4-String Bass tuner – Standard (EADG)
E-A-D-G · Standard
Press “Start tuner” – the browser will ask for microphone access. Sound is analysed on this device and never uploaded.
This free online tuner listens through your microphone and shows how close each string of your 4-String Bass is to Standard (EADG) tuning (E-A-D-G). Play a string, watch the needle, and turn the peg until the meter glows green. If you prefer tuning by ear, tap any string card to hear its reference tone.
About Standard (EADG) tuning
Standard (EADG) is the reference tuning for the 4-String Bass – the pitch the instrument normally ships at, and the starting point every other tuning on this page is measured from.
Played open, the strings sound E-A-D-G – from E1 at the bottom to G2 at the top, a span of 1 octave and 3 semitones. Step by step across the neck the intervals are a fourth, a fourth, a fourth, and that is what decides how chord shapes fall under the hand.
EADG is the bass guitar's standard tuning and it is the bottom four strings of a guitar, an octave down. That is not a coincidence: Leo Fender designed the Precision Bass in 1951 so that guitarists could pick it up, and the tuning is the main reason they could.
All four intervals are perfect fourths, which means every scale and arpeggio shape repeats identically across the neck – one of the reasons the bass fretboard is quicker to learn than the guitar's.
History
4-String Bass
The electric bass exists to replace the double bass in loud bands. Paul Tutmarc of Seattle sold a fretted electric bass, the Audiovox Model 736, in the mid-1930s, but it went nowhere. The instrument that stuck was Leo Fender's Precision Bass of 1951: a solid body, a guitar-like neck and frets that let the player hit “precise” notes – hence the name. It kept the double bass's E-A-D-G tuning, an octave below the guitar's four lowest strings.
Fender followed with the Jazz Bass in 1960. The Beatles made Paul McCartney's violin-shaped Höfner 500/1 famous, while James Jamerson's Precision Bass lines at Motown in the 1960s showed what the instrument could do. Within two decades the upright bass had been pushed out of almost all popular music.
Where the Standard (EADG) tuning comes from
E-A-D-G is the tuning of the orchestral double bass, which has been tuned in fourths since the late 18th century. When Leo Fender designed the Precision Bass in 1951 he kept it, so that the bass sounds an octave below the four lowest strings of the guitar and guitarists could switch instruments easily.
Other 4-String Bass tunings
Alternative
Chords for this tuning
How do I tune my 4-String Bass to Standard (EADG)?
Allow microphone access, pluck a string, and the tuner will detect it automatically. The needle shows whether the string is flat or sharp – adjust until the reading is within ±5 cents (E-A-D-G).
Which notes are used in Standard (EADG) tuning?
Standard (EADG) tuning for 4-String Bass uses the notes E-A-D-G, listed from the lowest string to the highest.
Can I tune without a microphone?
Yes. Every string card plays a reference tone – tap it and match your string to the sound by ear.