Carnatic Tuner vs Tāl Chakra

Carnatic Tuner is a tuner made for Indian classical music. It listens to your voice or instrument and shows the swara you are on — S R1 R2 G2 G3 M1 M2 P D1 D2 N2 N3 — and how many cents sharp or flat you are. Use it to tune a veena, violin, flute, mridangam or tabla, or to check your own singing against your shruti. THE SWARA DIAL The whole octave is laid out like a clock face, with Sa at 12 o'clock and pitch rising clockwise. Each swara is marked at its true position, and a marker moves around the ring to show exactly where your note sits between them. The note name and its ratio to Sa are shown in the centre. TUNED THE WAY YOU PLAY Swaras are measured against pure just-intonation ratios relative to your Sa — Pa is a perfect 3/2, Ga a pure 5/4 — not against the equal-tempered notes of a keyboard. What reads as "in tune" here is what sounds in tune against a tambura. SET YOUR SA YOUR WAY • Pick any of the 12 standard pitches (C, C#, D …), or step through them with the arrows. • Or tap Auto-detect Sa and hold a steady note. The app takes that exact pitch as Sa and shows how far it is from the nearest standard pitch, for example "C# +12¢". 22 SHRUTIS Turn on 22-shruti mode in Settings to add the other ten shruti positions to the dial, numbered by their distance from Sa. Notes are then matched to all 22, and the meter becomes twice as fine. MADE TO BE READ AT A GLANCE • Green, yellow and red show in tune, close and off. • A bar meter gives a fine cents reading; turn it off if you prefer the dial alone. • Choose how the display responds: Fast, Normal or Steady. • Five colour themes, with light and dark appearance. • The screen stays awake while you tune. • Works on iPhone and iPad.

Your guru draws a circle on the board, marks the beats, claps the vibhags, and suddenly the taal makes sense. Tāl Chakra puts that moment in your pocket. This is not a tabla machine. It is an interactive guide to the rhythmic architecture of Hindustani classical music. Each taal is drawn as a circle (the way musicians have understood rhythm for centuries) and brought to life with real tabla recordings, animated playback, and tools that let you take the structure apart and put it back together. 16 TĀLS, ONE CIRCLE From the 6-beat Dādrā to the 16-beat Tīntāl and the rare 14-beat Ārā Chautāl, each taal plays with studio-recorded tabla samples across three dynamic layers. Watch the bead travel the cycle, hear each bol as it lands, and build an intuitive sense of the rhythm that no metronome click can give you. X-RAY MODE Peel back the layers of any taal. Concentric rings reveal vibhāg groupings, tālī and khālī accents, and mātrā positions side by side. See instantly why Rūpak feels nothing like Jhaptāl, even though they are only one beat apart. Compare two tāls with the same beat count by crossfading between them. LAYKĀRĪ LAB Practice subdivisions against a running cycle. Choose from nine ratios: from barābar (1:1) up through sātgun (7:1), plus the fractional cross-rhythms kuāḍ and āḍ. Colour-coded chips group the ratios into three families. Tap Auto and the app cycles through whichever family your current ratio belongs to, advancing one step per full taal cycle, the way your guru would push your speed in a lesson. Watch the subdivision dots appear between the beats and hear a second layer play against the taal. TIHĀĪ BUILDER Compose three-phrase cadences that resolve on sam. Set the starting beat, phrase length, and gap, then watch three coloured arcs draw themselves around the circle in real time. Green means it lands. Red means it doesn't. Tap play to hear your tihāī against the running taal, and feel the resolution when the third phrase hits sam. Includes 48 classic preset patterns across the tāl library, tailored to each rhythmic cycle. TEMPO LAB AND PERFORMANCE MAP Explore the relationship between tempo and density across five laya zones, from Ati Vilambit to Ati Drut. Then zoom out with the Performance Map to see how rhythm lives inside a full rāg performance: from the unmeasured ālāp, through the gathering intensity of the gat sections, to the climactic final cadence. BUILT FOR SERIOUS PRACTICE A tanpura drone in all 12 keys gives your practice a tonal anchor. Haptic pulses mark sam or every beat, so you can close your eyes and still feel the cycle. A session counter tracks completed cycles and elapsed time. A glossary of 50+ terms with Devanāgarī script helps you learn the vocabulary alongside the music. Designed for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.