DroneTone Lite

James F. Roberts IV

About this app

Drone Tone Tool is an app created by professional musicians and music educators providing high quality reference pitches with the rich overtones of real cellos. We encourage musicians of all abilities to experience the benefits of reference tone practice!

Why real cello drones?

There are many electronic tone generators, and while they are better than nothing, they lack complexity of overtones and can be painful to listen to. Our cello drones are pleasing to the ear, rich in overtones and contain layered octaves to facilitate practice in all registers.

Purpose and benefit of reference/drone tones:

A reference (or drone) tone provides a center of harmonic stability. Our ears are able to discern the way that multiple pitches interact while strengthening our internal sense of pitch. By playing with a movable pitch (instrument or voice) relative to a fixed pitch (drone tone) we can start to perceive truly consonant perfect intervals, and 'shades' or 'colors' within Major/Minor intervals. This heightened awareness of relative pitch leads to artistry through intonation.

Ratings and reviews

Note that this is a trial version which can only be used for 10 minutes per hour, and with no ads. I've used the web version for years, don't mind spending for the full version (and have done so) but wish the details of the trial version were described on the Play Store listing. (This lack of information is the reason I have four stars instead of five)

This COULD be a super useful tool, IF the range would be more than just one octave AND if one could change the calibration not only between 440-442Hz. At least two octaves on the keyboard and a range to calibrate from 410-470Hz e.g.would be perfect (more than a halfnote up and down). If these features can be added I'd be super happy to buy it and use it for the rest of my life, but without it's not reallt useful for me at all ...

I am really finding this app to be a great teaching tool. One question, I would app switch, and when returning to it, it said I used an Advanced feature. I apparently lost 3 credits that I didn't know I had & can't work out what they are even used for! Your help would be great!

What’s new

Target updated Android APIs