Perfect Intonation Tutorial

Perfect Intonation (TM) is a new software tool for music professionals and educators. It allows you to see the pitch you're singing (or playing) in real time. By comparing auditory and visual feedback, you can learn to sing songs faster and with greater accuracy.

Setup

Plug your microphone in before running Perfect Intonation. We recommend using a headset/microphone combination, or a separate headset instead of loudspeakers.

Windows: To launch Perfect Intonation, double click on the Perfect Intonation.msi file and follow the directions in the installer window. When the program has been installed, an icon labeled Perfect_Intonation.exe should appear on your desktop. Double click on the icon to launch the program.

Mac: After downloading, double click the "Perfect Intonation.dmg" file to mount it - a "disk" will appear in your finder. Drag Perfect Intonation to your applications folder. From there, you may run the program from your Applications folder using the finder, or drag Perfect Intonation to your Dock to create a shortcut.

Freeform Singing Mode

Perfect Intonation has two display modes: Freeform Singing, which allows you to sing whatever you want and watch your pitch in real time, and Exercises, which allows you to practice tuning to a specific sequence of notes. When first launched, Perfect Intonation opens in Freeform Singing mode. The display is a basic piano roll style, slightly modified to show each individual half-step (which is why the staff lines are not equally separated).

Microphone Calibration

To begin, be sure your microphone and earphones (if using) are plugged in properly. For best results, you should identify and calibrate your microphone before using the software. In the Edit menu, select Preferences; a new window will pop up. Click the Microphone tab at the top. PC users: to identify your microphone, use the Audio Source drop-down menu at the top to see the list of microphones recognized by Perfect Intonation. Choose the source that represents the microphone you would like to use. You can select different audio sources from the menu while singing into your preferred mic; you will see the volume detected for each mic. Alternatively, you can have Perfect Intonation identify the which microphone to use. Click the Auto-Identify button and follow the prompts. Mac users: select your microphone from the Mac system preferences before launching Perfect Intonation.

You can calibrate your microphone manually, or you can have Perfect Intonation calibrate it for you. To calibrate manually, sing into the selected microphone and watch the volume display. The input from the microphone is gray when the volume is below the leftmost slider -- this means Perfect Intonation will ignore input below this slider for purposes of pitch detection. Adjust the slider to ensure that all background noise (when you are not singing) falls below this level. The display turns green when the detected volume falls between the two sliders -- this is the range of volume that will be used for pitch detection. If you sing louder than the rightmost slider, the bar turns red, and Perfect Intonation will again ignore the input. Adjust both sliders until they represent a comfortable volume range while you sing.

To have Perfect Intonation calibrate the microphone automatically, click the Auto-Calibrate button. Follow the prompts in the window; when prompted to sing, use a clear, steady voice in a comfortable volume range. If calibration succeeds, close the Preferences window and proceed with the tutorial. If calibration fails, first test that your microphone is working properly and your computer's microphone input volume is set to a reasonable level, and then rerun the calibration. Be sure that your environment is fairly quiet; high ambient noise will disrupt the calibration (and pitch detection).

Close the Preferences window when you have finished with microphone identification and calibration. Your settings will be saved and loaded each time you launch the program. If you want to change microphones (or users), re-identify and recalibrate the microphone before continuing.

Singing

When your microphone is properly calibrated, you're ready to begin exploring Perfect Intonation. Press the Record button (Rec.) and sing into the microphone. Your pitch is displayed in real time as a blue line at the proper place on the staff; your frequency is displayed in the bottom of the window as well. As you sing, the slider at the bottom of the window advances. After you press Stop (or Rec. again), you can scroll back to see the trace over time. Press Record again to pick up where you left off; press Reset to erase your pitch history and begin again.

You can listen to your recording by clicking on the place you want to begin and pressing the Play button. Do not use the Reset button to move the pointer (the green line), as this will reset your pitch history. Instead, use the scrollbar or the Reverse (Rev.) button to move to the beginning without erasing your recording.

Use the buttons on the bottom right of the window to change the display. You can zoom in by clicking on the left button, then dragging the mouse to select a portion of the display to zoom in on. To go back to the default zoom, go to View > Default Zoom. You can also select a portion of the display using the right button; only the selected portion will play until you reset the selection using Edit > Deselect. See the manual for more information on these buttons.

