Online Guitar Tuner — Tune By Ear

How the Guitar Tuner Works

This page tunes your guitar the way guitarists did long before electronic tuners existed: Tune By Ear plays a pure reference tone — synthesised at the exact frequency of each open string — so you can match your string to it by listening alone.

Every reference tone is generated live in your browser using the Web Audio API at the precise A440 frequency for that string and tuning, with a natural pluck-like decay. Tap any string on the headstock diagram or its note button below it, switch on Loop to keep it repeating hands-free while you turn the tuning peg, and pick a preset to hear Standard EADGBE, Drop D, Half Step Down, Open G, or DADGAD instead.

Tune Your Guitar By Ear

Tuning by ear comes down to recognising one thing: the "beating" effect that happens when two pitches are close but not identical. When your string and the reference tone are slightly out of tune with each other, you'll hear a wobbling pulse layered over the note — the further apart the pitches, the faster the wobble.

1. 1Play the reference tone for a string (or enable Loop so it keeps repeating).
2. 2Pluck the matching open string on your guitar right after.
3. 3Listen for the beating pulse between the two pitches.
4. 4Turn the tuning peg slowly — tighten to raise pitch, loosen to lower it — until the beating slows and disappears.
5. 5Repeat for all six strings, then do a second pass since tuning one string slightly shifts neck tension on the others.

Standard EADGBE Guitar Tuning

Standard tuning is E A D G B E from the thickest string (6, low E) to the thinnest (1, high E). It's the tuning almost every beginner method, chord chart, and tab on the internet assumes by default, which is why it's the first preset on this tool. Each interval between adjacent strings is a perfect fourth, except between the G and B strings, which is a major third — that one exception is what makes a handful of chord shapes (and a few tuning tricks) slightly irregular.

In exact A440 concert pitch, the six open strings are E2 (82.41 Hz), A2 (110.00 Hz), D3 (146.83 Hz), G3 (196.00 Hz), B3 (246.94 Hz), and E4 (329.63 Hz) — the same frequencies the reference-tone player above uses for its Standard preset.

Alternate Guitar Tunings

Once standard tuning feels comfortable, alternate tunings open up new chord voicings and tonal colours. This tool includes four of the most widely used:

• Drop D (D A D G B E) — only the low E string drops a whole step to D, making power chords and low riffs easier to play with one finger across the bottom three strings.
• Half Step Down (Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb) — every string drops by one semitone, giving slightly looser string tension and a darker tone without changing any fingerings.
• Open G (D G D G B D) — strumming all open strings rings out a G major chord, a tuning closely associated with slide and blues guitar.
• DADGAD (D A D G A D) — a modal, drone-like tuning beloved in Celtic and fingerstyle playing, since the open strings already sound rich and suspended without fretting a single note.

Switching presets in the Tune By Ear tool instantly recalculates every string's exact frequency, so you always hear the correct reference pitch no matter which tuning you're aiming for.

Ear Training Tips

• Tune in a quiet room. Background noise masks the subtle beating effect you're listening for, especially on the lower, slower-beating strings like E2 and A2.
• Tune from low to high. Start with the low E string and work upward — it keeps your reference point stable and matches how most fifth-fret and harmonic tuning methods are taught.
• Use Loop on the trickiest strings. Lower strings beat more slowly, which makes tiny differences harder to hear. Looping the reference tone gives you more passes to catch a slow wobble.
• Re-check after every string. Tightening one string shifts tension across the whole neck. A full second pass after the first round catches the small drift this causes.
• Practice without looking. Once you're comfortable, try tuning by sound alone before glancing at any visual indicator — it's the fastest way to build real pitch-matching skill.