In my second year of Electrical Engineering at INSA Strasbourg, we had to create an electronics project of our choice, in pairs, over one semester. Driven by my project partner Adèle Henry's passion for music, we decided to build an automatic ukulele tuner.
Watch a video demo on the INSA Strasbourg website
How it works
To tune the ukulele, the user attaches the tuner to whichever peg needs tuning, then plucks the strings when the tuner prompts them to. The tuner automatically detects the note to tune. It then turns the ukulele’s pegs by itself to adjust the string tension until it reaches the right frequency.
Photo of the automatic ukulele tuner
In under 30 seconds per string, and with no musical knowledge, the user can tune the ukulele.
The ukulele tuner can be powered by an external battery, a computer or a phone over USB-C. It could also easily be adapted into an automatic guitar tuner.
Developing the project
For the tuner to work, several features had to be developed:
- Capturing the sound signal: The tuner has a microphone that picks up the string’s vibrations.
- Identifying the note: The sound signal is analyzed with a Fourier transform to get the frequency of the note played and compare it to the target frequency.
- Turning the peg: A servo motor adjusts the string tension by turning the pegs.
- Communicating with the user: The device guides the user through the tuning process with intuitive melodies.
Future developments
This automatic ukulele tuner opens the way to many future adaptations, notably as an automatic guitar tuner. Other improvements include making it smaller and adding a built-in battery to remove the need for a cable. In addition, work on the mounting clamp could make the device even more practical to use.
Discover other projects:
- Reflets, my Swift Student Challenge entry
- TrenteVingt, a budgeting app
- INSA Radar, a room finder for INSA Strasbourg
- My portfolio
Written by Louis Carbo Estaque