Design and development of a low cost automatic stringed instrumet tuner

Abstract

Tuning methods have always been a task which every musician has to deal with. The main goal of this project is developing a device to simplify and assist stringed instrument users with the tuning process of their instruments. To that end, a prototype capable of acquiring sound through the vibration of the instrument body is produced using mainly a microcontroller device combined with a frequency estimation algorithm. The device development results show high accuracy in musical tone diagnosis compared to commercial tuners. The prototype offers several opportunities for developing new applications and research in quality control, material characterisation or even non-stringed instruments analysis.