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View Full Version : PhonTuner 2.0.3 by Display Research Laboratory


Jason Dunn
05-07-2003, 07:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.handango.com/brainstore/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=47773' target='_blank'>http://www.handango.com/brainstore/...productId=47773</a><br /><br /></div><img src="http://www.handango.com/include/pictures/162443/phontuner203_main_a1[175].gif" /><br /><br />"Phonature PhonTuner is an advanced tuner for musical instruments tuning and vocal practice. It is the FIRST precision tuner to detect off-tuned notes in recordings and uninterrupted performance. Enjoy seeing the secrets of popular singers' tonal accuracy and temperament used by top violinists ;-) It can also alert you when your piano needs tuning.<br /><br />Based on the Mathematical Cochlea of Phonature theory, less than 0.5% tonal frequency difference over a 3 octave range can be clearly seen. Calibrated Sound Texture pattern in the middle reflects the timbre of sound and reveals fusing of multi-part voices. PhonTuner indicates the playing note on the Mathematical Cochlea with a big dot and needle for you to see clearly whether it matches the target tone. Singing mode automatically shows singing or whistle in the chromatic scale from C2 to C8; users can define target tones for up to 6 strings from C3 to C6 in Custom mode."<br /><br />As a musician, I find this application fascinating...any other musicians out there using this? [Affiliate]

lurch
05-07-2003, 07:19 PM
What do you play? or do you sing?

I play (or at least used to play, haven't in a while) acoustic guitar.. I tried to sing once, but broke a bunch of stuff (including my eardrums) so I stopped that.

My wife's a music teacher & performer... I bet she'd love this!! It'll be a great excuse to get her a Pocket PC to replace her Visor! :)

dazz
05-07-2003, 07:35 PM
Yee Haw! I'm going to give this a go. I do a lot of singing at my church and would love to know how far off I am! (not "if")

I recently did my first recording and cringed the whole time. :oops: Maybe this will help. :wink:

dazz

Jason Dunn
05-07-2003, 07:55 PM
What do you play? or do you sing?

I've been playing bass guitar for 11 years now, and I've been singing for about seven years. :mrgreen: I did the "Christian rock band" thing for a few years (we were called Sound Doctrine). Heh heh. :lol: That just inspired me to look up an up old picture from a rock show we did when I was about 20 years old.

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/rocker.jpg

(I'm the guy in the background)

[EDIT]

Ok, I dug up an even better "rock star" picture. :rock on dude!: :lol:

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/jason_sing.jpg

Jason Dunn
05-07-2003, 07:57 PM
I recently did my first recording and cringed the whole time. :oops: Maybe this will help. :wink:

Oh the horror stories I could tell you about when I worked on my first album...the horror...! You don't realize how imperfect your voice is until you hear it played back to you. :oops: :lol:

T-Will
05-07-2003, 08:18 PM
I play sax, piano, and organ and this could help tune my sax. I've never seen a tuner with that cloud/nebula thing in the middle...interesting.

Master O'Mayhem
05-07-2003, 08:41 PM
What do you play? or do you sing?

I've been playing bass guitar for 11 years now, and I've been singing for about seven years. :mrgreen: I did the "Christian rock band" thing for a few years (we were called Sound Doctrine). Heh heh. :lol: That just inspired me to look up an up old picture from a rock show we did when I was about 20 years old.

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/rocker.jpg

(I'm the guy in the background)

[EDIT]





Ok, I dug up an even better "rock star" picture. :rock on dude!: :lol:

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/jason_sing.jpg


LOOK OUT GEDDY!!!!!!!

ux4484
05-07-2003, 08:53 PM
It can also alert you when your piano needs tuning.


Would that be after a sample of the piano and calibrated to it, or on frequency/pitch alone?
Most pianos are not tuned right on pitch but to themselves (as most of us found out the hard way when going from school to someones house to practice). If the app can be calibrated (like a lot of good stand alone tuners) and change it's scale accordingly.....that does put it above most of the current PPC offerings.

I've been tinkering with JB FreqTune www.frequencytuner.solcon.nl which can't "learn" but it does have temperment settings and lets you adjust the scale manually.

