Beat Frequency and Tuning Calculator

What this tool does

Two notes a few hertz apart produce a slow throbbing at exactly their difference, and that is how a piano is tuned by ear: adjust until the beating stops. Cents give the same gap in musical terms — one hundred cents is a semitone, and about five cents is the smallest difference most people can hear.

Formula

f beat = |f₁ − f₂|

Variables

Worked example

Limitations

• The formula assumes ideal conditions: no friction losses, no air resistance and no efficiency losses unless you enter them.
• The calculation runs at full precision and only the display is rounded. If you copy an intermediate value and retype it, small differences can appear.