Screenshot and Main features
Key features
- PC software strobe tuner for Microsoft Windows platform
- Fast and accurate tuning (0.1 cents)
- Great sensitivity
- Perfect for studio recording
- Necessary for setting the intonation of your guitar
- Strobe effect = visualization of what people with perfect pitch hear
- If the pattern rotates left, the note is flat. If it rotates right, the note is sharp. If it is stationary, you are in tune.
- Even if you have perfect pitch, the strobe tuner will make your life way easier when tuning in noisy environments (with guitar pickup or clip)
NEW! Built-in and user-defined presets
- Piano stretch tunings, Open string tunings
- Create your own tunings easily
- User-defined skins
- Let's e-mail us your interesting presets and skins - we will put them on this website so other users can download them.
Download demo version
The demo version provides full functionality with a limitation - the A4 tone calibration is fixed to 442 Hz, the cent offset is fixed to 0 and cents are disabled in Presets. You can download it for free and try it yourself if the software is compatible with your hardware and software configuration. If you like the strobe tuning (it takes a little time to get used into it), you can buy the full version with no limitations for a very low price.
Download tb_strobe_tuner_demo.zip, 12 MB.
Buy full version directly using PayPal or Visa and other cards
In the first step, download the demo version, please. If you are satisfied with the tuner, click on Buy Now, the price is $4.90. You will be redirected to secured site where you make a payment via PayPal or your card. After the payment, you will obtain a download link to the full version of the Tuner. By buying this item, you will get 3 unlimited licenses of TB Strobe Tuner so you can use it on three computers simultaneously.
Video demo
Requirements
The software works under Microsoft Windows 7, Vista and XP. It is designed to run on most of the recent HW configurations. Anyway - try before buy...
How to measure?
How many cents my note is flat or sharp?
Let's play the tone, click on the 'Cents' scrollbar in Tuning
Calibration panel and change the value (eg. with cursor keys or mouse scroll
button) to the value when the rotation of the strobe pattern stops.
Then the value says how many cents you are out of the tune.
Installation
- In the first step, unzip the downloaded archive to any folder of your choice. The archive must be unzipped, if you run the .exe file directly from the .zip archive, the tuner exits with an error message.
- Set the correct recording input of your soundcard in Recording Control panel in Windows (or Audio mixer), for detailed instructions see bellow... The microphone or Line In are the most common.
- Run the TB Strone Tuner and if you are tuning a bass instrument, uncheck the '>70 Hz filter' switch.
- Let's tune.
Soundcard Recording input settings
- To open the mixer, double-click the speaker icon in your system tray. Or from the Start Menu under programs go to Accessories - Entertainment - Volume control. From the options menu, choose properties.
- Select Recording and make sure the items that you wish to use such as Microphone, Line In, etc., are checked. If the Recording option is disabled, try to change Mixer device at the top of the window.
- Select the input device you wish to use as the tuner input and adjust its volume.
Note: On some cheap onboard soundcards, there is a problem with inaccurate Sample rate. In the first step, try the default 44100 Hz, and then 48000 Hz. If the strobe tuning gives different outputs when changing the sample frequency, you have to decide which sample rate is the most accurate (eg. with external sound tone with known frequency).
Frequently Asked Questions
How to connect my guitar with this Tuner?
If you have an acoustic guitar, you can use any cheap electret condenser microphone for PC (approx $5), they are very sensitive (instead of dynamic microphones).
Or, if you have an electric guitar, you should buy 1/4" Female Jack to 1/8" (3.5 mm) Male adapter to connect it with your Line-in soundcard input.
I have just reinstalled my computer and the Tuner runs in demo mode
Just send us your new Serial Number and we will activate it.
I cannot get clear strobe pattern - the wheel is all gray
Please try to increase the Buffer size in the bottom settings section from 1024 to 2048.
