🎹 Tuning Explorer

An interactive web-based tool for exploring and comparing historical tuning systems through sound. Experience how different temperaments affect musical intervals, melodies, and harmony.

🎵 Try It Live - No installation required, works in any modern browser!

Features

🎵 Multiple Tuning Systems

• 12-TET (Equal Temperament) - Modern standard tuning
• Just Intonation - Pure integer ratios for consonant intervals
• Pythagorean - Built from perfect fifths, sharp major thirds
• Quarter-Comma Meantone - Renaissance tuning with pure major thirds and wolf fifths

🎹 Interactive Keyboard

• 12-key chromatic keyboard (C to B)
• QWERTY keyboard mapping (A, W, S, E, D, F, T, G, Y, H, U, J)
• Mouse/touch support
• Real-time visual feedback

🎺 Multiple Instruments

• Pure Sine (flute-like)
• Triangle, Square, Sawtooth waves
• Organ (rich harmonics)
• Plucked String
• Bell (inharmonic partials)

📊 Real-Time Visualization

• Oscilloscope - Time-domain waveform display
• FFT Spectrum - Frequency spectrum analyzer
• Interval Analysis - When playing two notes:
  • Identifies closest simple ratio (e.g., "Perfect 5th ~1.5000:1")
  • Shows cents deviation from 12-TET
  • Color-coded accuracy (green/orange/red)

🎼 Melody Mode

• Toggle to play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"
• Melody transposes to any starting key
• Includes bass line one octave down
• Extends properly across octaves in all tuning systems
• Hear how different temperaments affect familiar melodies

⚠️ Problematic Intervals

Demonstrates characteristic weaknesses in each tuning system:

• Wolf fifths in Quarter-Comma Meantone (G# → Eb)
• Sharp major thirds in 12-TET and Pythagorean
• Wolf intervals that sound dissonant due to accumulated tuning error

Try It Live

Open index.html in any modern web browser - no build step required!

Or serve locally:

python3 -m http.server

How It Works

Each tuning system defines 12 frequency ratios relative to C4 (261.63 Hz). When you play notes:

1. Single notes play with selected instrument and ADSR envelope
2. Two notes trigger interval analysis showing ratio and tuning deviation
3. Melody mode sequences notes automatically, demonstrating how tunings affect melodies

The visualizers use Web Audio API's AnalyserNode to display real-time waveforms and frequency content.

Music Theory Background

Why different tunings?

• Pure intervals (like 3:2 fifths and 5:4 major thirds) sound more consonant
• Impossible to have ALL intervals pure in 12-note system
• Different tunings make different compromises:
  • 12-TET: All keys equal, but thirds are sharp
  • Just Intonation: Pure thirds and fifths in one key, problems elsewhere
  • Pythagorean: Pure fifths, but very sharp major thirds
  • Meantone: Pure major thirds, but creates "wolf" fifths in remote keys

Technical Details

• Pure vanilla JavaScript - no frameworks or dependencies
• Single-file architecture (~1000 lines)
• Web Audio API for synthesis
• Canvas 2D for visualization
• Works offline after initial load

License

MIT