Menus in Freeform Singing

You have some options while in freeform singing mode for different displays and a few tools.

  • Options
    • Select Range: use this option to select a different display range; default is Bass/Treble, but you can select the proper display for your voice range. Full Range shows the full range of piano keys. Note that changing the range through the Options menu changes it only for this run. To save a new range as the default, go to Edit > Preferences > Ranges.
    • Select Temperament: by default, Perfect Intonation uses Equal temperament. To change to a different temperament for display, select a temperament from the list.
  • View
    • Use Zoom In and Zoom Out to change your zoom level; Default Zoom returns the display to the default. The buttons at the bottom right of the main window also control zoom functions; see the Guide to Features for more details.

Exercises Mode

To move to Exercises mode, you simply load a built-in exercise or a specifc song (see below). In this mode, you can practice specific exercises and MusicXML songs.

Built-in Exercises

To work on basic scales and warm-up exercises, go to Options > Exercises. Begin by selecting Arpeggio from the submenu. The display changes--target notes are now shown on the piano roll in red. Below is a new display showing the exercise on true musical score.

To begin, press Demo. You will hear a one bar count-off in clicks, then the arpeggio. A green line sweeps along in time on the display. When the arpeggio is finished, hit Reset to bring the exercise back to the beginning. Both the count-off and the click track itself can be turned off by clicking on the levers at the bottom left. The tempo of the exercise can be changed in the box at the bottom right--use the arrow buttons, or simply type in a new tempo (in beats per minute). At the bottom right are the zoom and select buttons, if you want a closer look at a certain part of the exercise. Or, to begin at a different point in the exercise, click on the display in the desired position; the pointer (the green line) will move to that point.

Next, try to sing along with the exercise. To hear your starting note, press on the appropriate key on the keyboard at the far left, or click on the red target note itself. When you are ready, press Record. For best results, use headphones--you will hear the click track and the arpeggio in the headphones while you sing and watch your performance displayed in blue on top of the red bars. To hear your performance, move the pointer to the beginning of the exercise by clicking the Rev. button, then click the Play button.

If the exercise is not in your range, go to Options > Transpose/Change Key. Choose whether to transpose up or down, and select the number of half steps from the drop-down menu plus the number of octave you wish to transpose. Choose whether to transpose the key (usually this is a good idea) and click the Transpose button. The display and playback will change according to your input. Change the Range (Options > Select Range) if necessary to see the exercise. Several other scales and exercises are available in the Exercises menu; practice loading them and trying out the various features.

You can change the display and playback of the exercise using the small Track Options windows, located to the left of each track in the score display. In the case of the built-in exercises such as Arpeggio, only one track has notes in it (Track 1), so it is automatically displayed and selected as the Target track. If you wish to remove the score display of the Arpeggio, click the "x" in the right corner of the Track Options window. To bring it back, use the Tracks menu. Use the check boxes next to "Rec.," "Demo" and "Play" to select when you will hear the target notes. For example, if the Rec. box is unchecked, you will not hear the Arpeggio notes played as you sing along during recording. The Track Options window will be covered in greater detail below in the MusicXML Files section.

After you've warmed up a bit with the Arpeggio, record your performance again, being careful not only to hit the proper notes, but to hit them with the correct timing, using the click track and visual feedback. When you have finished singing the exercise, move the mouse one by one over each target note. This shows the evaluation of your performance. The pitch of each note is evaluated as: very sharp, sharp, a hit (dead on), flat or very flat. In addition, Perfect Intonation evaluates the stability, or even-ness of your singing, on a range from very uneven, uneven, tight, and very tight. Notes that are a hit with very tight stability are perfect! To see all the note evaluations at once, go to the Evaluation menu and select Song Evaluation. You can also use this menu to choose different levels of detail for the evaluation.

Loading Your Own Music With MusicXML Files

In addition to practicing built-in exercises, you can load your own multi-track music files into Perfect Intonation and customize the display and playback of each. This tutorial will take you through one example using "Greensleeves" to familiarize you with the tools and options.

The installer contains a selection of music files in the MusicXML format. The Windows installer will automatically install these files to "My Documents/My Music/Perfect Intonation Music". The Mac install image contains a folder called "Example Music" that you may copy to any directory on your computer.

