-, 5-, or 6-string basses (with
B–E–A–D–G–C being the default tuning
for the latter). Below the string grid, an
LED display shows the note being played.
The string grid can be operated in two
modes, which are easily selected with the
small Mode button to the right of the note
readout. In Standard mode, the LEDs function like a typical tuner—with the string
being in tune when the lights move to the
center of the display. There’s also a Strobe
mode for players who prefer that type of
readout. On the other side of the note readout, a Tuning button accesses five preset
tunings: Guitar Standard, Guitar Drop-D,
