Online Tone Generator: Play Any Frequency or Note
Tone settings
🎹 Play a note
If you need a clean, exact pitch on demand 🔊, the online tone generator above from OnlineTuner.org will produce it. Type a frequency in hertz, or pick a note and let the generator work the frequency out for you, choose a waveform, and press play. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for — it runs in your browser. The range covers 20 Hz to 8000 Hz, with nine tones available at every frequency in it — four raw waveforms and five modelled instrument timbres — and every control stays live while the tone sounds, so you can adjust by ear without stopping and starting.
How to use our online tone generator
- Set the pitch. Type a value into the frequency box, drag the slider, or use the − and + buttons for single-hertz steps.
- Or choose a note instead. Pick a note name and an octave, and the generator works out the frequency using whatever A4 reference you have set.
- Pick a waveform. Sine is the default and the right choice for a reference pitch.
- Press play. Every control keeps working while the tone sounds, so you can adjust by ear rather than stopping and starting.
The waveform display beside the reading shows the shape you have built. It is the signal actually being sent to your speakers, not a decorative animation, so a square wave really does look square.
Understand our online tone generator's settings
Our online tone generator is built to be useful to a musician looking for a reference pitch and to an engineer sweeping a room, which means rather more controls than a single play button. Each one is explained below, and none of them need touching before you make your first sound.
Set the frequency of our online tone generator
The frequency box takes any value from 20 Hz to 8000 Hz — the bottom of human hearing to well above the top of the musical range. The slider beside it is logarithmic rather than linear, which means the low octaves get as much travel as the high ones; on a linear slider everything below 500 Hz would be crammed into the first few pixels. For fine work, the − and + buttons move in single hertz.
A frequency can also go straight in the address. Three digits followed by -hz anywhere in the URL set the tone the page opens on, so /432-hz-tone-generator is ready to play 432 Hz the moment it loads — a convenient address to bookmark or to pass on. Note that this differs from our tuner, tuning fork and pitch detector, where the same pattern names the A4 reference: here it names the tone itself, because emitting the frequency you asked for is the whole job.
Play a note instead of a frequency
If you think in notes rather than numbers, set the note name and the octave and our online tone generator converts for you. The two are always in step: change the note and the frequency box follows, type a frequency and the nearest note is named for you.
Set the A4 value of our online tone generator
Concert pitch today is A4 = 440 Hz, but that is a convention rather than a law of physics. Baroque ensembles commonly work at 415 Hz, many European orchestras sit at 442 or 443 Hz, and 432 Hz has a following of its own. Set the A4 field to whatever you need and every note our online tone generator names is recalculated against it — ask for A4 at 432 and the note A4 produces 432 Hz.
Choose the waveform of our online tone generator
The waveform decides the character of the sound without changing its pitch. Four raw shapes and five modelled instrument timbres are available, and they are not interchangeable.
| Waveform | What it sounds like | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Sine | Pure and hollow, no harmonics at all | Reference pitches, listening tests, calibration |
| Square | Hollow and buzzy, like an old games console | Testing speakers, retro synth sounds |
| Sawtooth | Bright and harsh, the richest of the four | Subtractive synthesis, checking high-frequency response |
| Triangle | Soft and flute-like, between sine and square | A gentler reference tone |
| Piano, plucked, bowed, wind, fork | Modelled instrument timbres | Tuning by ear against a sound closer to your own instrument |
If you are simply after a pitch to tune to, use the sine wave. A pure tone has no harmonics to confuse your ear, so the beating between it and your instrument is unmistakable — and beating is exactly what you are listening for.
Set the volume of our online tone generator
The volume control runs from 0 to 100% and is scaled per waveform, so a square wave does not leap out at you when you switch to it from a sine at the same setting. A pure tone at full level is louder than it seems, particularly on headphones, so start low.
Shape the note with attack and release
These two shape the note rather than its pitch. Attack is how long the tone takes to reach full volume — a short attack starts abruptly, a long one fades in. Release is how long it takes to fall silent after you stop, and a little of it avoids the click that an instant cut produces. For extended listening, a slower attack at a lower volume is far kinder on the ears.
Set how long the tone lasts
The duration setting either holds the tone until you press stop, or gives it a fixed length from half a second to thirty. A fixed length is useful when you want a repeatable reference — strike, listen, adjust, strike again — without reaching for the mouse each time.
What people use a tone generator for
- Tuning an instrument by ear. Play the reference, play your note, and listen for the beating between them. As you approach the pitch the beats slow; when they stop you are in tune. This works on instruments no clip-on tuner handles well — organ pipes, handpans, singing bowls.
- Checking speakers and headphones. Sweep slowly upward and listen for buzzes, rattles, or a channel dropping out.
- Identifying a hum. Mains hum sits at 50 Hz or 60 Hz depending on where you are, with harmonics above it. Match the generator to the noise and you know what you are dealing with.
- Ear training. Generate an interval, sing it back, and check yourself against our online pitch detector.
Tuning by ear with the keyboard
Below the settings you will find a full chromatic keyboard, the same one our instrument tuners carry. Click any note to hear it and use the octave buttons to move up or down the range. It is quicker than typing a frequency when you simply want to hear a note, and it follows the A4 reference you have set.
If you want a single fixed reference that rings and fades like the real object, our online tuning fork does exactly that. And if you want the tuner to listen back and tell you how close you are, use one of our instrument tuners instead.
