Google now has a handy built-in tuner, which allows you to use your phone or computer’s microphone to tune a guitar, as reported by Android Police. To access the feature, added this week, just search for “Google tuner”. The interface is similar to the dozens of guitar tuning apps already available and Google should be able to detect the note played by allowing you to “tune” or “reduce” depending on your preference.
Google can now tune a guitar via the tuner function
Like other guitar tuning apps, the effectiveness of the Google tuner seems to depend a lot on the hardware it is used with. A high-end iPhone or Windows computer with a good USB microphone shouldn’t be a problem, but a cheaper Android device may prove not up to the task.
Like most other guitar tuner apps, it’s not plausible to imagine that Google’s feature will somehow dent the dedicated hardware tuner market like Korg o Boss. In fact, Google’s system relies too much on the quality of the microphone of the device used and there is no way to easily connect an electric guitar to avoid having to worry about background noise.
All elements very dear to the most experienced musicians and to which Google will hardly be able to offer a consideration in its tuner.
However, if you need on-the-fly, unpretentious tuning, then this feature could definitely be for you. In short, if you find yourself in a situation where you have to play within a few minutes and you have forgotten to fix your instrument, then you will find the new function of the search engine really useful, but we are sure that the more experienced will continue to prefer other methods, no doubt more accurate.