Korg TM60BK Tuner Metronome, Black

Works great for my needs

I've used a lot of different metronomes: Taktells, seiko style, qwiktime, numorous card style metronomes, my teacher's dr beat which I loved (and was a major reason I chose to practice in his studio) and my mother's seth thomas electric metronome when I would come home. Of all of these, my favorite besides the dr beat was the seiko style ones. They were durable with one movable knob only, no display- nothing fancy to break down (the seiko one i used for teaching, I must have dropped a hundred times) - and they were loud! I'd leave one in a practice room or somewhere and it was no big loss. Those card style digital ones in particular were like 10 bucks anywhere 15 years ago! I've always been nervous to get an integrated metronome such as the one above because I figured the more features, the more possibilities for something to stop working. This has been sort of proven to me in my experiences with some of these integrated tuner/metronome combos. The only tuner I've ever owned, on the other hand, was my beloved korg CA-30. I had it for 15 years. Practiced intonation using the tone generator for an hour each day for something like 5-6 of those years. It never failed. In fact, I lost it last year during a move. I bought a few decent looking tone generators to try and replace it (I only use the tuner when setting up instruments, not when practicing), and finally picked this one up. It doesn't have any fancy roll wheels to change tempo (like that dr beat). In fact, on the surface, the design looks pretty clunky: It's a little large. Separate sides for both functions with dedicated buttons, no color display or anything, but i've gotten used to it and i really appreciate its design now. The metronome tap feature I use all the time and is quite accurate. I also like that when i turn it off and on, it returns to the tempo at which I had previously left it. That's a nice touch. There are beat subdivisions and you can set it to a few different meters. I don't really use any of those features much, but some will appreciate them in so portable a unit. It's pretty loud, though I wish it were a little louder and my main gripe on this side is that i can't track the tempo as subtly as i would like.. Sometimes, I'll click it up a hair and the tempo divisions seem to go between 3 and 4 bpm at around 50 bpm to 8 (!) at around 200 bpm. This is a minor inconvenience though. Taktells, for example have this lack of precision borne into the design. The tone generator is great, just like the one in the CA-30. In fact I don't remember that unit having a 3 octave range, which this does. Good strong square wave tone, great for practicing intonation drills. I can't comment on the tuner as I haven't used it yet but i'm sure it's just as fine as the one in my ca-30. It has an adjustable backlight so you can use it in poorly lit conditions, but the controls are so intuitive, you really shouldn't even need it other for just tuning. I haven't needed to change the provided batteries yet, in several weeks of use from an hour or two a day or more so i'd say it doesn't kill batteries quickly. Now, it's strange that this was the last of the metro/tuners that i bought given how well my previous Korg products seem to hold up but I'll just add that of the two other metro/tuners I've bought over the last year, this is the only one that still works. Granted, I've only used it heavily for a few weeks, but the first one i bought (using this forum- you might find my review online, i don't want to mention it here) died several months in. The second one, which i dropped some money on for a few more features failed as well and i was able to return it for store credit. There's, in short, a rash of cheaply made items about that have feature well above their ability to maintain those features. caveat emptor. If it looks too good to be true for the price, it probably is. Get the reliable one instead.Edit: Two years in and everything still works as it should. I think i did get around to changing the batteries but only once so far.. This is about the performance I expected. Good ol' KORG!Edit 2: Four years in and all is well. Looks brand new. Replaced the batteries twice, and I'm using rechargable eneloops (which i use all over the house) with no noticeable loss of performance.

As a professional musician, I've had many tuners and some good metronomes over the decades. My kid wants to play cello, so I bought a low budget branded tuner similar to this for him. It was a bit awkward - had to hold the buttons to change function or power, it did NOT do a metronome and tuner simultaneously (this is huge for string players learning!), and the screen, while it looked nice, had to be looked at directly to read it properly. I returned it and paid 2x for this, knowing 100% Korg is a better brand.This tuner rocks! Metronome and tuner at the same time is a huge feature. Single press buttons, nice volume, screen isn't flashy but it's clear and nice. It's nice the backlight option has a dim and bright option.My only gripe is the LEDs for showing if you're in tune are only one red one on each side of the green in-tune one for sharp or flat. The digital screen with needle is much finer details, but I noticed him looking at the LEDs first.Also the plastic shell is a bit slippery to grasp.Overall, buy this one!

