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It started out in 2008 as a simple database for me to organise all of Nick Drake's tunings for each song. I decided to put it online in its simplest form at around 2010. Since then, with the help of user contributions it has become the only dedicated place on the internet to document and generate chords, scales and tabs for any alternate tunings.

Tunings 3,676

Tabs 405

Songs 3,177

Chords 1,091,772

Scales 23,820,480

Middle C

Notes on middle C

GTDB uses C5 as middle C. The ISO standard is C4 which makes the lowest C on a piano C0. Some keyboards, including Yamaha, use C3 as their middle C which would make the lowest C on a piano C-1.

The middle C on GTDB displays as C5 however the frequency is around 261.63 Hz as is what middle C is supposed to be since the pitch standard was widely adopted in 1939.

The lowest C on a piano according to GTDB is C1.

EADGBE Example

Loading EADGBE Data

Updates History

December 2023
  1. New song search page to easily filter songs, by tuning and genre. Discover new tunings and songs in your favourite genre. Song Search
December 2022
  1. All submitted tunings by users are now located on the dashboard, when logged in with the email used when submitting the tunings.
September 2022
  1. Search now uses Meilisearch
  2. Dark mode baby!
September 2021
  1. Now supporting lower tunings with 4 & 5 strings. Submitting tunings are no longer restricted to the top strings. You can select any fret as long as it is 4 strings or more.
August 2021
  1. Submitting new tunings: you can now capo shift all notes on the fret board. Capo limits are EADGBE +7 and the lowest is EADGBE -13. Effect range of 21 notes. Almost 2 octaves.
  2. Range of tunings has been extended downwards. You can now create tunings as low as C0/-C0 on a 9 string guitar. Effective range has been extended downwards by 6 frets.
  3. All tunings are now linked up with capos. If any tuning on the site are related by capo then they will displayed on the main tuning page.
  4. Violin tuner now embeddable on other websites. Embed code available at gtdb.org/violin-tuner. The tuner comes with 5 sounds, each can be played in 440htz or 432htz. Example below.
June 2021
  1. Chord Sheet Sequencer. All chord sheets have a sequence attached to them. Chords from the sheet can be dragged to the sequencer and played in succession. A few rest objects have been added for added control over sequenced chords.
May 2021
  1. Create blank chord. All chord sheets now have a create blank chord button. These chords are not restricted to a type like Major or Seven. The whole fret board is open to clicks and each fret can be marked. Blank chords are fully integrated into chord sheets so you can save them to custom chord sheets as well.
March 2021
  1. All chord are now playable. You can select which frets will make up the chord and the play button will strum the chord. Click the blue play button to play all marked frets.

February 2021
  1. Scales can be saved to favourites When on a single scale page you can save it to your favourites which can be found on your dashboard

    Dashboard
  2. Scales now playable You can now listen to scales when selecting a single scale in any tuning and any key.

    Speed and Release sliders for optimum listen needs.
  3. Tuning submission page overhaul Tunings can now be generated with a click and play application. The tuning map is now clickable which plays the corresponding note and selects the dropdowns ready for submission.

    Tunings can be loaded into the tuning map for creating variations. All tuning pages have a "Create Variation" button.

    You now must check your tuning doesnt exist in the database before submitting.
Jan 2021
  1. Access to 500+ scales on any tuning On any scales page there is a drop down with over 500 scales. Choose a scale by searching for intervals, names, modes, codes and text codes.
    the url for scales can be edited to find scales with intervals. the url goes /tuning/scales/key/intervals e.g /daefce/scales/g/221222 will give you " G Major scale tuned to DAEFCE

    23,820,480 million chords sheets have been released. 1700 tunings, 540 scales and 12 keys is 3676 * 540 * 12 = 23,820,480 possible scales on this website.

  2. Strum the tuning You can effectively strum the tuning enabling you to hear the tuning as a whole. 4 different speeds of strum available. Also added a loop button for strum; unpredictable results on the slow speeds.
March 2020
  1. Chord Sheets: Added ability to mark fret notes on chords and save positions.
  2. Search: Added Algolia search to main header and chord sheet generator.
July 2019
  1. Added three extra notes on the submit tuning page. You can now submit tunings with up to 9 strings but still a minimum of 6 for now.
  2. Updated all chord sheets and scales to accommodate the new 7 to 9 string tunings
  3. Added new mega menu to the nav bar with a few more links than was currently available. Top ten tunings, All producer link etc
  4. Added function to change the sound of the guitar tuner. They will all default to the Acoustic guitar. The user can now switch to distorted electric guitar and some experimental synth sounds to boot.
  5. Improved the way chord sheets are saved for logged in users.
  6. Various style and layouts fixes.
  7. Fixed direct traffic where user tried a tuning in the url that didn't exist. Now redirects to the correct place to submit missing content.
  8. Added Harmonic Major to scales and chord maps.
  9. Added Mixolydian, Mixolydian Ionian & Octatonic to scales and also included the intervals for each scale.
  10. Added history section to about page.
December 2017
  1. Site wide update caching all chord sheets drastically speeding up page load time. SQL queries reduced from sometimes 100s to less than 10.
November 2017
  1. Added ability to switch all tuners to 432htz.
  2. Integrated YouTube API to show related videos on tuning pages.
April 2017
  1. Create function for users to save favourite tunings which can be found on your dashboard

    Dashboard
May 2016
  1. Open registrations and create functions for users to create custom chord sheets. User Chord Sheets
July 2014
  1. Ported the site to Laravel from WordPress. Bon Voyage to years of point and click systems!
February 2012
  1. Finally added programmatically generated chord maps and scales for all tunings.
February 2010
  1. Register gtdb.org and create first WordPress iteration of Guitar Tunings Database.
January 2009
  1. Nick Drake database was born using PHP Runner.
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