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Google adds a guitar tuner to Search

engadget.com

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Re: Google adds a guitar tuner to Search

#61

Post by dehrmann »

monkeybutton wrote: post #8
JasonFruit wrote: post #3

I know this is a bit of a tangent, but I'm getting tired of having everything good replaced by a mediocre version that offers debatable convenience. A meh guitar tuner, a phone tree that usually understands my spoken choices, the opportunity to enter my claim information online and be questioned by an impersonal overseas operator later instead of just talking with my agent — none of these are developments that improv…

Where I work is all in on Google cloud and the "meh but convenient" factor of GCP services is starting to really grate on me. "X 3rd party service has great reviews and is cheaper" suddenly becomes contestable and a debate because we'd have to deal with a bit of additional complexity and pay for data transfer out of GCP.

I'm guessing you're looking at something like B2? Doing multi-cloud like that really is a hassle.

Re: Google adds a guitar tuner to Search

#62

Post by squarefoot »

If I want a tuner, I've both one I keep over the amp or the small one I clip on the bass neck. They don't spy on me, don't show me ads, don't force me to keep the phone on and are much more responsive than any phone app.

Also... sorry but my phone stays off when I play music, and it's not even a smartphone; at my age the time I can spend with friends enjoying playing music is not that much anymore, and the heck if I'm risking to ruin the experience with a phone left on.

Re: Google adds a guitar tuner to Search

#63

Post by flowerbreeze »

anitil wrote: post #56
titzer wrote: post #42

About 20 years ago I bought my first digital guitar tuner, a Korg, that is about the size of a deck of cards. It had a monochrome LCD screen that mimicked an analog dial with a needle that moved to indicate flat or sharp. Years passed. Guitar tuning apps became a thing. I downloaded a few over the years. Then the one (free) one I had started showing ads. Little by little, update by update, the ads became more annoyin…

As a non-guitarist but one-time musician, why are guitar tuners needed? Other stringed instruments seem to not need them, and I never thought to ask. (Obviously you might need an absolute reference if you don't have absolute pitch)

You can do without, but it is useful, if you aren't that good at tuning by ear. My electro-acoustic guitar has a tuner built into it. I wouldn't call myself a musician, the precision of my hearing is dubious and since I practice rarely, I tend to use it each time.

Otherwise I'd spend 5 minutes each time trying to get it sound right and then redoing it after playing something, because I didn't get it fully right and I realise it once I play something I'm familiar with.

Re: Google adds a guitar tuner to Search

#64

Post by omnicognate »

epse wrote: post #57
anitil wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-guitarist but one-time musician, why are guitar tuners needed? Other stringed instruments seem to not need them, and I never thought to ask. (Obviously you might need an absolute reference if you don't have absolute pitch)

All string instruments need regular tuning, but with things like violin, more emphasis is put during lessons on being able to tune your instrument fully off of hearing a single reference pitch

Perhaps because it's a necessary orchestral skill. They play an A and everybody tunes their instruments to it, producing that awesome wash of sound you get before a concert. For the violin you tune the A string and tune the others by hearing the open fifths between them.

For a guitar it's easier because you have frets, so you can play the fretted note on one string that should have the same pitch as the next (open) string up, then you just need to compare two pitches that should be equal, rather than hear an interval. (I'm not a guitarist so I don't know if that's considered a good technique.)

Perhaps it's just not considered such an important skill in the small groups people typically play the guitar in.

Re: Google adds a guitar tuner to Search

#65

Post by gorgoiler »

A good v1. But these skeumorphic coloured VU LEDs seem like a missed opportunity for innovation.

How about an enlarged stave-a-like with an ECG-style line on it, tracking my pitch over time, with an oversized vector showing the direction to the next half tone?

By way of analogy: Google have made a decent enough spirit level, so now give us LIDAR.

Re: Google adds a guitar tuner to Search

#66

Post by exDM69 »

anitil wrote: post #56
titzer wrote: post #42

About 20 years ago I bought my first digital guitar tuner, a Korg, that is about the size of a deck of cards. It had a monochrome LCD screen that mimicked an analog dial with a needle that moved to indicate flat or sharp. Years passed. Guitar tuning apps became a thing. I downloaded a few over the years. Then the one (free) one I had started showing ads. Little by little, update by update, the ads became more annoyin…

As a non-guitarist but one-time musician, why are guitar tuners needed? Other stringed instruments seem to not need them, and I never thought to ask. (Obviously you might need an absolute reference if you don't have absolute pitch)

Because tuning by ear is difficult and playing the guitar can be fun even if you're not musically talented enough to tune the instrument.

Another issue is that guitars are often played in a amplified live setting. You want to be able to adjust your tuning while the rest of the band is playing or other noise is present, and you don't want the audience or others to hear you tuning (so you can't hear it yourself either).

I can tune my guitar relatively but I can not for the life of me tune it with from an external reference pitch like a piano key. I use a tuner if I need to be in tune with other instruments.

Re: Google adds a guitar tuner to Search

#67

Post by hn_go_brrrrr »

harry8 wrote: post #26
xeromal wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's most likely from Google's dev time program where a dev gets to work on a pet project 20%(?) of their time. That's why a ton of new projects come out of google but get canned in a few years.

Does that still exist as a policy?

The policy still exists. The practice is dying out, however.

Re: Google adds a guitar tuner to Search

#68

Post by rglullis »

titzer wrote: post #52
rglullis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F-droid shows at least a dozen different apps, none of them with ads. Even if the open source apps were not a perfect fit for your case, you could have taken 10% of the money you spent and made everyone's life better.

Clip-on tuners are just far superior. They use a piezo and are driven by vibration, which works in a noisy environment, like a stage. I probably would not have bought one if that crappy phone app had not pissed me off so much. Thanks crappy phone app!

I am not arguing that the analog/hardware version of a product is superior. I am arguing that, provided:

- you were satisfied with the software version of a solution;

- what drove you away from it was the ads,

You could have solved the ad issue by looking at OSS alternatives, to which you had plenty to choose from.

Saying that the HW version is better, when a (good version) SW was enough, smells of post-fact rationalization.

Re: Google adds a guitar tuner to Search

#70

Post by BeniBoy »

omnicognate wrote: post #64
epse wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All string instruments need regular tuning, but with things like violin, more emphasis is put during lessons on being able to tune your instrument fully off of hearing a single reference pitch

Perhaps because it's a necessary orchestral skill. They play an A and everybody tunes their instruments to it, producing that awesome wash of sound you get before a concert. For the violin you tune the A string and tune the others by hearing the open fifths between them. For a guitar it's easier because you have frets, so you can play the fretted note on one string that should have the same pitch as the next (open) s…

It's usually not a good idea to tune a guitar as you described. Basically a guitar has to use "temperate tuning" because it has frets, so you can't be absolutely in tune everywhere, but you can minimize the error on each position. So if you tune string by string relying on fretting the last string, you will "carry" the error, and the resulting tuning will be wrong. It is good for a first pass, but you then want to check that some specific positions do sound good. Depending on what you are playing (for example if you rely more on some open chord position), you might even want to tune the open string to make those position sound especially good (at the expense of some less common one). That is commonly referred to as "sweetened tuning".

EDIT: I might have confused things indeed. If you fret, you should not carry the error. Usually, an practical way to tune two string is to play harmonics and listen to the "beats" between them. That will carry the error. Fretting should work, but in practice does not really because that suppose that your intonation is perfect (ie the fret are perfectly placed), which they usually are not, especially on acoustics with no easy way to set it up.

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