How to tune a guitar with these tones
- Press E2. The page plays the note of the thickest string. Start with the volume low.
- Pluck the 6th string and let it ring together with the tone. If the two are close but not equal, you hear a slow wobble in loudness, called beating. The number of wobbles per second equals the difference in hertz: a string at 83.4 Hz against the 82.41 Hz tone pulses about once a second. That is the beat between the two fundamentals. The sawtooth tone and the string also have overtones, which beat faster, at two and three times that rate, but all the beats slow down together and stop at the same moment, when the string is in tune.
- Turn the tuning peg slowly. If the wobble gets faster, you are going the wrong way. When it slows down and disappears, the string is in tune.
- Press the next button and repeat for all six strings. Pressing the button that is playing stops the tone.
It is easiest to hear the beating when the string and the tone are about equally loud, so turn the volume up or down until neither covers the other, and mute the strings you are not tuning with your palm.
Standard tuning, Drop D and half step down
| String | Standard | Drop D | Half step down |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6th (thickest) | E2 · 82.41 Hz | D2 · 73.42 Hz | E♭2 · 77.78 Hz |
| 5th | A2 · 110.00 Hz | A2 · 110.00 Hz | A♭2 · 103.83 Hz |
| 4th | D3 · 146.83 Hz | D3 · 146.83 Hz | D♭3 · 138.59 Hz |
| 3rd | G3 · 196.00 Hz | G3 · 196.00 Hz | G♭3 · 185.00 Hz |
| 2nd | B3 · 246.94 Hz | B3 · 246.94 Hz | B♭3 · 233.08 Hz |
| 1st (thinnest) | E4 · 329.63 Hz | E4 · 329.63 Hz | E♭4 · 311.13 Hz |
The frequencies are equal temperament with A4 at 440 Hz, the standard tuning pitch set by ISO 16. They match a piano, a keyboard and a tuner set to 440 Hz.
Check your tuning with the frets
Once the low E matches the tone, you can confirm the other strings against each other, because standard tuning is built from fixed steps: the note at the 5th fret of the 6th, 5th, 4th and 2nd strings equals the next open string, and on the 3rd (G) string it is the 4th fret that gives the open B. If a pair beats, the tones above tell you which string to trust. In Drop D, the 6th string played at the 7th fret matches the open 5th string instead.
Other instruments
The four thinnest guitar strings, D3 G3 B3 E4, are also the tuning of a baritone ukulele, on the ukulele tuning page. A bass guitar’s four strings sit exactly one octave below the guitar’s four lowest: see bass guitar tuning. For an open tuning or any other note, type the note name, such as D#3, into the Note box of the tone generator.