Strand Tuner

Strand is a tuner that tells you when it isn't sure.

When it can't hear a string clearly, it shows you nothing: no note, no needle, no number. A guess is how people end up tightening a string until it snaps. The worst guess is hearing your low E as the E an octave below, which tells you to keep tightening. If Strand can't tell which octave it's hearing, it waits until it can.

WHEN IT CAN HEAR THE STRING

You get a word first: Tighten or Loosen. Then how far, in cents. The scale zooms in as you get closer, so the needle is always useful and never twitchy. When the reading holds in tune, the whole screen turns green, so you can see it from across the room with the phone on a music stand.

Strum all six strings and it tells you which ones need work.

Prefer a strobe? Switch to the Dial design in Settings. It shows the same measurement as rings that turn while you're off and stand still when you're on.

YOU CAN TUNE WITHOUT LOOKING

Turn on Audio Tuning Mode and the reading comes out of the speaker: spoken readings and a two-tone beacon that slows to stillness as you reach the note. Every control and reading is labelled for VoiceOver. State is always shown by position, colour and a word together, so nothing depends on seeing green.

TOOLS, WHEN YOU WANT THEM

• Drone: any note from C1 to C6, or one tap per string of your tuning. • Metronome: 30 to 300 beats a minute, tap tempo, subdivisions and an accented downbeat. • Intonation check: compare the 12th-fret harmonic with the fretted note, and it tells you which way to move the saddle.

Don't want them? Hide them in Settings and the app never mentions them again.

INSTRUMENTS AND TUNINGS

Discovery signals