Hi i was wondering if anyone new where I could find the tuner for wind instruments that gives reading on the harmonics. I found it on this site a while ago but lost it when my harddrive was wiped.
Thts the one thanks, Denny
Thank Terry McGee
he worked with the creater
I just remember where it is 
While I thank you for the post, Denny, my criticism has only to do with the reference to A=442 Hz. During the past dozen or so years, the Boehm flute industry has promoted A=442 as the latest in flute pitch, on the basis that Boehm flute players supposedly tend to blow flat, and that the A=442 pitch would somehow provide a remedy, or a correction, for such an alleged deficiency, being that the current standard is A=440 Hz.
Boo! Hiss!
Heh heh, this modern A 442 thing is strange isn’t it. The international standard is still 440 (unless they’ve had a meeting without me!).
Tatsuaki’s Auto Tuner actually assumes 440 as the standard, so he must have set it to the stylish 442 for the screenshot. You can set the default to always launch set to 440, or leave it to launch at whatever you used last time.
When it was first released, he had the usual narrow range of reference pitches available (a few Hertz each way from 440). I contacted him and asked if it were in any way possible to extend it low enough for Early music use (ie well below Old French Pitch at 390) and high enough for 19th century users (above British High Pitch at 455). Next morning it was on my desktop (adjustable from 375 to 470Hz). That set the theme for our continued co-operation.
Unfortunately, I’ve allowed the grass to grow somewhat under my feet, so the current help notes are relevant to an earlier version. I’ll try to get up-to-date soon.
Terry
They’ve been driftin’ up…some of the new flutes are built to 442
Well, frankly, it’s not so strange, and it’s not so modern. This frequency displacement is an old argument, and it’s not one brought about by flute players. It seems that string players, violin, etc., just aren’t happy until just before their gut breaks, gut being the older form of string, so up, up, up in pitch they go.
Blame it on them, not us.
right…there ya go…
we’re just following the fiddlers
It actually seems fairly likely that it was the woodwinds, and possibly even specifically the flutes who were primarily responsible for the first insane dash upstream to 455 Hz. Certainly our scurrilous flute-playing friend Mr Rockstro was on a committee that scuttled one attempt to drag Britain back down towards the common European pitch of 435Hz.
I think it’s pretty likely to be the case. Anyone who has played an Eb flute knows how much more lively it is than a flute in D. Anyone who has an old flute with the long slides they had in those days knows how much more responsive they are at the sharp end (even it the tuning is ghastly). So what enthusiasm the flute players would have had for going north!
Fiddle players less likely I would have thought - the violin sounds nicer tuned down than up. It was concern for singers that finally scuttled high pitch, when a medical doctor coughed up for a full set of woodwinds to permit the London Philo to return to sanity. Hard enough to hit the High C in the Queen of the Night’s aria without having it hoisted further out of reach. There are still calls for us to return to Philosphical Pitch (C=256, A=430.5) to let us hear bel canto singers as Verdi intended.
(You may remember that Philosophical or natural pitch is so called as it is a distant harmonic of the speed of rotation of the Earth. Perhaps it’s all that frenetic playing at higher pitches that is responsible for Global Warming! If so, cut it out now, it’s getting out of control!)
I’m not sure who’s responsible for the current twitch up to 442. I’ve heard one argument that it’s the flutes again. The story goes that if everyone else tunes to 442 and the flutes tune to 440, they’ll soon catch up.
Terry
I’m sure Casey Burns tunes to 442? Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I was thinking about this possibility just the other day. We have to be careful when we thoughtlessly tinker with Mother Nature. We need to slow down and listen to the fundamental sounds around us, which may be what the Chinese called Yellow Bell tuning. I had bamboo meditation flutes that were supposely tuned this way. The maker confided in me that he listened to the 60 cycle hum of his refrigerator while he was tuning the flutes. However, another possibility of why the tuning of instruments seems to be creeping up in pitch has to do with Divine intervention. I had a friend who was convinced that everything would begin to speed up as we approached the End of Time.
LOL
Actually, as a more modern player, I have spent very little time with pitches other than A at 435 and 440, so I am not an authority in regard to the wide range of pitches which have at one time or another been in use. About blaming the pitch wars on string players, it’s just a rumor that I have heard from time to time. Your suggestion that a lowering of pitch could have been done on behalf of vocalists, however, makes sense.
But it is fun to blame it all on the string players.
I believe you are correct.
In regard to TM’s post, as above, could CB be contributing to global warming?
Heh heh, even if you accept my Effect of High Pitch Global Warming theory (which I wouldn’t!), it wouldn’t add much. Indeed, this is the strange part of the whole 442 business. A 2Hz shift in pitch on a D flute is given by moving the slide 2mm (just over a 1/16"). If you were to carefully check your flutes intonation at 440Hz, then shift it to 442Hz and check it again, you’re not going to see much difference. The difference between 442 and 440 Hz is only 8 cents - any error induced into the tuning is going to be considerably less.
It is easy to confuse two issues here too (and many makers of Boehm flutes actively contribute to this confusion). Is the body of the flute tuned to 442 rather than 440, or is the head of the flute reduced a little in length to ensure you can play up to 442 (and maybe a bit beyond) if needed? Because the difference between 440 and 442 is so little, that latter approach is probably all we need. Indeed, although some orchestras tune to 442, I’m not sure that accordion and concertina makers have made the change - 440 remains the official standard pitch.
Terry
I mentioned my experience with A at 435 and at 440, yet it is true that while a 435 flute can easily be played at modern 440 pitch, at least some compensation must be given for the slightly longer body, in general as a slight sharpening of the tones, especially toward the RH. It therefore stands to reason that a 442 pitch flute must similarly but oppositely be compensated for, relative to 440 pitch, as, assuming that the body of the flute has been tuned at 442, the octave interval length of the body would be just those few cents shorter.
The standard got set at A=440. So what’s with this A=442 nonsense? A=435 got dropped many years, several decades ago.