Of Course, no PPC tuner could ever get me to give up my beloved Sabine Ax-2000 http://www.sabine.com/newsite/liveapps/iax2000w.htm

bblock
05-07-2003, 09:28 PM
Well, Jason - I have to say, that's wierd. When I first started reading PocketPCThoughts almost two years ago, I thought it was cool that you're from Alberta - I grew up there and lived in Edmonton :twisted: for six years. You were in a church band (as was I) and you're a bass player - like me!

I'm a Jason wanna-be and didn't even know it!


====
Bryan

Jason Dunn
05-07-2003, 09:32 PM
Well, Jason - I have to say, that's wierd. When I first started reading PocketPCThoughts almost two years ago, I thought it was cool that you're from Alberta - I grew up there and lived in Edmonton :twisted: for six years. You were in a church band (as was I) and you're a bass player - like me! I'm a Jason wanna-be and didn't even know it!

Haha...that's hilarious! What's even funnier is that the photos I posted above were taken at a Christian Rock festival called Harvest Moon that was held in...Edmonton. 8O What a small world eh? :mrgreen:

lurch
05-07-2003, 09:46 PM
Haha...that's hilarious! What's even funnier is that the photos I posted above were taken at a Christian Rock festival called Harvest Moon that was held in...Edmonton. 8O What a small world eh? :mrgreen:

Oh yeah, and I played in a band festival in Moose Jaw!! Oh wait, that's Sasketchewan..... Same deal. ;)

Oh, so I guess I can throw "trumpet" on my list of things I used to play. :)

MBurch
05-07-2003, 10:23 PM
I have been using this program for several months. My favorite thing to do with it is to sit next to the sound team at church while the worship team is rehearsing and show them how "off" or "on" they are.

Brad Adrian
05-07-2003, 11:07 PM
Oh yeah, and I played in a band festival in Moose Jaw!!
And who wouldn't be proud to claim he's been to a place called "Moose Jaw?" ;)

Underwater Mike
05-08-2003, 01:05 AM
I'm surprised that the PPC's mic is good enough to work this way. :?:

kfluet
05-08-2003, 01:35 AM
Oh yeah, and I played in a band festival in Moose Jaw!!
And who wouldn't be proud to claim he's been to a place called "Moose Jaw?" ;)

The best place-name I've heard in Canada is "Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump". It's in Southern Alberta. "Headsmashedin" (as if one word) for short.

kfluet
05-08-2003, 03:19 AM
So I just tried downloading PhonTuner and I can't seem to get it to work. Has anybody else downloaded the latest version and got it working?

I get the orange spiral thing when it starts up, but nothing else shows. If I pick Guitar or anything else in the Instrument menu, it gives me an explanation of the frequencies it will be using and an OK button I can't seem to press.

I have an iPAQ 3970.

HandDee-SA and PhonViso from the same company seem to work without a hitch, by the way.

When I first started learning (acoustic) guitar a few months ago, I tried that free "Frequency Tuner" app mentioned above. I found that it jumps around a lot and is almost useless for tuning compared the little Korg electronic tuner I have.

At the time, I assumed that it had more to do with the limitations of the iPAQ's microphone than anything else. I am suprised to hear that other people are having success with it. What PocketPC's are you using with these tuning programs?

lurch
05-08-2003, 04:18 AM
works fine for me -- Jornada 567

GadgetDave
05-08-2003, 05:46 AM
Been using it for a while - it's a great tuner app. I'm planning on taking it to a couple of Colorado Symphony performances this year ... :)

ux4484
05-08-2003, 03:45 PM
When I first started learning (acoustic) guitar a few months ago, I tried that free "Frequency Tuner" app mentioned above. I found that it jumps around a lot and is almost useless for tuning compared the little Korg electronic tuner I have.

I don't think that any PPC app could really replace your dedicated guitar tuner, especially if you have a body mounted model. This app is not bad for guitar/bass or violin.....it is certianly more stable than JB tuner, but for me to buy it, it would have to be more flexible concerning piano........at it appears from tinkering with this app........Phontuner can't calibrate to your instrument automatically. You have to do it manually in .5Hz increments. Which means unless your piano is perfectly tuned (which few if any are), it likely can't reliably tell you if it's out of tune or not much better than your own ear can....which for me translates into.....no sale.

