On a guitar tuner, should the needle go up and stay in one spot or is it normal

Question:This is my first time using a tuner.

I don't get it.

The needle on the meter is just jumping up and down as I play each string,
it'll jump to 0 but then jump all over the place on the way when it goes down,
and it goes down right away instead of sitting there even for a second.

Is this normal?

Help me out?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: This is my first time using a tuner.

I don't get it.

The needle on the meter is just jumping up and down as I play each string,
it'll jump to 0 but then jump all over the place on the way when it goes down,
and it goes down right away instead of sitting there even for a second.

Is this normal?

Help me out?

It depends on the quality of the tuner. Nice tuners are a little (or a lot) smoother than cheaper ones.

BTW: Usually the center mark is "in tune". Above that should be up to 50 cents sharp and below will show down to 50 cents flat. (Just wanted to be sure you're reading it right)

Ideally, the tuner will lock onto the tone of the string and follow it very closely. When the string is in tune, this will have the appearance of the needle rising quickly to just a little sharp or flat and then settling in to the zero mark or very close to it until the tuner can't hear the string any longer. Then it will drop off to all the way flat.

A cheap tuner may have trouble locking on to the tone of the string and may indicate a different note than the string should be (usually a 4th or 5th up). It may also be erratic while the string vibrates.

I have a couple cheap tuners and they generally work _just_ well enough to get the E string in tune. And then I tune by ear from that. My good tuner (built into my BassPOD) follows the string very well as I described above. I use it to tune all strings directly.

Here's a couple of pretty nice tuners:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/B...
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/B...

Most tuners have a slow and a fast setting. If the jumping around bothers you, try the slow setting. If your tuner has no slow setting, play the note one time and be sure and mute the other strings as best you can. Wait until the needle settles, and on most tuners it should settle in the middle when the instrument is in tune. If the needle goes down right away, you may not be close enough to the built in microphone, or there may be a lot of extraneous noise in the area. Try putting the tuner closer to the instrument, or get an inexpensive contact mike and plug it into the direct input of the tuner. If that is unsatisfactory, try a clip on tuner.

http://www.finecases.com/browse/intelli-...

Hope this helps.

well are you playing all the strings? you should be doing one at a time just hit it once and it should start moving steadily its never really gonna hit it perfectly unless your supersuper accuritate and tune while it playing and when the sound gets low strum that one string again till you hit the mark

Hit the string gently. then quiet the string by gently touching it. Also make sure that you don't have background noise. You can also try this.
http://www.8notes.com/guitar_tuner/

What happens with tuners is that, on the initial pluck, it should be at zero if in tune.
The waving is normal because the sound decreases after hitting the string.
Sometimes, the string is bad even though it is new and that's because it had too much shelf life.

Final thought: when you tine, MAKE SURE THE VOLUMES AND TONES ARE SET TO MAX.

is there any sort of vibration going on? doing laundry, or someone upstairs jumping around?

my tuner won't work at twenty after the hour when the train is going by.