Am I the only one who finds this app singularly useless for identifying tunes? Half the time, it won’t even get the form (Jig, Polka etc) right. Maybe I’m using it wrongly, though I seem to be following the instructions alright. Am I expecting too much of it then?
(Singed)
Puzzled of Pocklington
From what I find about tunepal is that if one instrument is playing it picks up the tune better… if there is afew people it generally never gets it right!!
Is tunepal some Mustard nickname for Kenny?
He’s working fine most of the time. But, eh! nobody’s perfect.
Tunepal works quite well in smaller sessions with no accompaniment and in solo settings at home. I usually use the voice recorder app on my phone to record sessions, learn the tunes from there, and then play them into Tunepal to learn what they’re called. It also helps when you have a fragment but not the whole tune, since you can learn that bit and find the rest of the tune.
In louder sessions, or anything with prominent accompaniment, it’s less useful.
I’d have to second bigsciota’s experience. But then I’m mostly in a small session.
When you’re in a session you’re better off just asking someone the name really, you can use tunepal to store it.
I use tunepal to identify tunes that I no a couple of notes of but not the name nor the whole tune. If I play it on my instrument clearly articulating the notes it works 9 out of 10 times.
I’ve always found it works extremely well for me when I play into it on solo whistle at home (generally fairly pure-drop Irish stuff), but haven’t road-tested it much at sessions. I expect it probably doesn’t work as well if you input a big mush of sound into it, vs. one instrument playing solo.
Tunepal is amazing in its ability to identify tunes, but it’s picky about the music source. I’ve found over the years, that it gives me much more accurate tune identification as my playing has improved.
Tunepal is much like the voice dictation in the phones. The more precisely I enunciate, the more accurate the transcription is. Likewise, Tunepal is more accurate with clear enunciation. It works well for sessions or recordings when the instruments are tight and accompaniment is minimal. Drums, guitars, crowd noise, etc. all serve to distract Tunepal, otherwise it works great.
It’s an indispensable app for me.
It is a tool, a good one, and you need to learn to use it like any tool. Sure, it doesn’t work as well when the melody is obscured by too many versions being played at the same time or too much backing. Shovels are good too but difficult to use in stony soil and impossible in rock. The theory of relativity applies…
"When you’re in a session you’re better off just asking someone the name really, you can use tunepal to store it."
Read the room first. In many sessions, it is not considered cool or polite to be constantly asking the names of tunes. Strike a balance.
Works great for me even in group settings.
Well, you most certainly are not using it wrongly, but you might be using it wrong.
Can you explain that please? I thought that an adverb was correct here, rather than an adjective, given that "using" in this case is a verb.
For me, it seems to work great with whistle and flute, but not with concertina or fiddle. You might want to make sure your preferences are correct for the instrument you are "analyzing", too - it’s under "transcription fundamental". I usually leave mine on "D", but you may need to change it depending on the instrument.
I really only use it at home, and it is somewhat pesky with plucked instruments. It definitely prefers longer tones of bowed or wind instruments. But I find it accurate, especially if I play fairly slow and steady into it. Sometimes if you give it too much data, it struggles more. By slow, I mean I play less than a whole A part of a jig in the time it is recording. But that might just be because I’m using a plectrum instrument.
I have pulled it out a few times in sessions just to see how it does, and it has been fairly reliable as long as the environment isn’t too noisy…
I think it’s amazing it works as well as it does.
I also find it works very well using a tin whistle played at a steady pace, so that it has time to ‘hear’ everything properly, and only usually needs to hear the bulk of the ‘A’ part. I’ve not had a great deal of success using it with plucked instruments (banjo particularly), it seems that the notes die away too quickly for it to hear them.
Michael
My only potential use for it is at a session, and it has been reliably completely useless in that setting.
Often you need to look through the first 10 or so to spot the tune.
You really need to know how to read music to get good value of it.
I’ve really good luck with it myself. I find it quite amazing given the huge repertoire. Reading music, though, does seem a requirement to judge, as noted previously, and often ya do have to sift a little through the percentiles. So to speak.
For some reason it works better with the fiddle than the banjo, great app