Public Beta Test Of Pianoscope v4

Frank Illenberger

Today, I'm proud to start the public beta test of pianoscope v4! I'd love to get your feedback on the new features and changes. If you want to join, send your email address to beta@pianoscope.app and I'll add you to the group. The beta version is installed via Apple's TestFlight app. If you want to go back to v3, simply reinstall it from the App Store.

Important: In the TestFlight beta, you must complete a purchase of the Pro version to unlock its features. This is a test transaction only and will not result in any charges.

New Spectrum Display

Version 4 of pianoscope introduces a new spectrum display. It shows the frequency spectrum around a single partial within the tuning scale, allowing you to visually identify multiple frequencies contributing to that partial. This makes it possible to analyze false beats or perform coarse pitch raises without muting unisons.

Activating the Spectrum Display

There are three ways to enable the spectrum display:

Use the switch in Settings → Pitch → Spectrum.
If you have added the Pitch item to the main toolbar, long-press it and enable the spectrum directly from the context menu.
Add the new Spectrum item to the main toolbar. Tap it to toggle the spectrum on and off.

Improved Inharmonicity Model

The new version incorporates more partial tone information into its inharmonicity model. This model is automatically active in newly created documents, with the inharmonicity weighting defaulting to 100%. To apply it to existing documents, re-record the inharmonicity and set the weighting to 100%.

Menu Bar on iPad

On iPadOS 26, many pianoscope functions can now be accessed via the main menu bar or via keyboard shortcuts.

Redesigned Start Screen

A fresh new look for browsing and managing your tuning files.

Inharmonicity In Temperament Diagrams

The temperament diagram now offers an option to account for inharmonicity when calculating beat rates. It also allows you to select an octave. These options are available in the More menu.

Better High Treble Recognition

Improved signal processing makes the highest notes easier to detect and lock onto.

Improved Battery Efficiency

Reduced energy use means more tuning time before you need to recharge.

Instrument Toolbar Shortcut

Long-pressing the instrument toolbar item now shows a menu with shortcuts to instrument settings and functions like Optimize Concert Pitch.

New User Manual Formats

The user manual for version 4 is now available in three formats:

As a one-page website like in version 3
As a multi-page website with integrated search
As a printable PDF document

Simplified Chinese

pianoscope is now also available in Simplified Chinese.

New System Requirements

The app now requires iOS 18 / iPadOS 18 or later.

Abraham Lee

Brilliant work as always, Frank! This update might just be the thing that pushes me to get a newer device. Thank you!

DanDekker

I was recently thinking of requesting the spectrum function for future versions, but I see you are way ahead of me! I'm very excited about this. I know other apps do this, and it's the only feature that has made me think about trying another app. But not anymore!

Rick

I think the strobe on the beta is buggy. My setting is threshold 0.5¢ and it keeps scrolling slowly even if the pitch drops below 2¢.
Rick

Frank Illenberger

Rick Which threshold do you mean? The visibility threshold for the strobe?

Frank Illenberger

Rick Ah, I could reproduce it. I'll fix it.

Frank Illenberger

Rick It's fixed in build 2000. Thanks for reporting this!

Rick

Frank Illenberger Yes, all good!

Frank Illenberger

In the latest build 2003 of pianoscope 4, I've changed the default of the inharmonicity weighting back to 85%. The new 100% mode is still available, but you need to manually activate it. It turned out that the 100% IH weigting setting only brings an improvement, if you have measured the inharmonicities with muted unisons (or if the unisons were fully in tune.) If the unisons are out of tune, the Fletcher model counteracts the uncertainty from the unison beating and gives you an adequate but not perfect result. So as many technicans don’t want to spend the time for muting unisons when measuring, I changed the default setting back to 85%. You can get an improvement from the 100% with problematic strings whose partials are difficult to predict. when you spend the time for muting.

Patrick

For those using the new beta, can one of you please explain your new workflow and how you are leveraging the new features? As I am a newbie tuner, please assume nothing. 😂

Rick

Hello Frank,
Can you elaborate more about the weighting feature of pianoscope? For example, would one use 85% for ordinary non critical tunings and 100% on concert or high end instruments?
Many thanks,
Rick

Frank Illenberger

Rick
All values below 100% use the Fletcher inharmonicity model to predict the partial spacings. These modeled predictions are quite robust against measurement errors which can arise from slightly out-of tune unisons while measuring. So you are not required to mute strings while measuring. For high-end instruments, the modeled partial predictions are usually very good so that you are fine with the default setting. On lower quality instruments, there may be strings whose partials don't follow the model perfectly, probably because of termination issues or bad winding. On such strings, some partials may deviate more than 1 Cent from the prediction. (In a future version I may add a visual indication for such problematic notes.) If you encounter problematic notes on an instrument, it can be worthwhile to switch to 100% weighting to make pianoscope account for this. The problem is, that measuring out-of tune unisons without dampers can mimic this situation and setting weighting to 100% would make pianoscope apply unneeded and invalid corrections which will make the tuning outcome a bit worse.

Rick

Frank Illenberger Many thanks for your detailed answer.

Abraham Lee

Frank Illenberger
For pianos that have a strong jump in IH at some point (most smaller uprights), such as when the strings stop being copper-wound or at the tenor-break, how does the Fletcher model accommodate this non-continuous region cleanly? It would seem that 100% weighting the strings in this area would be necessary since the actual IH is so different from the model's smooth curve, no?

Frank Illenberger

Abraham Lee The new 100% weight setting is not meant for the case when the scaling of different notes is uneven. Such jumps are only an issue for pianoscope if you don't measure all notes, because then it interpolates and probably misses the jump. The new setting is for when the partials within a single note are not well predicted by the Fletcher model.

Abraham Lee

Frank Illenberger
That makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

Rick

I’ve always measured all the notes for the inharmonicity sampling and always check the major thirds/tenths over the bass/tenor brake. Mostly seems very good to me even with poorly scaled pianos. But I will try the 100% weighting in future.

JBrasell

I’ve been enjoying experimenting with the spectrum display. It’s the one feature I missed from Tunelab.
However… I switch back and forth, turning it on and off. For my workflow, I use it when I need it, but not all the time.
I do have issue with it, not related to the display itself, but that it overrides whatever display scale I have selected. That’s not really a problem necessarily when switching to the spectrum display, but when I go back to the regular display, I think it would be helpful if it went back to whatever it was set to.
For example: let’s say my display is set to 10¢… I switch to spectrum display… it defaults to 100¢. So, I change it to 20¢ to use it effectively. Then, I go back to pitch display… I’d like it to still be set 10¢. Then, If I switch back to spectrum, I’d like it to still be set to 20¢. I’d like each display to retain its last setting.
I also think it would be helpful to be able to set a default for each display.

I think this would help me quite a bit.

Frank Illenberger

JBrasell Thank you for the feedback. It makes sense. I will design a solution for the first update after v4.