Whistle and Flute Hole Calculator
for calculating positions for finger holes, with input for key, intonation, tube size and fine calibrations; plus additional graphical output. Based on Pete Kosel's Flutomat
Instructions: pink fields are for input — for no hole enter 0 as hole diameter — all measurements in mm — see legend below.
(:wcalc:)
Legend
- tube OD
- outer diameter of tube
- wall
- thickness of tube wall
- bore
- inner diameter of tube, outer diameter less 2x wall thickness
- optimum
- calculated optimum bore according to lowest frequency, see also Searching For The Optimal Whistle Bore
- % diff
- difference in percent of bore to optimum bore. Negative values mean narrower bore, positive values wider bore
- intonation
- ET = equal tempered; just = just intonation (sweet intervals); HB-trad = my preferred intonation for traditional tuning, a variation of just intoned, arrived at purely empirically.
- emb
- embouchure hole
- window/embouchure L x W x H
- length (along the tube), width (across the tube), height (wall or box thickness at window)
- hole
- T1, T2, T3 = top 3 finger holes, Th = top thumb hole, B1, B2, B3 = bottom 3 finger holes. Enter 0 for thumb hole diameter to see no thumb hole, or just ignore that value (the thumb hole value does not affect the others)
- freq
- note frequency in Hz
- note
- common note name
- c Δ ET
- difference in cents from equal tempered note
- hole diameter
- choosen hole diameter (drill hole first a little smaller, and check tuning)
- from end
- calculated distance of hole centre from end of tube
- cutoff*f
- factor for cutoff frequency (should be 2 or more to get second octave note)
- calibration
- calibration of middle A (standard is 440 Hz)
- end effect
- end effect factor, a factor used in the calculation to determine how far the vibrating air column protrudes beyond the end of the tube. It can vary a little, depending on the roundness of the edges at the tube end. Tweak this if all your calculated distances are off by about the same amount to your experimental results.
- slide
- can be used to calculate slide length for a given variation in tuning (±50 cents is half a semi tone up or down)
- temperature
- temperature of air inside the tube the whistle or flute is designed for (usually a bit higher than room temperature).