Early music
For harpsichord, viol or lute: Werckmeister III, Vallotti, Kirnberger or quarter-comma meantone, with a reference pitch of 415 Hz or any other value between 380 and 480 Hz.
Music
iPhone & iPad
Pure Tuner A tuner for historical temperaments and microtonal scales
Almost every tuner measures against equal temperament. If you tune a harpsichord to Werckmeister, play meantone in a consort, sing pure thirds in a choir or own a 19-tone guitar, that is of little use. Pure Tuner measures against the tuning you actually play in.
Download on the App Store
Free · one-time purchase “Every Tuning” €9.99 · no subscription
Requires iOS 18.0
Screenshots
Use cases
Choirs, strings and winds
A pure major third is about 14 cents lower than on the piano. Pure Tuner shows just intonation in any key. With the drone on the key note you can also tune by ear.
Microtonal instruments
For 19-tone guitars, 31 equal divisions, 22 shruti or Bohlen–Pierce. You can enter your own tunings in cents or as frequency ratios and import them as Scala files.
Features
Free
€0
- A display in the style of an analogue meter: long, thin needle, one tick per cent, a green zone of ±3 cents — or a strobe that shows a tenth of a cent, also on the whole screen
- Five ranges, from ±200 to ±15 cents, and a lamp that lights when the note is in tune
- The whole tuner on one screen, upright or on its side; the orientation can be fixed
- Instruments with their open strings: renaissance lute, vihuela, theorbo, baroque guitar, viols, violin family, guitar in six tunings, bass, mandolin, ukulele, banjo, bouzouki, charango, oud, bağlama, sitar, pipa, erhu, nyckelharpa and more. The tuner finds the string you play and ticks each course once it is in tune
- Only this note: switch off the automatic recognition and choose the note yourself, a step or an octave at a time. The tuner then listens for that note alone, for a quiet instrument or a loud room
- Transposing instruments: in B flat, A, F, E flat or any key, the tuner shows the written note
- Reference pitch anywhere from 380 to 480 Hz, typed to a hundredth (446.67). 392, 415, 430, 440, 442 and 466 Hz can be selected directly
- Detects low notes in the correct octave, from a five-string bass to a piccolo
- With plucked notes, the reading stays for a moment after the note has died away
One-time purchase “Every Tuning”
€9.99
- Werckmeister III, Kirnberger II and III, Vallotti, Young II, Kellner, Bach/Lehman, Galilei's lute frets, and 64 more historical temperaments from Boulliau (1373) to Wendell (2003), sorted by family and year
- Quarter-, sixth- and third-comma meantone, Pythagorean, just intonation in any key
- Equal divisions of 17, 19, 22, 24, 31 and 53 tones, 22 shruti, Bohlen–Pierce
- A workshop for your own tunings: enter cents or frequency ratios, starting from any existing tuning
- Import and export of Scala files (.scl)
- A drone on the key note, with a pure fifth if you like, for tuning by ear
When you change the tuning, the key note stays where it is. Only the other notes move. An instrument's open strings are measured in the tuning you chose: a lute in meantone has them in meantone.
Pitch detection runs on your device, nothing is recorded or transmitted. No account, no ads, no subscription.
Privacy
The app collects no data. Everything you open or create stays on your device until you share it yourself.
Microphone: Used only while the tuner is open. The sound is analysed in memory; nothing is recorded, stored or sent.
- No account
- No ads
- No tracking
- Works without internet
Frequently asked questions
Why does the needle jump in a noisy room?
Move closer to the instrument. Pure Tuner only shows a note once it has been detected reliably, and keeps the last reading for a moment.
Which Scala files can I open?
Any .scl file that repeats at the octave or another interval, up to 128 notes.
I bought the upgrade, but it is locked again.
Tap “Restore purchase” on the purchase card in the app. A one-time purchase is tied to your Apple account and does not have to be paid for again.
