TC Electronic PolyTune 2 BlackLight review

Overall review:

This pedal is black version of popular PolyTune 2 pedal from TC Electronic. This tuner offers 3 modes of operation: basic tuner which works really fast and is accurate,  polyphonic mode where you see the tuning of all strings at the same time and strobe mode which is supposed to be super-precise.  I mostly use the normal mode, strobe mode is a bit confusing at gig situations – it is probably best suited for tuning before recording where absolute tuning accuracy is what matters the most.  Polyphonic is a nice idea but there is some problems with it.  The worst is that it is very hard to read the 6-string tuning information from the screen which uses super-bright white and blue leds.  I am not sure if the regular white PolyTune 2 uses leds which have better readibility but on the BlackLight the bad contrast ruins the polyphonic mode.  You can do a quick check of your all-around tuning but you better do the actual tuning on the normal mode where there is less information on the screen and the contrast problem is not a issue.   There is handy power-hub feature, you can share the AC power to other pedals from Polytune 2 (power cables not included in the package).

Sounds and features:

This pedal has true bypass, so it does not influnce the sound at all.  That is perfect “sound” for tuner.

Quality and reliability:

Build quality is great, design quality is not great. I bought this without testing first because I´ve had good experiences with TC Electronic products.  The biggest flaw in the design is the contrast of the blue/white leds on the screen. Polytune 2 BlackLight´s leds are too bright, which makes them bleed the light and blue and white colors get almost mixed up in your poor eyeballs. This especially affects the usability of polyphonic mode where I am having hard time to distinguish the tuning information on the screen. This ain´t a pedal for a colorblind person for sure 🙂  If somebody knows a way to adjust the led brightness, please leave a comment,

My favorite PolyTune 2 BlackLight settings:

Normal tuning mode works best for me. I also like to use the AC power sharing option from the tuner to other pedals.