TINE

Questions, bugs, or a tuning you would like added — write any time:

deanconnorl@icloud.com

You will hear back within a few days.

The tuner is not reading anything.

Check that Tine has microphone permission: Settings › Tine › Microphone. If permission is on and it still reads nothing, something else may be holding the microphone — a call, a voice memo, or a recording app in the background. Closing that frees it.

Very quiet notes are also ignored on purpose. A tuner that flickers between random notes when nobody is playing looks broken even when it is working, so anything near room level is treated as silence.

Why does it show a dash instead of a note sometimes?

Because it is not sure, and saying so is more useful than guessing. A dash means the sound was not periodic enough to have a single pitch — a chord, a muted string, a cough. A tuner that shows a confident wrong note is worse than one that shows nothing, because you act on it.

How accurate is it?

Across 222 test tones from B0 to C7 — pure sines, harmonically rich sawtooths, and plucked strings with a deliberately weakened fundamental — the worst error is 0.27 cents. It calls a note in tune within ±5 cents, so the measurement is about nineteen times finer than the verdict.

My bass reads an octave high on other tuners. Does this one?

No. That failure comes from picking the loudest frequency, and on a low string the second harmonic is often louder than the fundamental. Tine measures periodicity instead, which is not fooled by a weak fundamental. The low B on a five-string is within the range it reads.

What does A₄ = 440 mean, and should I change it?

It is the reference the whole scale is built from. Concert pitch is 440 Hz and that is the default. Orchestras often tune to 442 or 443, and baroque ensembles to 415 — about a semitone lower. If you do not know that you need to change it, you do not need to change it.

Does the metronome drift?

No. Each click's position is computed from its number rather than by adding an interval to the click before it, so error cannot accumulate. After an hour it is within half a sample — about 11 microseconds — and after four hours it is still within half a sample.

Can I tune by ear instead of watching the needle?

Yes, and it is worth learning. Tap any string in the row to hear its target pitch. Readings pause while the tone sounds, because otherwise the microphone would hear the speaker and report a perfect note that nobody played.

Why does the screen stay awake during the metronome?

Because you are holding an instrument and not the phone. It goes back to normal when you stop.

Are there ads or in-app purchases?

No, and there never will be. You paid once.

Does it need the internet?

No. Tine makes no network connections of any kind.

Tine collects no data of any kind, and the microphone audio never leaves the device. The full policy is short: read it here.