Tunable is the only app that I use every single day in my practice. It has a phenomenal tuner and metronome interface, plus so many other great features that allow you to analyze your playing in detail and practice in a variety of ways at the touch of a button. You can quickly switch between tuner and metronome, run both simultaneously, record yourself and analyze the recording through the tuner, and more.
Tuner
Let’s look at the tuner first, since that’s the biggest reason to use this app.
The interface gives you all the information you could need when playing. At the top it shows the note you’re playing, a numerical value in cents of whether you’re above or below the pitch, and the frequency in hertz of the pitch you’re playing (which is also handy for audio engineers to quickly find a problem frequency).
The best part is the tuning display. It gives you both a real-time visual in bright colors of how close you are to the pitch, PLUS a white line that shows sustained pitch history. This means you can get a visual representation of the note you’re playing, how wide your vibrato is, and if you are holding the pitch steady through the whole note. I love this because you get a much more accurate view of your intonation tendencies.
Drone
The bottom half of the screen is where you can play drone pitches to play or sing along with. This should be a daily exercise for everyone to help develop your ear. You can turn sustain on or off, play any number of pitches at once, and switch between a piano keyboard or just the note names.
Settings
Tunable’s settings allow you to really fine tune your practice session easily. First, you can set what you want Concert A to be. You can set it to any frequency you want. You can also transpose the tuner to display your instrument’s written pitch if you prefer it that way.
You can also choose what temperament you want, and not just Equal or Just Temperament. Tunable also has settings for 18 different scales, including Mean Tone, Perfect 5ths, Pythagorean, Well Tempered, and more. You can even create your own Custom Temperament and save it!
Obviously if you are using Just (or Pure) Temperament, you need to select the key you are in. This can be done on the menu, or simply by double-tapping the note name on the drone, making it easy to switch keys!
Record & Analyze
Another very cool feature of Tunable is the ability to record in the app and then analyze the pitch of your performance. You can record simultaneously with use of the tuner and metronome, add reverb to your recordings, etc, and then you can playback the recording through the tuner and watch your pitch in real-time.
Even cooler, Tunable will give you a note-by note breakdown of your pitch tendencies, including attack sustain and release of every note you play! It will even give you a score of how in tune you play overall in that recording. This is incredibly helpful for analyzing your own playing and picking up your tendencies, not only which notes tend to be out of tune, but whether you are dropping off at the end of notes, attacking high, etc.
Metronome
Tunable’s metronome is straight forward, easy to use, and very flexible. Easily adjust number of beats, subdivisions, accents, turn off beats, change tempos with a single touch. Customize the sounds, tap the screen to match tempo. It uses large numbers and color visuals in addition to the clicks. There is also a play button on the tuner screen to start the metronome so you don’t have to flip back and forth.