To begin, use File > Open File... and navigate to the directory holding Greensleeves.xml. You should see four staves appear in the main window representing the SATB (soprano, alto, tenor bass) parts, which were recorded as separate tracks in the MusicXML file.

A small Track Options panel is shown to the left of each track in the score; by default, all four tracks are shown as musical score, and the first track is designated the Target Track and is shown on the piano-roll at the top; the target track is also highlighted in pink on the score display.

By using the Track Options panels, you can modify the settings for each track — whether they are displayed as the target track (by selecting the Target radio button at the top of the window), and whether they are played during recording, demo and playback. Each Track Options window also has a volume slider at the right. Using different combinations of these options, you can fully customize the display and playback of each track. To remove a track from the score display, click on the "x" at the top right. Select additional tracks (in songs with more than four track) using the Tracks menu.

To see how the settings work, we'll set up the system for practicing the tenor line.

  • Click the Target Track radio button in the Track Options window of the Tenor track.
  • Click the checkboxes for play during Rec. for the Soprano, Alto and Bass tracks, but NOT the Tenor track. This will set the system up so that the other parts will play while you are recording pitch, meaning you will be singing to accompaniment by the other three parts.
  • Uncheck the play during Demo box for the Soprano, Alto and Bass tracks. This will set the system so that only the tenor line will play when you click the Demo button.
  • Put on a pair of headphones so that your microphone doesn't pick up the accompaniment.

You're all set up to practice the tenor line to accompaniment. Now when you click Demo, you will hear only the tenor line from the MusicXML file played ... this is the "let me hear what I should be singing" function. When you click Record, the system will record your pitch while playing the other three parts as accompaniment.

This example should have given you a general idea about how the system can be used. For each music file loaded, the system will display the first four tracks contained in the file by default, and each can be altered as desired. Here are some other things to try:

  • Turn on play during Rec. for the track you are practicing to hear your own part while you are singing it, to practice matching the same pitch instead of tuning to accompaniment.
  • Change which tracks are displayed in the main window, either to give yourself more room to see your pitches better, or to see only your part instead of all the accompaniment.
  • Turn on play during Rec. for only one of the other parts to practice singing in intervals with one other part instead of the whole ensemble.
  • Check the play during Play box for the target track to hear the correct notes played while the system is playing back your recording. With both visual and auditory feedback, you can learn your part more quickly.
  • Use Options > Transpose/Change Key to transpose the entire score up or down a certain number of semitones. You can choose to change the key when the exercise is transposed; you can also change the key without transposing.
  • Change the tempo (on the bottom of the main panel).
  • Use the Evaluation feedback to gauge how well you are singing the target notes. Bring up the Song Statistics window (Evaluation > Song Statistics) for a snapshot of how well you did on the entire song.

Preferences

The Preferences window (Edit >Preferences) contains tools for changing some default settings of the program.

  • Ranges tab: Changing the range in this window changes your default range/zoom level--if you choose Soprano from this window, not only does the current display change, but your default range is reset to Soprano--even if you close and reopen the program. The built-in exercises are automatically transposed to this range. In contrast, changing the range through the Options menu only temporarily changes the display--it does not transpose the exercises, nor will it change your default range.
  • Microphone tab: Identify your microphone by selecting from the drop-down list of detected devices and singing into the microphone; the detected volume is displayed in real time. If you cannot identify the microphone, click on the Auto-identify button and follow the prompts. Perfect Intonation will detect the appropriate device and save the setting. If, when you next open Perfect Intonation, the system detecs a different microphone configuration, it will prompt you to re-identify your default microphone. You can calibrate the selected microphone manually using the sliders or automatically by clicking the button and following the prompts. Your calibration is saved and does not need to be re-done unless you change microphones or users.
  • Latencies tab: this advanced setting should only be used if the display and sound from Perfect Intonation to not appear to be synchronized. See the Guide to Features or the Latencies panel itself for more information.
  • Skill Level tab: select your skill level (beginner, intermediate, or advanced) for the purposes of evaluation of your performance.

This tutorial has guided you through the main features of Perfect Intonation. For more information, please see Guide to Features, Reference, and the Troubleshooting sections of this manual.

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