This article proposes an intelligent control scheme for automating the VCR audio tuning process using genetic algorithms (GAs). Being a non-linear multimodal system, the process is difficult to automate by simple conventional controllers. In the proposed control scheme, a new kind of GA structure, called a genetic estimator, is used for estimating the unknown internal state of the process and a simple integral controller is adopted to drive the process according to the estimated state. To adapt GA to the estimation problem, the general procedure of the conventional GAs is modified in two aspects: the reproduction strategy uses two different criteria (survival cost and parent cost) for natural selection and parent selection, and a new genetic operator is developed on the basis of the model of the process to generate offspring solutions more effectively. The performance of the proposed control scheme was investigated via experiments, and the results obtained show that the control scheme performs the task very well.