Maybe you’re an experienced musician who knows the importance of a perfectly pitched instrument. Or, maybe for old time’s sake, you want to revive that awfully out of tune guitar that’s been rotting away in your attic since who knows when. Either way, an ugly plastic tuner will cost you a good $15 at your local music shop. Save yourself a little time and money and download gStrings, a handy little chromatic tuner (with a suggestive title) that should never leave a musician’s side. The cost? Free ninety-free.
In spite of my skepticism of a cell phones capability to measure an instrument’s pitch, this tuner is exceptionally accurate. I’ve used it to tune everything from an acoustic guitar to timpani drums, and it never fails to impress me. The interface is stylish and simple. At the top, you can select any note to tune to, including sharps and flats. If you don’t know the note, you can select the “tune auto” button at the bottom right and the app will automatically tune to the closest note. There’s also a button to sound the note, so you can have a reference pitch for what you should be tuning to.
In case you get tired of the color scheme, the app comes with a total of 7 skins. In the settings menu you can set the microphone sensitivity, or choose the optimal frequency range based on your instrument. For the skilled musician, there are several advanced settings you can tweak to your liking.
Although gStrings is a free application, there is a donate version available in the market for about $4, with double the processing power. It is well worth the money in my opinion, considering it’s easily as precise as any store bought tuner. gStrings runs on Android 1.5+.
Final Verdict: If you’re a musician of any sort, this is simply a must have.
Pros:
- Extremely precise
- Simple interface and easy to use
- Very stable, absolutely no force closes
- FREE!
Suggestions:
- Add a metronome for an all-in-one musician’s tool
- Add a tuning widget
Note: This review was submitted by Andrew Hewitt as part of our app review contest.