THE BEST ONLINE MANDOLIN TUNER
Mandolins are incredible sounding instruments that add color to genres ranging from Americana to bluegrass. However, what doesn’t sound so incredible is an out of tune mandolin. Fear not—we have the perfect solution that helps you tune a mandolin in no time.
The mandolin tuner included in the GuitarTuna app will leave your instrument sounding as good as it was meant to, with ease. Featuring cableless operation and impressive accuracy, our online mandolin tuner app is a tool that you won’t want to be without. In addition to offering you an effortless and reliable way to tune your mandolin, our tuner app is also free.
Additional Madonlin Tuning Tools
A LOT OF TUNINGS
The standard GGDDAAEE mandolin tuning and more
METRONOME
With tap-for-tempo and multiple time signatures
CHROMATIC TUNER
For alternative tunings and any instrument
TOOLS
Ear training, chord guide, games, and exercises
Free Mandolin Tuner App
If you do an online search for ‘mandolin tuner’ and you’ll probably won’t find much. Most physical tuners are geared towards the guitar, or they are chromatic and meant for a wide range of stringed instruments. On top of that they all have a price, and in some cases they’ll cost you a lot more than you would have imagined.
We think that playing a mandolin or any other instrument shouldn’t be an expensive hobby—and tuning your instrument is central for playing it right. With our mandolin tuner app, you’ll have a tool that is intuitively designed to tune your mandolin. What’s even better is that our mandolin tuner can be downloaded right from your smartphone’s app store (for either Android or iOS) for free.
TUNE YOUR MANDOLIN WITH GUITARTUNA
Once you have our tuning app downloaded, using it is easy. You can quickly set it up for tuning a mandolin by selecting ‘Folk Instruments’ in the Settings section, then choosing ‘Mandolin – Standard’. This will let you tune your instrument to the standard (G D A E) mandolin tuning.
Our mandolin tuner has two operating modes: Manual and Auto. Manual mode allows you to choose which string you want to tune. Just tap on the screen to select the string you want to tune. Using the app’s Manual mode makes tuning a simple process, but Auto mode is even easier. With Auto mode, all you have to do is play a string, and our app will automatically determine what string you are trying to tune. You’ll see a small indicator right above the picture of the instrument headstock. As you adjust the tension on the string by turning the tuning pegs, the indicator will move on the screen, telling you if the pitch is too high or too low. Once the indicator reaches the middle of the screen, the string is in tune.
No matter which mode you are using, once one string is done you can move on to the next until they are all tuned properly.
Mandolin Tuning Quality
Whether you’re using a physical tuner or one of the tuning apps available, it’s not really a surprise to see that some of them don’t work as well as you would like. Quite often the tuner’s note recognition isn’t very stable and this can lead to a lot of frustration when trying to tune your mandolin. Not only will tuning your instrument take much longer than it should, you can’t always be certain that the instrument is tuned correctly, even after going through all that effort.
Our online mandolin tuner app takes care of that problem. How? Simple—the world-class audio algorithm that drives the Yousician app is the same one we use for our tuner. This means that accuracy and reliability will never be a concern—you can be assured that all strings of the mandolin are tuned correctly. All of this is taken care of by your phone and its built-in microphone, so you don’t need any additional physical tuners or extra accessories.
How to Tune a Mandolin
Players new to the mandolin may be a little confused by how the instrument is set up. A mandolin is similar to a 12-string guitar in that one finger on your fretting hand is meant to hold down two strings at the same time. Unlike a 12-string guitar, though, each string pair on a mandolin is meant to be tuned to the same exact note instead of an octave apart. Getting an accurate tune can be incredibly difficult to do by ear, which is another reason why our mandolin tuner app is the perfect tool for any mandolin player to have.
To tune a mandolin, you have to alter the tension on the strings until the string plays the intended note at the right pitch. Using one of the two modes in our tuner app, you can easily tell if your note is sharp (pitch is too high, which means too much tension) or flat (not enough tension, producing a note that sounds lower than it should).
We recommend starting to tune a string slightly flat and tune ‘up’ to the target note, as this will greatly enhance your tuning stability. Slow and smooth turns of your mandolin’s tuning pegs on the headstock are the key to getting the pitch just right.
A mandolin has four pairs of strings that you need to tune. For reference, the notes for standard tuning on a mandolin follow the pattern below. The fourth string pair is made up of the thickest strings that are closer to your chest when playing, and the first pair of strings (the thinnest strings) are the ones closest to the floor.
Standard mandolin tuning (G D A E)
• Fourth string pair: G, G
• Third string pair: D, D
• Second string pair: A, A
• First string pair: E, E
It’s not all that often that you’ll come across a mandolin tuner app that has the features and quality that GuitarTuna has to offer. Over 100 million users can’t be wrong, so download GuitarTuna today. Tuning your mandolin has never been this easy.
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