EDIT UPDATE: I'm lowering my rating for a slight reason: The microphone tuner part doesn't work as well as I hoped, maybe mine is a little buggy, but it's not nearly sensitive enough for acoustics, so get the additional wired pieze pickup for yours. It works well and I got mine mainly for the metronome which works nicely except for my below comments. I'm just not happy with the acoustic tuner, it's not at all sensitive, it takes real volume from plucking the guitar to work. Following is my original review about the rest:So I just got this. I badly needed a metronome because I'm a learner starting all over after a lifetime of not playing.It's really cool.Make sure you read the manual because some things are not immediately obvious, like how to have a more granular adjustment of tempo setting.It isn't very loud, in fact not nearly loud enough with electric guitar, but no problem, use the headphone out jack and pipe it into powered speakers or your mixer.I haven't really tested the tuner except it can't hear my electric without amplification so it isn't super sensitive to sound. I use a pedal tuner so the metronome is more important to me.Note that there are TWO virtual needles for the display. One indicates tuning and the other indicates metronome swings, if just using one of the two settings the virtual needles "attach" and work as one.One improvement I'd like to see is with the need swing, when it goes all the way to one side it would be nice if the needle image had a different shape so you could see it has swung all the way. No biggie because the button lights up and flashes to tempo too.As far as other things I'd love if they were added is a strobe style readout, I prefer strobe type tuners, when you use one, you will know if it's for you also. With strobes, as the "spin" decelerates you know you are getting closer to being in tune. The old real strobe tuners are still the best there is, some people don't understand how they work so read about them!The display can be dark, illuminated, or increased illuminated, but even at the lower illumination it is fairly bright except maybe in sunlight and illumination isn't needed then!It has a pitch player that some might want, doesn't sound all that fancy but it works.It is supposed to offer improved battery economy, we will see, but if so, that is awesome. It uses 2 AAA batteries which were included.Manual says that the plug-in tuner jack will not work with TRS connectors, only with TS connectors, I've yet to check that out and there may be a justified reason for it. You can get a piezo clip-on pickup for tuning separately or buy the version of this that comes with it. Sold separately they aren't as easy to find and are much more expensive. There are also cases you can purchase for this thing, I may get one, but the nice thing is the on/off buttons are recessed so it is less likely for them to turn on in a pocket for instance.It is compact and yet large enough to have a reasonably sized display but it IS a monochrome display FWIW.Other than not being loud enough and not having a selection of beep tones, I like it, and the beep it does offer doesn't sound all too annoying, is quite tolerable. The headphone jack IS a 3.5mm jack, not a 1/4", so note that in case you need adapters.Two other things:The emphasis beep in the tempo, you cannot set it except for the first beat in a measure, IOW you can't have a deet beep deet beep or deet beep beep deet in your 4/4 time for instance. Also, the led flashes red only, it would be cool if it was a dual-color led, with a green flash for the emphasis beep. As far as the emphasis beeps, there are other tempos available so it won't be an issue except for certain beats.But don't get me wrong, all those added things would not only complicate things but increase the great price and they are all things, except it needing to be louder (I wouldn't let that keep me from getting it necessarily), that one can do without. In truth, it has a pretty complete set of features.I am glad I chose this and expect it to greatly improve my playing. The tuner accuracy is to 1 cent, whereas my strobe is accurate to .4 cents, but unless you are very sensitive or doing recording work, it hardly matters much.If you have a lot more money, of course, there are fancier pro-tools out there, but this will prove adequate for most professionals I would think.Other than the beep not going quite as loud as it should, the one thing is that it's not as sensitive with its mic as I'd like, you need a loud enough sound for it to sense. This is just with whistling so far.