VITON13 SCHOOL · Music
Guitar tuner
Press Start, play a string, and the needle shows how far you are from the note, to the cent. Guitar, bass, ukulele, violin or any note. The sound never leaves your device.
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Press Start and play a string.
Audio never leaves your device: the sound is analysed in this browser, nothing is recorded or sent.
The browser asks for the microphone only after you press Start. Stop turns it off.
Each button plays its note for four seconds; tap it again to stop. The tone follows the A4 setting.
440 Hz is the usual standard. Change it only if your group tunes to another A.
Your instrument, tuning, A4 and volume are saved in this browser only.
How to use it
- Press StartYour browser asks for the microphone once. The sound is analysed on this page and never leaves your device; Stop turns the microphone off.
- Play one stringPluck it and let it ring. The tuner finds the nearest string by itself, or tap a string to tune only that one. Bass, ukulele, violin, other guitar tunings and a chromatic mode are one tap away.
- Turn the peg until it is greenNeedle to the left: the string is low, tighten it. To the right: it is high, loosen it. Within 5 cents of the note the reading turns green.
How the tuner hears the note
Several times a second the tuner takes the latest slice of sound from the microphone and looks for the length of one repeat of the waveform, the period, with the YIN method (de Cheveigné and Kawahara, 2002). The period is measured between samples and checked again several repeats later, then turned into a frequency and compared with the note: 100 cents make one semitone.
Quiet sounds and sounds without one clear repeating shape, such as talking, noise or two strings at once, are ignored instead of guessed. The last few readings are averaged so the needle stays steady. The reference A can be set from 430 to 450 Hz if your band or orchestra tunes higher or lower than 440 Hz.
Questions
How do I tune a guitar with this tuner?
Press Start and allow the microphone. Pluck the low E string, the thickest one, and watch the needle: left of the centre means the string is flat, so tighten it; right means it is sharp, so loosen it. Stop when the reading turns green, then do the same for A, D, G, B and the high E. Many players tune up to the note: if you overshoot, loosen a little below it and come back up.
What are cents in tuning?
A cent is one hundredth of a semitone in equal temperament, so an octave has 1,200 cents. The needle shows how many cents the string is above or below the note, from −50 to +50; at 50 cents you are halfway to the next note. This tuner turns green within 5 cents either side.
What are the notes of standard guitar tuning?
From the thickest string to the thinnest: E2, A2, D3, G3, B3, E4, often remembered as E A D G B E. With A4 at 440 Hz they are about 82.41, 110.00, 146.83, 196.00, 246.94 and 329.63 Hz.
Why does a quiet room help?
The tuner looks for one sound that repeats regularly. Voices, a television, a fan or other strings ringing add their own waves to the signal, so the shape is less clear and the tuner waits instead of showing a wrong note. Tune in a quiet room, keep the microphone close to the instrument and mute the strings you are not tuning.
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