Mandolin Trainer Tuner
Mandolin tuner
Standard mandolin tuning is G D A E, low to high, at A = 440 Hz. Those are the same four notes a fiddle is tuned to, with two strings to every course. Press start, let the browser have the microphone, and play one string at a time: the tuner names the course it hears and tells you how far off it is. It runs in this page, so nothing you play is recorded or leaves your device.
| Course | Note | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| 1st (thickest) | G3 | 196.00 Hz |
| 2nd | D4 | 293.66 Hz |
| 3rd | A4 | 440.00 Hz |
| 4th (thinnest) | E5 | 659.26 Hz |
Each course is a pair of strings tuned to the same note, so eight strings give you four pitches.
The tuner
The tuner needs JavaScript and a microphone. Everything below works without either.
Tap a string above to hear its reference pitch, plucked. The one you are playing lights up on its own once the tuner is running. Reference tones come out of your speakers, so the microphone hears them too: play the tone, then play your string, rather than both at once.
How to tune a mandolin
Four courses, eight strings, tuned in fifths: G D A E. The order below is the one that saves you doing it twice.
Tune one string of the pair at a time
Each course is two strings tuned to the same note. Damp one with a finger so only its twin sounds, get that one right, then let the other back in.
Come up to the note, never down
A string dropped onto its pitch is sitting on slack that works itself out over the next hour, and it goes flat. If you overshoot, wind well under and come back up.
Work in small turns
Mandolin strings are short and under a lot of tension, so a quarter turn of a peg is a long way. Move a little, pluck, read, move again.
Match the pair by ear
Once one string of the course is right, tune its twin to it by listening rather than looking. As the two close in on each other the wavering slows down, and it stops when they are together.
Go around a second time
Every course you tighten pulls on the neck, so the G you started on has moved by the time you finish the E. A mandolin is never in tune on one pass.
Why eight strings feel harder than six
A guitar has six strings and six pitches. A mandolin has eight strings and four pitches, which sounds like less work and turns out to be more. A pair that disagrees does not sound flat. It wavers, and the waver is louder than either string on its own. Worse, a tuner reads the two of them added together, so a course that is a few cents apart can show a clean needle and still sound wrong in a room.
That is why the last step of tuning a mandolin is always the ear, not the meter. Get one string of the pair onto the needle, then bring its twin to it by listening for the waver to slow down and stop. Once you have heard it stop a few times you will start hearing it in other people's mandolins too, whether you want to or not.
One thing the needle cannot tell you is that the string is finished. A course that will not settle, or that sounds dull beside the ones either side of it, is usually old rather than out of tune, and no amount of turning fixes that. A new set of strings is its own half hour, and the day after you put them on the whole instrument drifts, so keep this page open while it settles.
In tune is the easy half
A tuner tells you the open string is right. Mandolin Trainer listens while you play a tune and tells you which of the fretted notes were not. That is the harder question, and the one that moves your playing. Free while it is in beta.
Open the appRuns in your browser. The audio never leaves your device. iOS app coming soon.
Now that it is in tune
This site has two more free references, and both of them print.