Snark ST-2 Chromatic Clip-On Tuner

Poor durability - look elsewhere.

Bought one in 2025 and another a few years earlier. The 1yr old unit’s plastic hinge pivot point broke/fell apart when I unclipped it from a guitar today.

The older unit’s neck attachment pivot point broke out after about a year, rendering it useless. Happened to see that unit in a drawer today and the plastic body is all tacky/sticky now too.

While these units worked well when in one piece, their durability leaves a lot to be desired. There are not used a lot, occasional basement guitar player, not gigging with them.

Will look to another brand and design for a replacement.

I'm glad I found out what's going on with this new rechargeable Snark Tuner.

I have a Snark tuner I bought many years ago that's on it's last leg, which served me well through many gig a gig, but when I saw that this one is rechargeable and a decent price, too, I had to have it. I'm very pleased with it and with the color I chose. It still has the control that lets you tune through the mic or by clamping it on the instrument. It also has the pitch viewing and adjustment controls. However, the one thing my old one has that this one doesn't is the housing for the battery. Instead, it has a port with it's own USB cable to allow it to charge. I'll be more than happy if my new Snark tuner turns out to be the workhorse my old one did.

It breaks easily

According to the music teacher, this runner is good, except for the part where it breaks in three months.

Very Clean and High Quality

Why did you pick this product vs others?:

1 time buy cant beat it. Battery life pretty good for its size. I really like that it spins around and its very bright.

It definitely lives up to the name.

Perfect fit on my classic vibe and my debut tele

This thing is awesome. Heavy duty, accurate, cool look, finally can tune my Classic Vibes.

Rudolph Schmidt

March 29, 2025

Became a Sticky, Gross Mess

Worked fine in both mic and vibration mode. Seemed accurate.

HOWEVER, outer layer on case chemically broke down and became a sticky, tacky mess in less than a year.

Gross to hold and it collected lint and dirt. Was afraid it would start to stain the headstock on my guitars.

Had to throw out an otherwise dependable and working item.

Arrived damaged and broken

This was a gift for my husband. Unfortunate;y, it arrived looking like it was thrown down a flight of stairs and broken. The actual tuner is attached to a clamp with a stem that connects with ball joints. The receiving end on the clamp was broken and it looks like somebody tried to glue it back together (though the piece that was broken off was not in the box). The main tuner part is very scuffed and scratched up. It all seems very well used. Going to have to return it.

Great tuner

I love that it’s rechargeable and accurate. I use it to tune my electric guitar and I don’t even need to plug it into my amplifier. The vibration option does the job.

Material Will Degrade and Brake

Looks pretty and shiny when new, but in less than two years; this is what you get. The material degrades and eventually becomes brittle while the coating becomes gummy. I never took this on the road. Used it from time to time, always took it off the guitar, and stored it in cabinet.

Don’t buy Snark tuners. Spend a little more on a better quality one from a different company.

Maybe for other instruments, but not for harp

Snark produces good products and I have one attached to my Celtic harp’s (other) tuning key. However, this particular “model” does not tune well for harp strings. The harp still sounds off. When I use the Cleartune app on my iPhone, it actually works better.

Works like a charm

"Roommate" broke my first Snark. Bought this to replace it. Couldn't be happier. Tunes my acoustic and electric guitars perfectly.

Great Guitar Tuner!

The Snark ST-2 is the easiest and one of the most accurate guitar tuners available. It has a tight grip, and I keep it at the guitar neck for easy tuning. Best bang for the buck. Best tuner around at this price point. My happy humble opinion. :)

Not mechanically durable. Four of mine broke at the neck.

I bought four of these and after a couple years all have failed at the neck that connects the clamp with the tuner head. I needed to glue and wire them together.

The tuner works well and is easy to read but will not last.

Decent for the price, but it's kind of slow

I bought this tuner to leave clipped on a guitar I don't use too often. For that it's a decent tuner, but compared to my other clip on tuner, a Korg Sledgehammer, it's slow. The accuracy is not a big deal, it's more than good enough, but the speed is kind of a bummer. You can't watch the notes as you play, it's just not fast enough, and I guess not really designed for that. The Korg can do it, but it's 3x the cost, so that's the trade off.

Plastic Degrades

The case became sticky and shed red goo on everything it touched. This occurs over time with certain types of soft plastic and is the plastic fixative extruding. It can’t be fixed, it can’t be cleaned, the plastic item can only be thrown away.

Great Little Tuner!

It's fast, accurate and affordable. I use Snarks on all of my Epiphone guitars, but NOT on my Gibsons. It will burn the Nitrocellulose finish on higher-end guitars. But for my imports, it's great. The Snark marked with "Super Tight" always seem to work best.

Jim Dunn

September 29, 2023

Great Chromatic tuner with option for vibration or microphone use

Great Chromatic tuner with option for vibration or microphone use - solid clip - head rotates well - display is very easy to read. Recommended !

Disappointed in the accuracy

I have an older red Snark tuner that I just love. I assumed this Snark Super Tight would be just as good or better. It is not. There is a noticeable range of pitch within each step on the meter. If you are raising the note it will say you are there, but you can keep going up and it still says you are there. As you can see in the picture the old Snark and the new Snark to do not agree. I bought two of the new tuners (one for a friend) and they both have the same problem.

Works, but poorly made

It works ok but the thin, cheaply made plastic neck between the tuner body and the clip couldn't stand up to 2 months inside a marching band instrument case.

JD

September 26, 2021

Great Tuner: But the neck joint breaks way to easy and the plastic gets sticky after a few months!

