Guitar Tuner - digital audio tuner for Windows

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You can use Guitar Tuner to accurately tune your guitar in a wide variety of tunings. It is capable of ”hearing” your guitar through a microphone input, so you are able to tune guitars that do not have electrical audio output. It also capable of producing midi tones, so that you can tune you guitar this way as well. Using reference tones is better for some purposes, for example when you install a new set of strings and doesn’t need to tune the strings exactly. I recommend using midi tones for rough tuning and digital tuning when perfection is required. If you think you can tune your guitar exactly using only reference tones, you’re poorly wrong... (in most cases)

To explain it theoretically, when you are using reference tones and the frequencies are roughly the same, a great resonance is produced. In this case reference tone become source of forced oscillation, which cause strings oscillation on the same frequency. And it sounds like guitar is tuned. But actually own string frequency can greatly differ from reference tone. That’s why preferably to use passive system which only listen and does not provide any sound oscillations.

There are two ways you can tune your guitar using this program.

First – use microphone and sound-card input, so program will measure exactly notes pitch for each string and show the difference to you. Second – use you sound card midi synthesizer as reference, and you will determine the difference by yourself.

Get sound from your guitar to the program
Choose the type of tuning. This can be done by clicking the arrow indicator (located in left side of the program window), or using menu Main -> Options -> Tuning type. If you want to tune your guitar in standard tuning, you don’t have to set anything this type of tuning is default.
Click the string (or press key on your keyboard) to be tuned and proceed to point four. You can also use the keyboard to switch between strings. Press number keys 1,2,3,4,5,6 to choose a desired string. I have found keyboard switching more convenient - it’s better than ”shooting” with mouse when holding a guitar in your hands.
Strike the chosen string on your guitar. When you strike the string, gray arrow indicator become orange (it means that the signal is powerful enough) and show you difference between sound note and expected note. Also you can see the text Up / Down / Ok which tells what direction of tuning you need.
Strike only one string at time. Try using a pick, it produces a stronger and brighter sound.
If you are using direct ”plug-in” connection, set the volume on your guitar to maximum. (with volume knob) On electric guitars turning off the bass pickup gets better results. If you are using microphone connection, make sure your microphone is on. ( some of them have a nasty little switch )

There is several ways of receiving sound from your guitar:

1. Simply plug your guitar into your microphone connector on your soundcard Connecting your guitar directly into your soundcard is the most convenient way, because there is probably only minor noise to occur (on the way from your guitar to your soundcard). It is the most recommended way of tuning.

2. If your guitar has no output (like most of Spanish guitars), you have to get a microphone and connect it to your microphone connector. This also works well, but you have to avoid all unnecessary sounds in order to tune your guitar. For example, when somebody speaks to you when you are tuning your guitar, you will probably unable to tune it, because the signal will be distorted.

3. If you have no microphone, you can plug your headphones (from walkman, for example) into your microphone, but this way is not very recommended This is the worst way and should only be used when there are no other possibilities left. But anyway, if you decide to use headphones, be sure to hold your headphones pretty close to the strings on your guitar - to be able to catch the signal. If your headphones are big enough, they can act as a microphone. But not of very high quality.

Guitar Tuner uses the synthesizer built into your sound card to produce the reference tones. Windows defines 128 such instruments. The quality of each instrument will vary according to the capabilities of your sound card.

In order to produce tones instead of capturing data through the microphone, you must select Menu -> Options -> Enable Periodic Sound.

Tuning Type in Guitar Tuner

In this menu you can choose from a variety of tunings that are used in guitar music. It can be accessed by clicking on left side of the main window, or choosing menu Main -> Options -> Tuning Type.

With Guitar Tuner you can:

• Tune you guitar with very high accurate.
• You can choose one from several tunings.
• You can also tune guitar with no electric signal output by using general microphone.
• You can tune your guitar comparing the sound of guitar to produced midi tones.

Download Guitar Tuner     -      Buy Guitar Tuner for only US$ 11,80