# Sound Frequency Recognition Software

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sound-frequency-recognition-software/165796>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 1, 2003, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sound-frequency-recognition-software/165796 "2003-04-01T21:23:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Apex\_Rogers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Apex\_Rogers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apex_Rogers)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sound-frequency-recognition-software/165796/1 "2003-04-01T21:23:09Z")

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Does anyone know of “free” software that takes microphone input from a user and shows what frequency said user is outputting. It would probably be used out of curiosities sake with my voice and perhaps help tuning a guitar (possible applications, who knows). I’m just curious as to whether this software exists and is “free” (ie: “available”).

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**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sound-frequency-recognition-software/165796/2 "2003-04-01T22:09:12Z")

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    - I duno of any free ones right off, but Cakewalk Guitar Studio has a software guitar tuner. You hit an open string on the guitar and it shows how high above or below ideal it is.

- There are also programs (some free, some not) that convert wav files to MIDI notes. These don’t work well except with instruments that have discrete notes such as pianos, but I haven’t ever tried to use any myself.  
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**Author:** ![Apex\_Rogers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Apex\_Rogers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apex_Rogers)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sound-frequency-recognition-software/165796/3 "2003-04-01T22:58:33Z")

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Thanks Doug, I’ll look into the Cakewalk program and see if there are similar free programs that will offer the same features. Anyone else have suggestions?

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**Author:** ![William\_Ashbless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a87d85/32.png) [@William\_Ashbless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/William_Ashbless)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sound-frequency-recognition-software/165796/4 "2003-04-01T23:25:01Z")

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I’d probably Google for:

spectrum  
sound  
realtime  
software  
(your OS… Windows/Macintosh)

Basically you’re after a sound spectrum analyzer. I’d guess a lot of sound recording software would have a similar feature, but it wouldn’t necessarily be realtime.

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**Author:** ![Apex\_Rogers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Apex\_Rogers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apex_Rogers)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sound-frequency-recognition-software/165796/5 "2003-04-01T23:43:51Z")

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I went to [download.com](http://download.com) and found a program called enable Tuner 2.6i, which is a guitar tuner that also shows the frequency of a microphone input. Unfortunately it is a 30 day evaluation copy, so it’ll only have some shortlived functionality. Oh well, at least I found what I was looking for.