Hi, I’m Robert Urban, and I have a confession:
I’m not a great guitar player.
I’m not even what most people would generously call good—unless the grading criteria includes passion, dramatic strumming, and the ability to forget lyrics mid-verse with unwavering confidence. If that’s the criteria, then I am your Huckleberry.
But if you ever step into my office, you’d assume otherwise.
Lining the walls like a backstage pass to rock history are some of the most iconic guitars ever assembled. There’s a sunburst Fender Stratocaster with enough fret wear to prove it’s been loved hard. A vintage Gretsch hollow body that looks like it should only be played while wearing a bolo tie and a smirk. A heavy, tone-rich Gibson Les Paul that could double as a blunt-force weapon in a blues bar brawl.
Then there’s my slick, black Lucille-inspired beauty that oozes soul, standing proud next to a gritty Telecaster that seems like it once had a criminal record. A cherry-red Gibson SG screams rock rebellion from across the room, and a jangly Rickenbacker 330 hangs over my desk like it’s waiting to be called in for a Beatles cover gig.
My Martin D-28 acoustic stands nearby, smelling faintly of mahogany and unresolved feelings. There’s a Danelectro, quirky and charming (which I must admit, stylistically I love that vintage look) And off in the corner, my hulking double-neck acoustic—6-string and 12-string—sits like a monument to indecision.
One of my favorites? A Keith Urban signature guitar, which I obviously bought because it has Urban spelled out across the fretboard and headstock. It’s not vanity-it’s fate.
Then there’s the cigar box guitar I built myself. 4 strings. No rules. It’s ugly. It’s wonky. I love it.
While not iconic, the weirdest of the bunch is a charango. I brought this back from a trip to South America, carved from the body of a real armadillo. You read that right. An actual armadillo. It looks like a musical instrument and a cursed artifact had a baby. And it sounds incredible- more like a ukulele than guitar, but still cool. . That little ten-string beast is living proof that music can come from the most unexpected places. Including a highly armored mammal. (Hmmm. Is a Dinosaur bone guitar a thing?)
And then my crown jewel:
A Johnny Cash–signed Martin D-35, the kind of guitar he was famous for playing. He gave it to my grandfather, his old military buddy and longtime poker rival. It’s more than an instrument—it’s a relic, a memory, a nod to friendship and a tie to my grandpa.
Together, these guitars tell a story. One of reverence, rebellion, and more than a little ridiculousness.
Visitors walk in, eyes wide, and always ask the same question:
“Do you play all of these?”
And I always smile and say:
“One or two every now and then. They are more for the ambiance, the personal familial history of them and the provenance”
Because while I may not be great—hell, I may barely be competent—I love playing.
The ritual of it. The peace of it. The moment when chaos disappears and I’m just there, in the sound, one imperfect note at a time.
Campfire carols, Christmas songs, three chords and a heartfelt mess.
That’s where I live.
And that’s my jam.
It’s magic.
But there was one thing that always stood between me and the joy of playing: Tuning.
The Painful Truth About Tuning (Especially When You’re Not a Natural)
All of the above, except the Charango were inherited by me from my dad. My dad—Jay Urban—was the real deal. A professional musician. A guitar player that dropped jaws for nearly five decades. The kind of player who still lives on in late-night jam session stories and legendary whispers in dive bars, professional studios and everything in between across the country. To this day, when people find out I’m Jay Urban’s son, they’ll send me these incredible stories—“Man, I saw your dad play in ’92, and I’ve never heard anything like it since.”
One guy even told me that my dad was the best guitarist he’d ever seen live. And this wasn’t some casual music fan. He said he had seen Jimi Hendrix, Eric Johnson, Clapton, Steve Morse, Joe Satriani, Prince, and Carlos Santana in person.
And still, –“Your dad topped them all.”
My dad won Savannah’s Battle of the Bands in 1967—at fifteen years old.
From there, it was off to the races: touring bands, studio sessions, live gigs that left people speechless. He was a lifer. A natural. And sadly, we lost him to COVID in 2020.
I grew up watching my dad make guitars do things I didn’t even know were possible.
He could make a Stratocaster cry, shout, weep, and whisper—sometimes in the same solo.
He was one of those guys who could tune a guitar by ear, by harmonics, or probably by reading the air pressure in the room.
