Working with the Instrument Tuner

If you play a guitar, you probably need to tune it often. Most professional musicians keep an electronic tuner with them so that they can tune their guitars with precision. GarageBand 2 now includes an Instrument Tuner that you can use before you record. For this exercise you'll need to hook up an instrument such as a guitar to the computer. You can use the same instrument that you used to record in Lesson 4. If you don't have an instrument handy, just read through the steps so you'll know how to use the tuner the next time you want to record an instrument. I'll be using an acoustic guitar and microphone pickup.

1.	Open 9-7 Tuning from the Lesson_09 folder.
2.	In the Time Display, click the Instrument Tuner button (it looks like a tuning fork). The Time Display changes from the normal setting into the Instrument Tuner.
3.	Play a C note on your guitar (or other instrument). The perfect pitch appears as 0 in the center of the Time Display. If you play anything off-pitch, it will appear as a red line to the right (higher) or to the left (lower). In this example, my guitar is tuned a bit higher than C.
4.	Tune your instrument until you get a green light at the center of the Instrument Tuner in the Time Display, indicating that your instrument is perfectly tuned for that note.
5.	Try tuning your instrument for several other notes.
6.	When you are finished, click the Musical Time button (a note icon) below the Instrument Tuner button to return the Time Display to its normal setting.

Note

The Instrument Tuner is designed to work with one note at a time. It will not work with chords or combined notes, and sorry folks, but you can't hook up a bunch of instruments at once and try to tune them all at the same time.