Our Story
The story behind Cyber-Tone — from building the modern pitch pipe to creating advanced SOVT vocal training tools for singers.
The Cyber-Tone Story
Like many innovations, Cyber-Tone was born out of necessity. As an electrical engineer and singer with the Ambassadors of Harmony, I was approached by one of our pitch pipe guys to see if I could repair our old electronic pitch pipes. I suggested that it might be easier to just buy a new one, only to be told that they were no longer available, and nothing like them existed on the market. We considered using traditional pitch pipes, but I learned they are never fully in tune and often don’t agree with each other in pitch. And so, the Cyber-Tone journey began.
The Making of Cyber-Tone
A vision started to take shape: to create the most advanced electronic pitch pipe ever made, while maintaining the simplicity needed to play the right pitch on stage and during rehearsals. I reached out to my friend Dave for help throughout the process. It wasn’t easy—there were countless nights spent brainstorming, testing prototypes, and working hard to make it loud enough. I had the benefit of being able to bounce ideas off of some barbershop legends inside of my chorus to ensure that Cyber-Tone would work for choruses. We refined the design over and over to meet all these needs: perfect pitch accuracy, loud and clear tones, compact and user-friendly design, micro-tuning capabilities, and a rechargeable battery.
The Next Chapter: Training the Voice
As Cyber-Tone began reaching more singers, another pattern became clear. Many singers are looking to improve their voice coordination, breath control, the ability to move smoothly through the voice.
Singers have used semi-occluded vocal tract exercises for years in voice studios, pedagogy, and therapy settings. Simple straw work can be a helpful way to explore more efficient vocal function. But a basic straws also have limits. Resistance cannot be adjusted, progression is difficult to control, and consistency can be hard to reproduce from practice to practice.
That realization led to the development of the Cyber-Tone Vocal Conditioning System (VCS) — an adjustable SOVT training tool designed to help singers train with more control and consistency.
Just like the pitch pipe, the goal was not to reinvent singing. The goal was to build a practical tool that helps singers explore efficient coordination, smoother register transitions, and more deliberate vocal training in real-world settings like rehearsals, lessons, backstage warm-ups, and daily practice.
Cyber-Tone continues to focus on a simple mission: building precision tools that help singers perform with greater confidence.
The Story Behind Some of Cyber-Tone's Unique Features
We also had a little fun along the way, programming the Cyber-Tone to teach you the Cyber-Tone tag: Perfect Pitch Every Time – Cyber-Tone. During one rehearsal, we were struggling to stay on pitch in a particular section. Our director asked the pitch pipe guys to keep blowing the pitch. We repeated the section over and over while my prototype Cyber-Tones kept playing that pitch. This is how Sticky Tones came to be, which also frees up your hands if you want to tune an instrument. On another occasion, we were rehearsing our uptune with a metronome in the background to stay on tempo. The pitch of the metronome was in a different key and became distracting to me. I wondered, why can’t we pick the key the metronome plays in? I did some research and realized no one had done this! That’s how we created the Perfect Pitch Metronome feature—to play in your key, at your tempo.
The Sound of Family & Innovation
Cyber-Tone is a family business and is made in the USA with local sourcing where possible. Our circuit boards are manufactured in the USA, using chips primarily made in Texas, and the cases are printed in Illinois. Dave and his kids handle the final assembly, then ship them to me. My family helps print labels and test each unit for functionality before we carefully pack them, and ship them to you. Cyber-Tone exists to create precision tools that help singers perform with confidence — from establishing perfect pitch to developing stronger, more efficient voices. It’s not just a business; it has been a great way to get the whole family involved. It's also my way of giving back to the musical community that has shaped me. I hope that Cyber-Tone can play a small part in helping you and your musical group create beautiful music to share with the world.
In Harmony,
Will Jarrett - Founder Cyber-Tone
