Review: Tunerific 2.0
One of the signs of the coming together of a mature software platform and a powerful hardware platform has always been that a decent guitar tuner will turn up, adding another practical convergence feature to the ubiquitous smartphone. Enter Tunerific 2.0 for Symbian, which has replaced my standalone guitar tuner and chord book in one fell swoop. With bells on.
Version Reviewed: 2.0
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You see, anyone can write a simple guitar tuner that just spits out a few tones, for the user to compare, by ear, with the guitar's string pitch. I know, because I knocked out a simple one in Python about five years ago for S60. It's a lot, lot harder to write something that dynamically samples the audio straight from your guitar strings and outputs meaningful tuning directions.
Tunerific is a second generation musical tool, produced just for Symbian, and has high enough performance (I tested it on the N8) that it's definitely fit for purpose and (almost) comparable to standalone tuning gadgets.
The Tunerific folks have produced a number of music tools for Symbian over the last few years, the eponymous Tunerific 2.0 is the culmination of their work and it has three distinct modes. Firstly and most importantly, there's a dynamic tuner, sampling notes via the phone's microphone (especially sensitive, I suspect on the N8, so I was testing the utility at its best?) and putting up an on-screen guide as to whether the note's sharp or flat and by what degree. The layout mimics that in a standalone tuner and works well.
As you'd expect, you pluck the open string every few seconds, keeping it ringing as pure as you can. As the note gets 'close', the letter indicator turns yellow and then when you're completely in tune, it turns green. Very clear and functional. There's note auto detection in that Tunerific tries to show what note is closest to that being played but, as with standalone tuners, you're best off manually selecting which string you want to tune next and then the algorithms can concentrate on detecting differences from that particular frequency. Strings are selected by just tapping the appropriate letter.
In use, Tunerific 2.0 worked well and had my 12 string acoustic guitar tuned up in no time, not much longer than my standalone aid. The high octave strings also seemed to be detected, interestingly, so I didn't have to rely on tuning by 'ear' very much.
The second mode is the traditional tuning tones, but presentation is good (above, right), you simply tap the string you want to sound and then tune by ear. Simple but you have to be good at tuning this way!
Tunerific 2.0's third mode is its chord database, which is surprisingly comprehensive. I know a fair few chords, but both the depth of the chords in each key and the accuracy of the fingerings impressed me. In many cases, popular (but not 100% strict in terms of note composition) chord fingerings are omitted in favour of more technically correct but harder to finger versions.
It's at this point that I finally find something to criticise in Tunerific 2.0 - there are no inversions shown (or available) - I was looking forward to swiping up the guitar neck to see different chord inversions (alternative fingerings to produce the same note mixes) - something for version 2.1, guys?
A 'Play' option produces a pleasant rendition of the selected chord, i.e. what it should sound like if strummed slowly. Helpful in terms of checking whether what you're fingering on the real thing is right or not and also perhaps helpful when browsing chords to find something interesting for a composition. The chord playback, like the rest of Tunerific, responds to the phone's volume keys, which is a nice touch.
At £3, Tunerific 2.0 is sensibly priced. It's enough for the developers to gradually get rewarded as the app becomes successful yet is only the price of a pint of beer for the part time musician (like me). And it's a small one time cost for such a relatively simple and yet potentially life saving tool.
Tunerific 2.0 is not only a useful backup to a standalone tuner and chord book, it can replace them to all intents and purposes. Lending yet another string (pun intended!) to the humble Symbian smartphone's bow.
Steve Litchield, All About Symbian, 17 April 2011
Reviewed by Steve Litchfield at