Tone Generator Utilities

WinNT, Win2000 or XP only

Beeptones is a simple win32 console application generates tones corresponding to each of the 6 open guitar string fundamental chromatic frequencies. The C application uses the kernel32.dll function Beep(frequency, interval) function which uses the PC System speaker or sound card, if present. It also provides a slow "strum" of the 6 strings, as well as a 50-tone random audio pattern. The interval between tones can be varied


Download beeptones.exe (Visual Studio 2005 compiled; digitally signed; 83,072 bytes)

Click to enlarge Win95 - WinXP with sound-card with MIDI support

Using the low-level midiOutShortMsg MIDI function which is supported on Win95 - WinXP with a sound card and MIDI synthesizer, it is possible to easily generate notes and chords. This application simply plays the 4-note guitar chords (using the "Electric Guitar (clean)" voice # 27), Emaj, Amaj, Dmaj, Gmaj, Bmaj, Cmaj, the 6 open guitar strings, standard A440 and the high E note (12th fret, 1st string). Each note/chord is played for ~ 2 seconds.

Download GuitarChords.exe (VC++6 compiled; digitally signed; 45,616 bytes)

Click to enlarge Win95 - WinXP with sound-card

Using the low-level waveform audio APIs which are supported on Win95 - WinXP it is possible to develop tone-generation capability which works on all windows platforms with standard sound-cards. The C application GuitarToner.exe is based on the sample code:
C. Petzold "Programming Windows" 5th Edn. 1999 p.1290 "SINEWAVE.C"
which has been modified to include buttons for fixed frequencies (rounded to the nearest integer Hz value) corresponding to each of the standard-tuning guitar string frequencies: 


      E6      82.41
      A5     110.00
      D4     146.83
      G3     196.00
      B2     246.94
      E1     329.63
Buttons for the standard A 440 Hz tone and the 1st string 12th fret (E12) are also included.

Download GuitarToner.exe (VC++6 compiled)

Win32, Solaris or LINUX with Java Plugin-in 1.4.0

Click to enlarge This Java applet uses Java Plug-in and uses the Java Sound API MIDI capability and a Java Swing GUI to play guitar strings, and a selection of chords. Chords can be played as all notes sounded together, or a slow "strum" checkbox plays each note sequentially, with all notes sounding during the strum.

Guitar Swinger (Plug-in Version 1.3)
Guitar Swinger (Plug-in Version 1.4)