Musician Aid
A practice kit in one app. Tune a guitar, bass, ukulele, violin family, mandolin or banjo, or any note at all, with the microphone, or by ear against a reference tone. Keep time with a metronome that lets you accent any beat and tap in a tempo. Build click tracks that change tempo and time signature as a song does, and practise polyrhythms such as 3 against 4. Your settings and tracks stay on your device, and there is no account.
Running this app
- This app runs on desktop or mobile.
- You can access this app by selecting the "Open Musician Aid" button above. Once the app is open you can also install a local version of the app called a "PWA" if you want a shortcut to it on your desktop or mobile device. Alternatively, you can download this app as an HTML file to open offline.
- The tuner needs a microphone, and your browser will ask your permission the first time you press Start listening.
Internet access
- Only required to open or download the app. The tuner, metronome, click tracks and polyrhythms all work with no connection.
Data
- The tuner listens through your microphone only while you are on the Tuner tab and have pressed Start listening. The sound is analysed in memory, inside the app, as it arrives. It is never recorded, saved or sent anywhere, and the microphone closes when you press Stop or leave the tab.
- Your settings and the click tracks you build stay on your device, in your browser. There is no account, and none of it is sent to us or anyone else.
- When you first save a click track, the app asks your browser not to clear it automatically if your device runs low on space; the browser decides, and the Click track tab shows its answer. Clearing your browser's site data yourself still erases your tracks, so use "Export JSON" to keep a copy of any you want.
- Importing a track reads the file on your device. Nothing is uploaded.
Licence
- MIT: use it for anything, including at work. Keep the copyright notice and licence text with any copy you pass on. Read the licence
How to use it
- Tuner: pick your instrument (or Chromatic for any note), press Start listening and play one string at a time. The needle and the colour show whether you are flat, sharp or in tune. Tap a string to hear its pitch instead.
- Metronome: set the tempo with the buttons, the slider, by typing or by tapping Tap tempo. Choose the beats per bar and tap a beat to accent it. Space starts and stops it, and the arrow keys change the tempo.
- Click track: add segments, each with its own tempo, beats per bar and number of repeats, and press Play track to hear them in order. Name your tracks, keep several, and export or import them as JSON files.
- Polyrhythms: pick two or more pulse counts, such as 3 and 4, and press Play. Each layer clicks at its own pitch so you can hear them apart.
- Pick a click sound from the Sound menu on any of the last three tabs.
Worth knowing
- Tuning accuracy depends on your microphone and the room. A quiet room and a clearly plucked or bowed note work best; a phone's microphone can struggle with the lowest bass strings.
- The tuner aims for the nearest string of the instrument you pick, however far off it is, so a string tuned a whole step down still points at its own string and says "Way too low".
- Importing a click track adds it to your tracks rather than replacing one, unless the track you have open is empty.
- Your tracks live in one browser on one device. The installed app, the downloaded HTML file and another browser each keep their own; use Export JSON and Import JSON to move them.
Free, and staying that way
This app will always be free, but if you also found it useful you can consider supporting us using the link below. You can pay what you like, but please only do so if you're financially able to. Note: the link below will take you to our payment processor Stripe.
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