With my Sabine tuner, I can calibrate it to our piano, and then tune my guitar and my daughers friends violin to our piano and we can all practice in tune with each other with a minumum of hassle or bother. Phontuner would be MORE work and tinkering, which is not what I want.

Still, pretty cool as these kind of apps go.

CharlesWilcox
05-08-2003, 04:41 PM
I've been using Perfect Pitch from fiftycycle.com. It works great for my acoustic guitar. From a hardware standpoint, I'd like to see some kind of secondary audio input to go along with the mic.

I'm going to give this a try too. :D

ego093
05-09-2003, 05:21 PM
Been using this little for for a while now and it works great. I use it with acoustic guitar and have had no problem with it. I think it has the ability to set sensitivity, which changes drastically how you use it. Even if you can tune by ear, it's a great tool (especially if you play with people who can't).

On the whole Xian rock thing - it's always fun to hear that we weren't alone in our experience growing up in the 80s / early 90s. We were called "Covenant" and did the whole youth conference circuit from Hawaii to Florida... good fun those days. We even had a chance to open for Newsboys (none of us knew who they were) and swap sample discs with them.

Does anyone else have the dubious honor of having worn the jeans / t-shirt / vest combo? Boy oh boy that was a time.

Chris

Jason Dunn
05-09-2003, 05:32 PM
Does anyone else have the dubious honor of having worn the jeans / t-shirt / vest combo? Boy oh boy that was a time.

I can't say that I ever wore that combo (sounds like it was before my time), but I have fond memories of being clad in plaid, and singing in my Eddy Vedder voice. :lol:

scmok
02-04-2004, 02:36 PM
When I first started learning (acoustic) guitar a few months ago, I tried that free "Frequency Tuner" app mentioned above. I found that it jumps around a lot and is almost useless for tuning compared the little Korg electronic tuner I have.

I don't think that any PPC app could really replace your dedicated guitar tuner, especially if you have a body mounted model. This app is not bad for guitar/bass or violin.....it is certianly more stable than JB tuner, but for me to buy it, it would have to be more flexible concerning piano........at it appears from tinkering with this app........Phontuner can't calibrate to your instrument automatically....which for me translates into.....no sale.



Hi,

We noticed your comment a couple months ago and have since added calibration function to PhonTuner 2.2.2 which now also includes a pitch pipe function for tuning together with your ear. Thanks for your such specific tips to improve this piece of software.

Talking about body mounted models, a customer glued the Tungsten to a guitar using the original plastic cover. So he just carry the Tungsten around without the cover and insert it to the cover (now at the back of Tungsten) while playing the guitar and singing without losing sight of the PhonTuner. Unfortunately, no such funny cover design for PPC.

We have also developed another tuner called Visual Guitar Tuner II which uses the visual beating effect for near perfect matching of tones. Similar in principle to the Peterson strobe tuners. This is for barbershop or a-cappella singers and the Buzz Feiten Tuning System that gives your guitar ringing chords throughout the fretboard.

If you have any other wish list, just let me know.

SC Mok
Display Research Laboratory

ux4484
02-04-2004, 04:12 PM
Why THANKS!

That is just too cool, I'll definitely give PhonTuner another shot.
It's great to see developers read here and act on comments that can improve their product.

Thanks again!

Godsongz
02-04-2004, 04:19 PM
Me too, I love seeing developers here in the forums with us talking about their software.

scmok: the new version of PhonTuner is just brilliant. I don't know what you could possibly do to make it better, but you keep on doing it anyway. Thank you for producing such quality software for the PPC!

scmok
02-05-2004, 06:52 AM
Thanks for the appreciation and acceptance of my jumping into your discussion.

There are still much room for improvement. Just that we have obsession in elegance and simplicity and so plan very carefully in adding features.

On the other hand, we do a lot of invisible :devilboy: improvements. For example, the current version 2.2.2 can detect the pitch of drums and many difficult to handle musical instrument much better than before.

Also, you may notice that the PhonTuner is actually a singing practice tool disugised as a tuner. Many of our customers are barbershop quartet members, a-cappella singers or vocalists. There are many interesting possibilities along this direction. Admittedly, if the required changes are too much, it will become another product to avoid confusing our primary users. Back to elegance principle.

SC Mok