Free Online Mandolin Tuner

How to tune a mandolin

A mandolin has eight strings in four courses — pairs tuned to the same pitch. From low to high the courses are G D A E, the same as a violin, and each course is a perfect fifth above the last.

1. Open the tuner and choose the mandolin preset.
2. Tune the two strings in each course one at a time, so you can hear each one clearly.
3. Pluck a string; the tuner shows whether it's sharp or flat. Turn the peg until the needle centers on the note.
4. Then match its partner string to it by ear — when the two stop "beating" against each other, the course is in tune.

Tuning the pairs by ear

The trickiest part of a mandolin is getting each pair perfectly matched, because two slightly-off strings sound sour even when the tuner says each one is close. So after you set the first string of a course with the needle, tune its partner to it by ear and listen for the wavering to disappear. The drone helps here too — hold the target note and match both strings to it.

Keeping it in tune at a jam

New strings and temperature swings pull a mandolin out of tune fast, so it's worth a quick check between tunes. However, once you've done it a few times with the tuner, your ear starts to catch a flat course on its own — which is the whole point of practicing with a reference pitch.