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BowlTune · Measurement guide

How to measure a singing bowl’s note and frequency

Measure one bowl at a time, keep the setup the same, and write down which resonance you selected.

The five steps

  1. Prepare the bowl and room. Rest the bowl on a cushion so it rings freely. Move other bowls away, quiet fans and voices, and hold the microphone about 30–50 cm from the bowl. Keep the phone off the surface the bowl stands on, so vibration does not travel into it. Avoid a very hard strike, or a microphone so close that the sound clips.
  2. Choose the reference and playing mode. Pick A4 = 440 Hz, or whichever reference you intend to use. Strike measures a single hit, Rim follows continuous playing, and Avg ×3 compares three accepted captures. An imported recording is always a single capture. Use the same method for every bowl you plan to compare.
  3. Start, wait, then play. Press Analyze My Bowl and allow microphone access. Stay quiet during the room check. Wait for Ready, then strike with a padded mallet or rub the rim, and let the bowl ring while the tuner listens. If permission was denied, check the browser’s site settings for the microphone, or analyze a recording instead.
  4. Read the selected resonance. Write down the frequency, nearest note, octave, cents and the A4 reference. Look at the spectrum when more than one resonance is present: the loudest peak is not automatically the lowest one. If the result is unconfirmed, or two close tones are reported, repeat the capture and look at the peaks.
  5. Repeat, and keep the evidence. Make three comparable captures, keeping distance, mallet, support and strike point the same. Save the recording, the device and browser, and the results. If you discard a poor capture, write down why.

Common problems

The note jumps between two values

Look for competing resonances, a changing playing technique, or background noise. Compare the same resonance across captures instead of averaging unrelated peaks.

The result is much higher or lower than expected

Another resonance or a background sound may have been selected. Check the octave, listen to the recorded audio, look at the spectrum, and measure again in a quiet room.

A4 = 432 shows a different note or cents value

Only the comparison reference changed. The recording did not. Keep one reference when you compare bowls or tools.

Can I try this without a bowl or a microphone?

Yes. The tuner page has labelled synthetic examples you can send straight through the analyzer, and you can import your own recording. A synthetic example does not test a physical microphone.