Vocal Coach is out now on Google Play. It listens while you sing and shows you, note by note, whether you are in tune — and it gives you a short daily routine to get better. There is no account, and your voice never leaves your phone.
Why you cannot hear it yourself
Almost everyone who sings has had the experience of a recording sounding worse than it felt. Part of the reason is physical: you hear your own voice through the bones of your head as well as through the air, so it sounds fuller and lower to you than it does to anyone else. The other part is that while you are singing, your attention is on the words, the breath and the next line, not on whether the note you are holding has drifted a little flat.
A pitch display removes the guesswork. Instead of "that sounded a bit off", you see that the third note of the phrase was 40 cents flat and that the long note at the end sagged halfway through. That is something you can practise.
What the app does
| Tool | What you get |
|---|---|
| Pitch | a live needle with the note you sing and how many cents sharp or flat; a 10-second pitch line for long notes; a reference note to hear first |
| Vocal range | sing your lowest and highest comfortable notes; get your range and an estimated voice type |
| Warm-up | piano-guided scales that move up and down by half steps inside your range, every note scored |
| Voice check | seven notes that tell you how accurate you are today |
| Recorder | up to 10 minutes, each note coloured in tune, close or off |
| Key and tempo | open a song from your phone, lower or raise the key, slow it down without changing the pitch |
| Tools | metronome with time signatures, accents, subdivisions and tap tempo; pitch pipe; custom A4 tuning |
Start with your range
The first thing worth doing is the range test. Sing the lowest note you can hold comfortably, then the highest — comfortably, not the squeak at the very top. Vocal Coach turns those two notes into your range and an estimated voice type, and from then on every other tool uses it: the warm-up scales stay inside it, and the voice check picks notes you can actually reach. A warm-up pitched for someone else's voice is how people strain, so this step matters more than it looks.
Voice type is an estimate. Soprano, alto, tenor and baritone are decided by more than range — where your voice sounds best, where it tires, its colour. Treat the label as a starting point, and re-run the test after a few weeks of warm-ups; ranges often widen with practice.
Five minutes a day
The daily warm-up plays a short scale on the piano, you sing it back, and the app moves the scale up by a half step and goes again, then back down. Every note you sing is scored, and at the end you get a summary of where you were accurate and where you drifted. The seven-note voice check is quicker still — a snapshot of how in tune you are today, which is useful before a rehearsal or a night of karaoke.
Practice days and streaks are counted, and you can turn on a daily reminder if a nudge helps. Singing improves the way most physical skills do: a few minutes most days does more than an hour once a week.
Record, listen back, practise real songs
Record up to ten minutes and play it back with each note coloured in tune, close or off, so you can see exactly which line needs work. Trim the take, loop the section you are fixing, add a little reverb, rename it and share it if you like.
When you move on to real songs, open a track from your phone and lower or raise the key until it sits in your range. A hard passage can be slowed down without changing the pitch, which is the fastest way to learn a run that goes by too quickly at full speed. Note names can be shown as C D E or Do Re Mi, and the A4 reference can be set to something other than 440 Hz if your choir or instrument tunes differently.
Your voice stays on your phone
An app that listens to you sing has no reason to send that sound anywhere, and Vocal Coach does not.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Account | none — there is no sign-in |
| Server | none — all sound is processed on the device |
| Microphone | on only while a pitch, range, recording, warm-up or voice-check screen is open |
| Your data | recordings, range, scores and practice days stay on the phone; "Delete all data" in Settings removes them |
| Platforms | Android |
The app is free and shows ads from Google AdMob, with one rule built in: ads never get in the way of singing. The banner is hidden while you record, and full-screen ads never appear while the microphone is on. Your voice, recordings and practice results are never given to the ad network. A one-time purchase on Google Play removes all ads. The privacy policy sets out exactly what the app keeps and what the ad SDK can see.
Get Vocal Coach
Free on Google Play. No account, nothing uploaded, and no full-screen ads while the microphone is on.
Google PlayFrequently asked questions
What does "cents sharp or flat" mean?
A cent is a hundredth of a semitone, the step between two neighbouring piano keys. If the needle says you are 30 cents flat, you are almost a third of the way down to the next note. Most listeners notice a sung note that is off by around 20 to 30 cents, so the useful goal is not zero but staying comfortably inside that band.
Are my voice and recordings uploaded anywhere?
No. All sound is processed on your phone. The app has no account and NDT Studio runs no server for it, so recordings, your vocal range and your practice results stay on the device. The only way a take leaves your phone is if you share it yourself.
Is it free?
Yes. Vocal Coach is free and shows ads from Google AdMob. The banner is hidden while you record and full-screen ads never appear while the microphone is on. A one-time purchase on Google Play removes all ads.