Harmonic Tuner Strobe Look

Grain Apps

About this app

Get very accurate instrument tuning based on harmonic measurements: displayed in the popular, readable and intuitive Strobe Tuner design. Test new advanced tuning and intonation features for free.

Special Features:
- Strobe Look (Up to 16 harmonics)
- Harmonic Tuner

Limited Features (Trial)*:
- Harmonic-wise tuning measurement (bargraphs, up to 16 harmonics)
- Harmonic-wise level measurement (bargraphs, up to 16 harmonics)
- Spectrum Tuner
- Reference Pitch (Concert A) & Key Detector

Trial features of Harmonic Tuner Intonation Expert*:
- Intonation (Tuning) & Inharmonicity protocol
- Temperament Detector

* The trial features in non-Full version of Harmonic Tuner Suite offer functionality of Full Version but are restricted to a limited usage time per start of the app.
Features of Intonation Expert are available in trial versions with a limited number of protocol notes. See Harmonic Tuner Website for a table of Harmonic Tuner's versions and their features and more details.
http://harmonictuner.grainapps.com

Feature Details:

Harmonic Tuner:
Harmonic Tuner is a novel accurate instrument tuning tool for musicians and sound engineers. Its special feature is to perform pitch measurements (0.1 cents precision) by analysing tuning and levels of up to 16 individual overtones (harmonics) of a note.
Harmonic Tuner is based on an accuracy-refined spectral analysis algorithm. Visualization is optimized for readability.
Concert A pitch ranges from 320Hz to 604Hz (+/-5 semitones, precision 0.5 c, ca. 0.1 Hz). Intonation Expert version supports stretch tunings and historical temperaments (Werckmeister etc.).

Strobe Look:
Harmonic components especially at stringed instruments like guitars, basses,pianos are always detuned. Up to 16 note's harmonics can be displayed individually in an intuitive and precise strobe tuner look of adjustable sensitivity.
Harmonic Tuner Strobe Look does not implement the conventional strobe tuner principle, but offers a similar appearance of moving patterns. While typical mechanical strobe tuners show detuning of octave harmonics only, Harmonic Tuner Strobe Look shows the detuning even of non-octave harmonics.

Tuning + Level bargraphs for each harmonic (up to 16 harmonics):
Overtone detuning of strings affects the timbre of a note as the levels and envelopes of the note's harmonics do. To inspect these trimbral characteristics, the detuning and the relative levels are displayed in bar graphs.

Reference Pitch (Concert A) Detector & Key Detector:
The novel Reference Pitch Detector module finds the tuning reference frequency of musical performances or recordings accurately.
In addition, the prominence of all 12 notes over several seconds is displayed and the fitting Major/minor scale is estimated.

Intonation (Tuning) & Inharmonicity protocols:
For precise assessment of an instrument's intonation, stretch tuning, temperament etc., tuning/inharmonicity of a whole series of notes is recorded and displayed in a diagram. When measuring keyboard with historic tunings, a Temperament detection recognizes the best-fitting out of a number of popular historic temperaments.
The intonation protocol is useful for checking and setting up guitar/bass intonation or to measure the tuning stretch of an instrument.

Stretch Tunings and Temperaments:
Stretch tunings are common on pianos: instruments with plucked or hammered strings show slightly inharmonic overtones. Harmonic Tuner allows to widen octaves by 0 to 5 cent accordingly.
Historical keyboard music on organs, harpsichords etc. is typically performed using historic temperaments that provide individual consonance/dissonance characteristics for each key/scale. Harmonic Tuner Intonation Expert supports a set of popular historic temperaments you can tune your instrument to.

Temperament Detector:
Intonation Expert offers a tool to recognize typical temperaments mainly from polyphonic solo keyboard performances / recordings.

Ratings and reviews

This displays very different values every time I play a note. In tuning my piano, one string will read, 0 cents, -5 cents, +1 cents without changing anything. When I compared this to the app my piano technician uses, it's just as variable. My tech's app isn't available for Android, so I can't use it. He even expressed confusion when he saw this app and suggested using a different one.

Not sure why this one isn't popular- it is one of the better tuners out there, and is responsive and accurate. I use it to intonate guitars, as the strobe is more precise than the standard VU meter display. Perhaps the word 'Look' doesn't need to be part of the app name, maybe that throws people off. But its a fine tuner.

I have used this app, against, a BOSS TU-12H electronic pedal tuner and I was pleasantly surprised by its accuracy. Harmonic Tuner Strobe Look, exactly, matched the BOSS TU-12H, consistently.

What's new

Android SDK/API version update