Originally Posted by: Geeetar4LifeIt's hard to tune by ear when you first start out, so my suggestion is to just by a good tuner...

I'll agree with the first half, but not really the suggestion, at least not as the ultimate solution. Otherwise you might go years relying on it, or like my dad, hand it off to someone with an "ear" to tune it for you, or worst of all obliviously continuing to play out of tune. Although if you say you have previous musical experience (thus already have an ear so to speak), I say this more for the benefit of other readers. And yeah, they're not always so accurate either.

But like Zak said , proper intonation is mandatory. For instance, even after using a highly accurate tuner that yields nice sounding open chords, if the bridge isn't intonated the dissonance will become more and more apparent on the higher frets.

I've never liked pitch pipes. They just don't sound like a guitar string, or hardly anything musical for that matter. For reference tones I've always used a tuning fork. They come in several notes, but you really only need one, and then tune the rest to that string (for me it's A-440hz). Besides, they don't need batteries, they can't break, they're super cheap (compared to tuners anyways), and they can resonate on practically any hard surface...even your skull!

Ok, that all being said, the most effective routine is in fact combining several methods...typical 5th fret unisons, harmonics, fretting notes/chords in reference, etc. Personally I only use the 5th fret (4th fret G string) notes for the treble strings, and prefer harmonics for the bass strings. And definitely try to always tune going up, meaning from flat to pitch.
You can't go wrong with Eric Johnson's routine.