A Real-Time Cent Sensitive Strobe-like Tuning Software Based on Spectral Estimates of the Snail-Analyser

Thomas Hélie (1, 2, 3) , Charles Picasso (1) , Robert Piéchaud (1) , Michael Jousserand (4) , Tom Colinot (4)

1 S3AM - Sound Systems and Signals: Audio/Acoustics, InstruMents
2 S3AM - Systèmes et Signaux Sonores : Audio/Acoustique, instruMents
3 S3AM - Sound Systems and Signals: Audio/Acoustics, InstruMents
4 Buffet Group

This paper presents a real time software to tune musical instruments. The visual rendering emulates a tuner commonly used by the music industry, namely, the strobe-tuner. In the classic case, a tuned note is characterised by the immobility of a dial: through a stroboscopic effect, the rotation speed of the dial is made proportional to the deviation in Hertz between the target pitch and the played note. Here, we propose to use spectral estimates of the Snail-Analyser to have a similar rendering with respect to the deviation in cents, with an adjustable sensitivity. These estimates are derived from the demodulated phase calculated by Fourier analysis. The software allows the choice of the targeted frequencies for each note, according to musical considerations such as temperaments, musical modes, but also octave stretching, etc. It has been prototyped using the MAX software and developed with the Juce framework to target both desktop and mobile environments.

Mots clés: Fourier analysis demodulated phase timbre harmonic representation; Fourier analysis; demodulated phase; timbre; harmonic representation

Domaines: Traitement du signal et de l'image [eess.SP]

Thomas Hélie, Charles Picasso, Robert Piéchaud, Michael Jousserand, Tom Colinot. A Real-Time Cent Sensitive Strobe-like Tuning Software Based on Spectral Estimates of the Snail-Analyser. Sound and Music Computing Conference, Jun 2023, Stockholm, Sweden. pp.1-7. ⟨hal-04084087⟩