Note and Frequency Calculator
Note names, MIDI numbers and frequencies in both directions, at whatever concert pitch you are working to. Enter a frequency and it tells you the nearest note and how far off it sits in cents.
Equal temperament. Middle C is C4 and MIDI 60, the convention Ableton Live and most DAWs use — some hardware labels the same note C3.
- Frequency
- 440.00Hz
- MIDI note
- 69A4
- Deviation
- 0.0cents
| Note | MIDI | Frequency | Wavelength · 20 °C |
|---|
What it is for
Two jobs come up constantly. The first is setting a filter, a resonant peak or a notch to a musical pitch rather than a round number — tuning a kick's body to the key of the track, or finding the frequency of a resonance you want out. The second is checking that a sample is where you think it is: enter the frequency your analyser reports and read the cents deviation.
Reading the cents column
A cent is one hundredth of a semitone. Whether a deviation is audible depends on the source, register, duration and what plays beside it. Close pitches can produce beating before either one sounds plainly "wrong" on its own. If a sample reads twenty cents flat, use the number as a diagnosis and listen in context; thesample pitch calculator converts the correction into a playback rate.
Wavelength
The last column is the wavelength in air at 20 °C, using a speed of sound of 343 m/s. It is the number worth knowing when a room mode is fighting you: a standing wave sits where a dimension of the room matches a half wavelength, which is why a 3.4 m wall and a 50 Hz problem tend to arrive together.
Related
Auspicious Music is an independent publication on a domain with an earlier history. The former operator is not involved in the current site.
Read the history and relaunch note