Tuner
Found under: Settings > Utilities > Tuner
The app has a built in chromatic tuner to help you keep your live performances in tune. The tuner can be opened using the menu option above, or by assigning it to a page button, gesture or foot pedal.
The tuner will begin listening to your instrument when you open the utility and will show which note is being played and if it is flat, sharp or in tune (ranging from -50 cents to +50 cents):
Red bars to the left of the note, or the needle pointing left of centre indicate that the note is flat and the string should be tightened
Red bars to the right of the note, or the needle pointing right of centre indicate that the note is sharp and the string should be loosened
A green box around the note name (with no red bars) and the needle pointing directly upwards and light in green indicate that the note is in tune.
Once a note has been detected, the tuner will tell you the frequency of the nearest note at the top (e.g. 220.0Hz as shown in the image). The current frequency detected and the nearest note name are shown in the centre box.
As with all tuners, accuracy will be improved if there is little or no background noise. Because the tuner uses your device microphone to listen to your instrument, you will need to grant permissions to listen to and record audio. Obviously make sure the microphone of your device is pointing towards your instrument.
You can also set the desired instrument and see the default notes for each string. Clicking on these notes will generate a tone that you can use to tune by ear if you'd rather do that. You can also use the piano keyboard to play any note if you are using concert pitch of 440Hz. Depending on the quality of the built in MIDI sounds on your device, you may find that the tuner struggles to pick up the note from your speakers correctly or that the note varies in tuning frequency.
Conventional (standard) tuning has the frequency of A4 as 440Hz. You can, however, change this (between 432Hz and 444Hz) if you are tuning to instruments that use a different reference frequency. Be aware that you will not be able to preview the sounds of the MIDI piano notes (which will be hidden) at reference frequencies other than 440Hz. The string buttons will still send the correct tone based on your chosen reference frequency.
Depending on your tuning environment, you can adjust the 'strictness' of the tuner. By default +/- 2 cents (2% of a semitone) is a sensible level of tuner accuracy that won't jump around too much and what most standard tuners use. Lower cent values make the tuning more accurate/strict, but at the risk of jumping around a little. Higher values reduce the sensitivity, but will risk your instrument tuning not being as accurate.
Please note that with most guitar tuners, the tuning notes are based on the 12 tone equal temperament method. Don't worry if you don't know what that is, unless you are playing microtonal or historic music, this is the tuning method used by pretty much every version of modern music and what all modern pianos, guitars, etc. use.
Credits
The pitch detection is accomplished using the excellent TarsosDSP library created by Joren Six
Requirements
Device requirements:
Built in or connected microphone
Android Permissions required:
RECORD_AUDIO
