Precision Strobe Tuner

It is theoretically possible to indicate a pitch more accurately than an instrument can dial in or a string can make. This tuner makes us think that it provides that means and compels you to try, to play with the app like the cool toy it is. The bottom like though is how it all sounds when you're finished and how easy it is to use. It doesn't sound that good and endless fiddling required. I've checked out all my instruments learning what I can do and how to do it. I give this app 5 stars because it's fun to play with, not because it's a good functional tuner. I haven't tried a strobe tuner before so I have nothing to compare it to. The down side is it's not a practical option during a live performance. The fact that it uses the audio microphone is problematic. It's only useable in a quiet place. It rather needs a contact pickup able to clip on your instrument. According to the instructions there's a pickup that plugs into the charging port and you need that because the headphone/microphone jack feeds in through a band pass filter that ignores frequencies below 150 cycles which means the iPhone or iPad is designed to be deaf to bass notes. I haven't found a pickup configured with a plug which uses the charging port. The manual octave selector pops out of lock every time the note is tested. When it does, the band pass filter drops out and then the display is momentarily chaotic and you reset and try again; lots of playing around. I can't make the custom profile feature work, so maybe it doesn't. So, try this app, it's free to try.

From a student's perspective: I want something similar to "Cyber Tuner" in hand. This affordable app offers similar precision strobe display, which is valuable even just to train my hand technique. The temperament sounds quite fine; one could of course fine tune after the app. I like that the app is being updated often. It doesn't have presets for specific piano models, which shouldn't be a problem when a student is learning to tune by ear. I am very thankful for this app. It does use a lot battery, my iPhone 5s wouldn't survive a whole piano tuning without external power. The phone also heats up, might cause phone to shutdown if used for too long?