I love the electronics and all the functionality of the tuner as well as the price. However the plastic is so fragile and the ball joints are so delicate that even when I've kept the tuner in my guitar case it breaks within a few months. I bought them and gave them as gifts and now feel bad: I'm sure the gifts broke within months too. Great idea! Just poorly executed. A stronger plastic, or a metal ball joint or nylon instead of plastic would do the trick. The plastic housing feels nice and soft at first but within months it begins to feel sticky. Again, nice idea, but poor quality materials.

Brad

February 1, 2021

I love red and this was perfect

This matches my black and red Ibanez I just got and as always these work great. Even better that they come in red now! I like how I can mount it on the back side and view it from the back.

C Scarver

January 28, 2021

Best one I've ever gotten.

Unit very easy to use. Even has mic option which works even on vocals. Great

WireHead

January 11, 2021

Easy To Use & Has Inline Tuner Accuracy

This little tuner from Snark is VERY accurate. I tested it against an older Korg GA-30 (mic based) which is a very good tuner, but a little hard of hearing. As well as against a brand new inline tuner (Kliq Tiny Tune Pro Stage). The Snark was dead on with both the Korg & the inline tuner on every string. I don't like to tune through vibration mode, but this particular Snark has both options (mic & vibration). So I tested with both options. Both were as accurate as the Kliq. The display is big & bright & the red color housing is very slick. For the price, there is no reason not to have one (or two) of these in your gig bag or case at all times.

Fast and accurate

Great for all instruments! Uses mic or vibrate setting to get a super wide fully chromatic range. Great for my harp, guitar, and zither.

Great looking, great working. I’m getting more of these!!!

Have had dozens of tuners. Love this one. One note: don’t leave on a guitar with a nitrocellulose finish.

Joe’s Trusted Products

December 29, 2018

Super Tight

This is just my first impression, if it breaks I’ll change my review but I highly doubt that’ll happen. Looks good on my red violin. The finish is cool and tunes super accurately with either a mic or vibration sensor. The display is bright and vivid. Great buy it was worth the extra 5 dollars for the red.

Great tuner, Shoddy Mount

This is a FANTASTIC tuner, attached to the WORST mount I've ever had. Within a week of buying it, the plastic attachment point on the back of the tuner broke off entirely, leaving me unable to use this tuner for anything.

Before it broke it was phenomenal. Pretty much usable for any instrument I owned. I tried it on my soprano uke, my 6 string uke, my 7 string electric guitar, my 6 string electric bass, a recorder, and it had no problems detecting pitch. The screen is easy to read at a glance, and the microphone/vibration switch is very convenient when tuning something you cant directly clip onto. I never had to use the extra features, and now do not have the ability to.

The mounting clip is easy to use and holds this tuner VERY securely, I was never worried about it falling off or moving while using it. Unfortunately I wasn't able to use it for very long. While adjusting the tuner's face about a week into owning it, I noticed that it was becoming very loose. Within a day or two it would wiggle and move until eventually it broke off entirely. I don't know if this is a common defect, but for this reason I do not recommend this particular tuner. I'd like to see the same tuner with mounts that aren't made from plastic, and would gladly pay to mount this excellent tuner to higher quality materials.

Used twice- now dead.

Decided to go for it since it had great reviews. Have used it twice. Battery is still good- yet screen hardly lights up- sometimes flickers on and off- very frustrating!! hoping I just got a dud because I heard this was a great brand. Pic shows the brightest it will go- wasn’t like that the first time I used it.

Fast, easy to use, resolution only to +/- 4 cents.

The snark ST-2 chromatic tuner is a responsive clip on tuner that is easy to use. It also has the advantage over some tuners in that it can use both vibration and a built in microphone. The manufacturer does not specify any accuracy or resolution information in the instructions so I performed testing to find this, see below for details. Included were with an easy to understand instruction sheet and cr2032 battery

Pros- Fast, reasonable price, has both microphone and vibration detection, many adjustment angles, small and light weight, clear easy to read display from various angles. Also has a visual metronome (of limited use in my opinion). Base frequency 440hz (A4) can be adjusted from 415-466hz.

Cons- Resolution (often called accuracy) tested and found to be +/- 4 cents. The arm that connects the clip to the device is on the thin side and may break if dropped on a hard surface. May not be easy to read outside in daylight.

The tuner is accurate in the sense that the center blue bar will light and the correct note will be displayed when presented with the correct frequency for said note, however, the resolution of the red/yellow bars immediately adjacent to the blue center bar will only illuminate consistently when the note was sharp or flat by 4 cents.

Resolution Testing Method:

I did a number of tests to determine the frequency resolution of my ST-2 since I couldn't find it stated by Snark. I was hoping the red/yellow line immediately to each side of the blue center line would be 1 cent, however it's not. I generated high accuracy sine waves using Daqarta software at notes E2 (guitar low E - 82.41 Hz), D3 (guitar D string - 146.83 Hz), E4 (guitar high E - 329.63 Hz), A4 (440 Hz), and A5 (880 Hz). I verified the resultant signal frequency with high accuracy tuner software (DaTuner lite) and found the frequency generator was very accurate at less than 0.2 cents off in all cases. I then adjusted the frequency at each note to see when the tuner would would light the red/yellow bar nearest to the blue center bar. In all cases the first adjacent bar to center would start to flicker at approximately +/- 3.5 cents off and would light solid by the time the frequency was +/- 4 cents off center. I was only able to perform this test on a single ST-2, results could vary depending on the hardware and software versions at time of manufacture.

Its a great tuner. Defentally buy

Its a great tuner. Defentally buy. One downfall- I keep it in my backpack and the power button sometimes turns on because of the button on the front. This will eventually drain the battery.