Ocatune - dynamic practice drone for ocarina

Ocatune is a dynamic practice drone. It listens to the note you are currently playing on the ocarina, and plays the closest equal tempered note for you as a reference pitch.

By doing this, Ocatune makes it easy to hear intonation errors. See 'How to use ocatune' below for an example of what to listen for.

Give these things a try:

• Play a scale, aiming to get every note in tune.
• Play a song slowly, and use Ocatune to check your intonation.
• Practice intervals, listening for a consistent clean sound.

How to use Ocatune

When you click 'start' above, your browser will ask you for permission to use the microphone. Once you allow it, the tool will begin detecting the notes you are playing and play the closest in-tune note for you as a reference.

Use of headphones is essential, as Ocatune will behave very erratically if it can hear its own output.

What to listen for is demonstrated by the tool below. Notice how the sound changes when you drag the pitch slider left or right.

• When you are playing in tune with the reference pitch, you will hear a clean sound.
• If your pitch is flat or sharp you will hear a 'warbling' sound.

Ocatune works best for slow practice as it has some latency between when you play, and when it starts playing the reference pitch.

Usage notes

Visualisations

Ocatune has a few options to visualise the tuning of the note you are playing, in relation to the reference pitch. These are intended to help you understand how your intonation sounds when you are flat or sharp.

Audio latency

The Time between when you start playing, and when Ocatune starts playing the reference pitch is called 'round trip audio latency'. It varies from device to device, and tends to be lower on desktops and laptops than mobile devices in my experience.

Finding a device with lower latency is highly desirable, as higher latency limits your playing speed.

Microphone audio quality

Note that pitch detection using the built in microphone in a laptop or other device with a fan may be unreliable due to noise. In such cases using an external microphone should work better.