Baritone guitar tuner

Baritone guitar tuning: B standard in Hz

Other baritone tunings

At A4 = 440 Hz; the reference switch above moves them all. A standard is on the switch. For drop A, tune the 6th string on the A standard switch and the other five on B standard; for C standard, the any-note tuner on the tuner page names any note.

How to tune a baritone guitar

Choose B standard or A standard on the switch. Tap start, pluck the low 6th string firmly and let it ring: a baritone's thick strings need a moment to settle on their note. The needle shows how far off it is and the tuner says tighten or loosen; once it holds within five cents a tick comes and it asks for the 5th string. Pluck a different string and hold it near its note, and the tuner follows it after a few readings; or tap a string's button to pick it.

Mind the octave. The tuner names the note and folds octaves, so the strong overtone of a low string doesn't throw the needle; it also means it can't tell B1 from B2. The low B is B1, 61.74 Hz, a fourth below a guitar's low E. With the microphone off, a tap on a string's button plays its note; on a phone speaker the lowest strings play an octave up, because the speaker can't go that low. Match the name, and keep each string in its own octave.

B standard, A standard and the other baritone tunings

A baritone keeps the guitar's intervals and moves them all down. B standard, B E A D F♯ B, is a perfect fourth (five semitones) below E standard: every chord shape you know sounds a fourth lower, so a G shape is a D chord. A standard, A D G C E A, is a fifth (seven semitones) down and wants the longest necks. C standard, C F B♭ E♭ G C, is a major third down, the mildest of the three. Drop A lowers only the 6th string of B standard to A1, for heavy riffs. A capo at the 5th fret of a B-standard baritone puts it back at a guitar's E standard pitch. Below A, F♯ standard, F♯1 B1 E2 A2 C♯3 F♯3 (46.2 · 61.7 · 82.4 · 110.0 · 138.6 · 185.0 Hz), needs a 30-inch scale or longer and bass-weight strings: it is closer to a bass a whole step up than to a guitar.

Any chromatic tuner works on a baritone, clip-on, pedal or app, because it names whatever note it hears; a tuner left in guitar mode expects E A D G B E and will call your B string a wrong E. This one needs no app: it runs in the phone's browser.

Scale length, strings and tension

A string's tension goes with the square of its frequency. The same strings tuned a fourth lower on the same neck carry 44% less tension, and they flap and buzz: that is why baritones have longer scales, usually 27 to 30 inches against a guitar's 24.75 to 25.5, and baritone sets running up to about .068 or .072 on the low string. Even on a 27-inch neck, a normal guitar set tuned to B standard would sit at about 63% of its usual tension. A 25.5-inch guitar can reach B standard with a heavy set, around .013 to .062, and a setup for it; with its own strings tuned that low, they rattle on the frets and the note wanders as each pluck dies away.

Heavy strings bring their own work at the bench. If you mean the tuners on the headstock: a .068 low string usually goes through a standard post, a .072 often doesn't, and the hole is reamed out with a small drill bit, a five-minute job for a tech. Machine sets sold for baritones take heavy gauges, and light ones help, since the headstock sits about three inches further out. The nut slots usually need widening too. The neck relief changes with the tension, so the truss rod wants a check, and the saddles move back: after the retune, compare the open string with the 12th fret, and if the fretted note is sharp or flat, the intonation needs setting, which no tuner can do.

Tuning a baritone guitar without a tuner

It works like a guitar, a fourth lower. Get the low B from a reference, the tone generator at 61.74 Hz, or B2 at 123.47 Hz, which a phone plays more clearly, matched an octave down. Then the 5th fret of each string is the next open string, except the 3rd string, D, whose 4th fret is the F♯ of the 2nd. Play both notes together and turn until the wobble stops.

The notes you tuned go into Brumm as a short melody over a beat.