LINGOT

If you are an absolute beginner and need to tune a specific musical instrument - this app may be a bit too simplified for you.

This is a classic example for a good open source program: Simple and easy to use, yet powerful and straight-forward if you need the "pro" options.

I tested the GNU/Linux version. The package is available in the official Ubuntu Repositories and is installed in seconds. The application itself also takes just about 0.5 seconds to start and immediately starts recording. No further buttons required. The small window shows the closest musical note and the familiar "analog" tuning scale like basically every tuning device on the market. For tech nerds like me, there is even a 3rd display showing the signals Fourier transform, but it can be deactivated with two clicks.

In my case (acoustic guitar and cheap headset microphone), the program flawlessly worked out-of-the box, with the correct scale already set up. If instead you have an exotic instrument or need to tweak your Signal-to-noise ratio, all the advanced options are right there in the settings dialog. You can import custom scales from a file, tweak the frequency of each note individually, adjust the noise threshold and even play with the parameters for the Fourier transform. Oh and Linux users with their eternal struggle with alsa, pulse etc. can easily choose other audio devices. ;) Each option is clearly labelled and self-explanatory.

The program does appear to use quite some CPU power, even a bit more than my Firefox in idle mode, but it shouldn't be a problem for any slightly modern machine (read: made after 2005).

The last update was in 2011 with some bugfixes. This is however not necessarily a bad thing as the program is perfectly fine as it is now and no bugs came to my attention.

In summary, this program does exactly what it is supposed to do, and JUST that. Powerful options, no unnecessary clutter. The only two things that I was missing are the option to scale the window to be more visible from a distance (e.g. standing on a stage) and a possiblity to create sound at a given frequency, like a-capella singers need it to find the right starting note.

Pros:

• Simple, lightweight and intuitive
• Powerfull advanced options when needed
• Open Source :)

Cons:

• View cannot be scaled.
• No sound output for e.g. singers