TB Strobe Tuner fails to run, it exits with an error
Unzip the downloaded .zip file to any folder. The tuner cannot be run directly from the .zip file.
How to measure the cent offset?
Let's play the tone, click on the 'Cents' scrollbar in Tuning Calibration panel and change the value (eg. with cursor keys or mouse scroll button) to the value when the rotation of the strobe pattern stops. Then the value says how many cents you are out of the tune (and it is with the 0.1 cent accuracy of Strobe Tuner). This works only in the full version since the Cent calibration is disabled in demo.
What does the cents adjustment do?
There are three ways how to use the Cents tuning calibration (only in full version):
1) If your soundcard has a wrong sample rate timing, you can calibrate
the tuner with an external source of sound. (not much often case)
2) You would like to play along an old record with a pitch slightly up
/ down - you can precisely calibrate the tuner to match exactly the
pitch of the record and than tune your guitar to play in tune. (our
favourite)
3) If you want to measure the cent offset of any tone - just play the
tone and change the cent offset to stop rotating the pattern, the cent
offset tells the difference of tuning. (if you are a luthier and want
to calibrate saddle, nut or frets)
Tuner cannot recognize bass tones
Uncheck the 'Noise Filter (< 70 Hz)' button. The default checked value is used to filter the 60 Hz (50 Hz) power supply noise.
On your screenshot, it shows numbers 38, C#3 and -2.3c inside the main disk
These cent offsets are displayed in the case you use a Tuning Preset (eg. for tuning a piano, each string has a unique cent offset - so-called stretch tuning). And you can make your own presets simply by editing .txt files in 'presets' folder.
May I use this Tuner for piano tuning?
Yes, you can. But you should consider
the piano tuning is more advanced task than tuning for example the
guitar. The tone on most keys is created by two or three strings
so if you are not familiar with tuning the piano, I recommend you to
leave it to the specialist.
You should use presets for stretch tuning. The main idea behind the stretch tuning is that the real string vibrations do not precisely follow simple mathematical model that overtone frequencies are at integer ratios to the fundamental frequency of the string. The more longer the string is, the more ideal the rule is.
I tune a marimba and I need to check on the overtones
Please e-mail us and we will provide you a special version of TB Strobe Tuner which displays first 3 harmonics.
The automatic recognition fails for very low and very high tones on my piano
The low tones on the piano contain large amount of high harmonics so it can confuse the automatic note recognition. The resolution and reliability of high tones is the result of the method used for automatic note recognition. You can try to increase the Sample rate in the Sound card settings (if your computer can handle it - the processing is more CPU demanding). Or, if the Auto Note Selection fails, you can switch to Manual mode and select the notes manually.
Do you refund my payment if I am not satisfied with the Tuner?
Yes, of course. Your satisfaction is important for us.
The Tuner is great, my instrument sounds better, how can I thank you?
We are glad you like the Tuner. Just tell your friends, write a comment on internet forum etc... It is the best advertisement for us.
Skin
It is possible to change the skin (appearance) of the TB Strobe Tuner. The skin is stored in two files directly in the TB Strobe Tuner installation folder:
- skin.jpg - background picture,
- skin.ini - text file (can be edited eg. via Notepad) with font color and background color of the controls.
You can make your own skins (and if you like them, you can send them to us) or download skins from this webpage. Or, you can delete both files for the basic simple appearance.
How to install the downloaded skin? Just extract (and overwrite) the files skin.jpg and skin.ini from the downloaded .zip archive to the TB Strobe Tuner installation folder.
 Original |
 Brushed Aluminum |
 Francois' |
 Black Leather |
 Anxiety Green |
 Plum |
 Rusted |
 Bronze Age |
 Cool Blue |
 Roses |
Thanks to Vaclav M. for the skins from Black Leather to Roses.
Contact us
If you have any questions or need help with buying on ebay.com or you have already bought it and have not activated the serial number, please contact us at E-mail address: borilt@gmail.com. Thank you.
