Free Online Bass Trombone Tuner
Play a note, see exactly how in tune you are.
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Allow microphone access to begin
How to use this tuner
Click Start Tuning and allow microphone access. Play a note, the tuner detects pitch in real time and shows how sharp or flat you are in cents.
The bar spans −50 to +50 cents. Zero is perfectly in tune. The history line shows where you’ve been, which is how you catch a low valve note that starts centred and runs sharp as you move down.
Bass Trombone is already selected, at concert pitch. Parts are written in bass clef at concert pitch, so no transposition is applied.
Default is A440. Tap + / − to match your ensemble, A441–442 is common in orchestras and concert bands.
The bass trombone is written at concert pitch in bass clef, so written note equals sounding note and this tuner applies no transposition. It shares the B♭ tenor trombone’s open slide positions, so everything about partial tendencies on the tenor trombone tuner page applies here too. What makes the bass trombone its own tuning problem is the valve register.
Tune the open horn first. Set the main tuning slide on B♭2 or F3 in first position once the instrument is warm, then check B♭3 and F4 above. Only then move to the valves. The F attachment has its own tuning slide, and it should be set so that F2 with the valve in first position matches F2 in sixth position on the open horn. On a double-valve instrument the second valve (usually G♭, sometimes D when used alone, and D or E♭ in combination) has a third slide to set, most easily by matching D2 in the combination against a well-placed open note.
The spacing problem is what catches players out. Engaging a valve adds tubing, and because each semitone is a fixed ratio of the total length, every position gets longer with the valve in. With the F valve alone the positions spread by roughly an eighth: fourth position becomes closer to where fifth used to be, and the low C2 sits in a “flat sixth” position that is very nearly at the end of the slide. With both valves the spread is wider still, which is why the low B1 in the F and G♭ combination is often unusable and the second valve was moved to D on many instruments. Play a slow chromatic scale down from F2 using the valves and watch the history line: if the notes creep sharp as you descend, your positions are not spreading enough.
Dependent and independent valve systems behave differently in the very lowest register, but the pitch tendencies are the same: valve combinations run sharp, so play them long. The low register also demands a large, slow airstream, and pitch tends to sag as the breath runs out on long notes. Loud playing pulls pitch flat as the embouchure opens; very soft playing tends sharp. Tune at a realistic dynamic, not the comfortable one.
Low fundamentals carry a lot of energy below what small microphones handle well. Give the tuner a clear, sustained note rather than a short blast and let it settle for a second before you read it. The history display is most useful on exactly these notes: a long low C that holds level is well supported; one that drifts downward across the breath tells you what to work on.
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