LF: Tuning app with a time-frequency graph

[Don Taylor]

A recent post pointed out that the pitch of a reed varies from its initial start until it stops, the poster asked for advice on when to accept a pitch as being correct.

 

It seems to me that a tuner, or a tuning app for free reeds would be more useful if it did not simply register the  instantaneous pitch being sounded but showed a time-pitch graph.  Time along the x-axis and pich(frequency) on the y-axis.  I have looked around for something like this on the app stores and, although there are dozens of tuning apps, I could not find one that had this sort of representation.

 

Does anybody know of such a beast?

[alex_holden]

Tonal Energy has an analysis mode that does that, but it's not as useful as you might think for reed tuning. Partly because the graph scale is +/-20 cents, which is quite a lot.

[Steve Schulteis]

On Android I have used VocalPitchMonitor and Intonia. I've found that they get me close enough when making penny whistles, but that's an instrument whose pitch varies quite a bit with how hard you blow, so the player is able to make up for (or cause) a few cents of inaccuracy. That's actually why I use those tuners - they let me play a scale or tune without looking at the tuner and subconsciously correcting, so I get a more realistic picture of how in tune the instrument itself is. But I couldn't tell you how precise the tuning is in cents.

[harglo]

The piano technician software / app TuneLab (which i use professionally on pianos) does, I believe, some of what you are after. You can’t capture a graph, but you have real time spectral analysis so you can watch the partials drift. It is a professional software for professionals and as such is priced like it (I believe I paid $500/$600 a handful of years ago). If you think it might fit see if you can find a piano tech who will let you play around with it first (or if your in the PNW I’d meet up). 

 

Harlan

[Don Taylor]

Harglo

 

Thanks for that, but it is a bit beyond my budget for a tuner! 

 

I know I can manage with the existing apps, I am just curious to see how the fundamental changes over time.

 

Don.