Jam JamFree online mandolin tuner
A precise GDAE tuner for your mandolin — the four courses, right in your browser, accurate to ±5 cents.
The Jam Jam online tuner listens to your mandolin through the microphone and tells you, in real time, which note you are playing and by how many cents you are off. Standard GDAE is built in — E5, A4, D4, G3, tuned in fifths exactly like a violin, so what you know on one instrument carries straight over to the other. A mandolin has eight strings but only four pitches: the tuner locks on the nearest course on its own, and a chromatic mode from 40 to 1600 Hz covers anything unusual. Once you are in tune, the same app gives your mandolin 44 hand-written chord fingerings and tablature written in its real tuning.
How to tune a mandolin online
Allow the microphone
Open the tuner, pick Mandolin and allow the mic — audio is analysed on your device and never uploaded.
Play one string
Pluck a single string of one course. The tuner names the target — E, A, D or G — and shows the cents and the frequency.
Centre the needle
Turn the peg until the needle sits inside the ±5-cent zone and turns green. Full scale runs to ±50 cents.
Match the pair
Now tune the second string of the course onto the first, by ear, until the beating between them disappears.
Not your average mandolin tuner
Built for four courses
A mandolin has eight strings and four pitches. The tuner works on those four — E A D G — and locks the nearest one by itself, or you tap to hold it.
Fine enough to silence a unison
±5 cents for the in-tune zone, ±50 cents full scale, cents to the unit and frequency to a tenth of a hertz — the resolution a unison pair needs.
A reference note in a mandolin voice
Tap a string and the reference note plays back in the timbre of a mandolin, on its own General MIDI program — not a beep, but something you can tune to by ear.
Nothing leaves your browser
The pitch is worked out on your own machine, with no account and no upload — and the mic is requested raw, without noise suppression or auto gain, which would skew it.
Why this mandolin tuner
- Standard GDAE built in — E5, A4, D4, G3, tuned in fifths
- ±5 cents to be in tune, cents to the unit and hertz to a tenth
- Auto lock on the nearest course, or tap to hold one string
- Free in the browser, no sign-up — and offline in the Android app
A single-purpose tuner is done the moment your mandolin is in tune. Here it is one tab among many: the notebook that holds your songs, the detector that names the chords of a track, the diagrams with their 44 hand-written mandolin fingerings up to the 17th fret, tablature written in real GDAE, and the capo the mandolin also takes. Tune, then play — without changing site. In the browser it is free and needs no account; in the Android app everything keeps working offline.
More Jam Jam tools
Free online tuner
A precise chromatic tuner for guitar, ukulele, bass and violin — right in your browser.
Free online violin tuner
Tune the four strings of your violin — E5 A4 D4 G3 — through the microphone, to ±5 cents, in your browser.
Chord diagrams for 15 instruments
The same chord, drawn on your instrument — with the colours that tell you what each note is doing.
Guides & tips
Short, no-nonsense guides to play, tune and find chords faster — each one backed by a Jam Jam tool you can open right away.
Mandolin tuner FAQ
Is this mandolin tuner really free?
Yes — free, with no sign-up and no ads. Everything is computed in your browser: your audio is never uploaded and no recording is kept. The Jam Jam app for Android does the same thing offline.
How do I tune the two strings of one course?
Tune the first to the target pitch with the needle, then bring its neighbour onto it by ear: as the two close in, the beating between them slows, then stops. The tuner reads one pitch at a time, so do them one after the other.
Is mandolin tuning the same as violin tuning?
Yes — both are tuned in fifths, G D A E, and the mandolin’s four pitches are exactly the violin’s: E5, A4, D4, G3. Jam Jam has a violin tuner too; the difference is the doubled courses and the frets.