He’d tune his guitar to itself like it was second nature. He would try to show me how to do the same when i was a kid. “Listen for it to lock in,” he’d say while sliding between the 5th and 7th fret harmonics.
And I’d just stare at the fretboard like it was mocking me in another language.
I didn’t inherit his ear or talent or desire to be a great guitar player.
Even with his not exactly patient lessons, tuning was always the part that made me want to toss my guitar off the porch. I’d spend 20 minutes trying to get it “close enough,” then strum a chord that sounded like a misfire note. I didn’t know what was the right sound, but I knew that was the wrong one I would hear when I did a full strum.
I’d twist tuning pegs with the desperation, until the string started feeling a little too tight and I was genuinely worried I was about to garrote myself with a high E.
It didn’t matter how careful I was—tuning just wasn’t intuitive.
It felt like some kind of musical rite of passage I never quite passed. Like an entry-level exam I kept failing.
Then came the Roadie 3
(Honestly, this little gadget should be sold next to defibrillators, because it resuscitated my desire to play.)
No more tuning apps. No more twisting knobs in blind hope.
The Roadie 3 does what my ears never could: it listens with machine-level precision and turns the peg for you. Clean, fast, accurate. Every time.
Alternate tunings? Drop D, open G, DADGAD? Push a button, let it work. Boom—you’re playing a whole new mood.
What’s the Roadie 3? Just the Best Guitar Wingman I’ve Ever Had.
The Roadie 3 is a smart automatic tuner—About $125 bucks for basically, a tiny robot that clips onto your tuning peg and does the work for you. You press a button, pluck a string, and Roadie 3 listens, processes, and adjusts your tuning peg with surgical precision. No ear required. No guesswork. My real music friends would often visit and I would ask them to tune my guitars for me because I sucked at it. I think they are more grateful that I got this than I was because of the time it saved them. After I bought this, I ended up playing a lot more than I did, because I could skip the frustration of it sounding out of tune and horrible before I strummed once. (Don’t worry, I am still “not very good”)
Here’s Why It’s a Game-Changer for Players Like Me:
- It tunes better than my human ears ever could.
Even when I was being really careful, my “good enough” tuning wasn’t. Roadie 3 gets it perfect—every time. - It lets me explore alternate tunings without a degree in jazz theory.
This is my favorite feature. Want to try open D? Drop C? DADGAD? Celtic tuning? Half-step down like Stevie Ray or Johnny Cash?
Push a button. Boom. Done. The guitar takes on an entirely new personality—and it’s all in tune. - It works on guitars, basses, ukuleles, banjos, and more.
Basically, if it has machine heads and strings, the Roadie 3’s got your back. - It’s FAST.
I used to spend 20 minutes tuning and still be unsure. Now, I’m locked and loaded in under a minute.
A Gift I Wish I Could Give My Dad
If my dad were still alive, I’d buy him one of these in a heartbeat.
Not because he needed it (he was the tuner) but because this little thing has made me fall in love with playing again. And honestly, he probably would’ve started stealing it from me the second he realized he could program alternate tunings with the push of a button. For experts it may not be as necessary from what it does , but it does allow them to save ludicrous amounts of time. To equate that to my life, I am a professional writer and while I could handwrite something great, there is something to be said for doing it much easier and faster in MS Word- letting me focus on the things that matter.
That’s the kind of tool this is—it doesn’t just save time, it opens doors. It lets players—great and not-so-great—just play. And that’s the point, right?
We don’t all need to be Hendrix or Steve Morse. Sometimes we just want to sing “Silent Night” to our kids under the stars without sounding like someone’s torturing a cat.
A Little Musical Direction From Me to You
If tuning has ever been the thing that holds you back—or you just want to sound better without needing the ears of a bat—get the Roadie 3 here.
Check out the rest of their gear too-metronomes, string winders, tuners that actually work– because it wasn’t a company built by fat cats just trying to make money- it is a company built by musicians who love music and knew there was a challenge their product could solve. Check out the tuning options and other geat- its on the Roadie Music site.
Whether you’re:
- Playing Christmas songs by the fire,
- Recording your first lo-fi heartbreak ballad,
- An incredibly talented guitar player who just wants to save time (especially with alternate tuning options)
- Or just trying to survive a bar gig without going flat halfway through…
Roadie 3 makes tuning the easiest part of your musical journey.
Which, for folks like me, is a Christmas miracle all by itself.
Strum on, friends.
-Rob