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Enjoy a good old singsong?
JOWOOM T2 Smart Tuner Winder
Ordered 21st June 2024, arrived 2nd July 2024 (12 Days)
Cost including postage: £22.63 AliExpress
I always wanted to try one of these, but at over £70 in the UK it was difficult to justify to myself, especially if the wife found out. I assume that if you find these in a local music shop, they might be up for a bit of bartering, but to be honest I can’t be asked with the travelling and hassle. In any case they are probably paying more than that to the UK distributor, European Distributor etc. I’ve been in retail, I know and it can be very depressing especially as so many manufacturers supply directly to the public nowadays.
It arrived nicely packaged, I charged it up, tuned my first ukulele and instantly broke the “E” string, then I read the instructions. The instructions are actually very good (except modes) and comprehensive. If you read of the 1* reviews (as I always do) they mostly seem to be down to “user error”.
Having mastered the setup, I then proceeded to tune my small collection of ukuleles and it was brilliant. Took no time at all. I even checked them against my go to “Snark” tuner and they were spot on, and I didn’t break any more strings
Firstly, long press to turn it on and short presses of the “On” button to scroll through to “Uke”.
There are two modes of tuning “SEMI” and “AUTO” actioned by the “MODE” button. There is a third “CUSTOM” but for some reason this is not available under the “UKE” setting. I assume you can use the “Guitar” setting for Baritone Ukes but I haven’t tried this.
In the manual they seem to have got the instructions the wrong way round. If the Uke is roughly in tune, the “AUTO” setting detects which string you are on and tunes accordingly, except Low G.
In “SEMI” you tell the unit which string you are tuning, and there is a Low G setting in this mode.
If you hold the unit against the headstock near the tuning pegs rather than on them, it will read the note you pluck and spin accordingly (good to watch, but not a lot of use accept to practice without actually turning the tuning pegs).
You can also use the unit as a simple string winder with “Up/Down” buttons. This is great for string changing, which I’m sure we all do at regular intervals, don’t we?
Would I buy it again, yes but not for much over £30 and I do like gadgets. Set in the right mode etc. it’s brilliant.
A few gripes, charging is via the old-style mini-USB rather than the more common USB-C, confusion over the Auto and Semi-Auto modes in the manual (mine at least), plus no battery life indicator when unplugged. It works well with tuning pegs that face the rear, but for side mounted tuning pegs you have hold the unit upside-down which is a bit awkward.
However, there is a bigger problem
Although there may be quite a few of these for sale on the internet, at the time of writing (July 2024) the Jowoom website appears to be non-existent and their Facebook page hasn’t been updated since September 2020!!
Make of that what you will... Mike
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