I just tuned my Martin D18 guitar because I suspect my son will use it tonight because he has some friends over. So what, you might say? Haven’t you tuned guitars before?
Of course I have, many, many times. But this is the first time I’ve done it using an iPhone.
I’m using an iPhone application called Cleartune. You play a note and the tuning appears on both a note-wheel interface and a fine tuning meter. You don’t need to set for a particular note – this application finds it for you. You can even sing into it (don’t worry, I was home alone when I tried that – but it worked). So the guitar sounds good, even though it’s apparent that I need new strings on it. Tomorrow, I get to tune the 12-string guitar. Wow…
I couldn’t resist the temptation and took the iPhone and plonked it on the Stuart piano. According to the iPhone, the tuning is still pretty much spot on – a few notes have dropped about 2 cents but that’s hardly noticeable for someone with my eyesight. Even better, most of the high and low notes were picked up pretty quickly. The high notes are sharp according to the iPhone – I suspect this is deliberate on Wayne’s part to try to make the notes cut through a bit more, and the bass notes are really spot on still. With some of the low notes, the iPhone picked up a harmonic rather than the fundamental, but the harmonic was in pitch.
Not bad at all considering the piano hasn’t been tuned for four months. This thing really does hold its tune well.
The good thing about this application is that it handles different temperaments, including various mean tone, Pythagorean and well-tempered tunings. Even better, the next version will allow me to define my own temperament.
The iPhone really does redefine what you can do with a handheld computer – mp3 player, video player, games, tuning, web browsing etc. The ability to make phone calls is purely a bonus, but a necessary one at that.