Double bass tuner

The strings in Hz

Orchestral

Other tunings

At A4 = 440 Hz; the reference switch above moves them all.

How to tune a double bass with this tuner

Tap Start tuning and allow the microphone. Play the E string, bowed or plucked, and let it ring: the needle shows which way it is off and the cents say by how much. Turn the machine head until the needle stands in the middle; at five cents or closer a tick comes and the tuner asks for the A, then the D and the G. Play another string and it follows you. With the microphone off, tap a string above to hear its note; on a phone's speaker the strings sound an octave up, because the speaker can't play 41 Hz.

The low E is 41.2 Hz, below what a phone's microphone hears well, so the tuner reads it through its overtones and folds them back onto the string. Three things help: bow a long, even note rather than a short pizzicato; hold the phone a hand's width from the f-hole; and if the needle still jumps, play the octave harmonic, the string touched lightly at its exact middle, just past where the neck meets the body (thumb position). The tuner reads that E2 as your E string. If you go past a note, drop below it and come up again: approaching from below takes up the slack in the gear, and the string stays put. When all four have ticked, play them again: raising one string presses the bridge harder onto the top and pulls the others a little flat, so a second round is normal.

Tuning a double bass with harmonics

This is how most bassists tune in a rehearsal: the A string first, to the oboe's A or the tuner, then each string from its neighbour with harmonics. Harmonics ring high and long, and two of them beat audibly when they disagree. The oboe's A4 is three octaves above your A string: 440 Hz against 55.

1. Tune the A string (A1, 55 Hz) with the tuner.
2. Touch the A string lightly a quarter of the way along, where you would stop the D, and pluck or bow: the harmonic is A3. Touch the D string a third of the way along, where you would stop the A: also A3. Play both and turn the D until the wobble stops.
3. D to G the same way: the D string's quarter harmonic and the G string's third harmonic are both D4.
4. E from A: the E string's quarter harmonic and the A string's third harmonic are both E3.

Harmonics give pure fourths, each 2 cents narrower than the equal-tempered fourth the tuner shows. From an A in tune, the D lands 2 cents low, the G 4 cents low and the E 2 cents high: all inside the tick, so the two methods agree. To check a string on the tuner, play its octave harmonic.

Orchestral or solo tuning

Orchestral tuning, E A D G, is what nearly every orchestral, jazz and school bassist uses. Solo tuning puts every string a whole tone higher, F♯1 B1 E2 A2: brighter, and it carries over a piano. It needs solo strings, which are thinner and made for the higher pitch. Orchestral strings pulled up a whole tone carry about 26 % more tension (tension rises with the square of the frequency), which is hard on the strings, the bridge and the top. Solo parts are often printed as if the bass were in orchestral tuning, so the music reads a tone below what sounds; the piano part says which tuning it was written for.

5-string double bass, C extension, fifths tuning

None of these is on the switch above. A five-string with a low B or a high C tunes on the 5-string bass tuner: the notes are a five-string bass guitar's. A low C, or fifths tuning, an octave under the cello and the tuning Joel Quarrington plays, tunes on the chromatic tuner, which names any note. With a C extension, tune the E with the extension's E stop closed, then open it and check the low C. If the E is right and the C isn't, the extension's stops need setting by a luthier; retuning the string only moves the problem to the E.

Double bass, upright bass, bass guitar

Double bass, upright bass, contrabass, string bass and bass fiddle are one instrument. It shares its tuning with the four-string bass guitar, E1 A1 D2 G2, so the bass tuner works for it as well, and both sound an octave below their written notes. The rest of the violin family, violin, viola and cello, is tuned in fifths; the double bass is tuned in fourths, like a bass guitar. The cello is C2 G2 D3 A3 (cello tuner).

Why a double bass goes out of tune

• New strings. Steel strings settle in a day or two; gut and synthetic cores stretch longer. Tune them up several times a session at first.
• The bridge. Each time you tune up, the strings drag the top of the bridge toward the fingerboard. Look from the side: the bridge's tailpiece side should stand at right angles to the top, its feet centred on the line between the inner notches of the f-holes. If it leans, slacken the strings a little and ease it back with both hands; a bridge left leaning warps and can fall. Where the bridge stands also sets where the stopped notes fall, so a bridge that has wandered makes good tuning sound like bad intonation.
• The room. A bass is a big box of spruce and maple; dry heating air in winter and humid summers move the top, and the pitch with it. Carried in from the cold, give it half an hour before the tuning holds.
• Intonation is not tuning. With no frets, stopped notes are the left hand's job; the tuner can only make the open strings right.

A = 440 or 442, and which tuner

Most of the world tunes to A = 440 Hz (ISO 16). Many European orchestras tune higher, to 442 or 443 (as of 2026). The 442 switch above moves all four strings (the A string becomes 55.25 Hz); a bass left at 440 in a 442 orchestra sits 8 cents flat. A clip-on tuner on the bridge hears the wood and not the room, which helps with a section warming up around you; in a quiet room a phone on this page does the same job.

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