Confucius once regarded his disciples and said to them: “A guitar without a tuner is like a man without a soul”.

Then he knocked back a 40 and trashed the stage.

But seriously, what good is an out of tune guitar? And what if you’re too lazy to drag your ass away from the computer screen and go out and buy a tuner? AP Tuner— a great software tuner— may be your best bet. Personally, I’m a big fan of software that is straightforward and does one thing extremely well, and this baby is one of those. Its tuner is highly accurate and has a very simple, pleasing interface.

The software comes with a variety of presets:

Setup is easy. After installation, you can plug your guitar cable directly into your computer or use a microphone for other instruments. Then just pluck your string and the needle will bounce to the positive or negative side to show you how much you are off. Tighten/loosen your string and repeat until perfection.

Check out the cool harmonics analysis-graph from my out of tune string!

In addition, the tuner has a 5 star rating from both CNET editors and users --and did I mention that it’s free?

Download AP Tuner from CNET.

If you’d like to contribute to the good souls that programmed this bad boy, make sure you check out the AP Tuner Payment Page: