altering FAC settings, 4

[FSSturm@aol.com]

Altering FAC Settings, 4

AOL (my server) has been experiencing overload recently, and it often takes
me 3 - 4 days to get an open line, to pick up or send mail. Hence this is
much later than promised.

A few more thoughts and observations:

First, I want to point out that the FAC program limits the numbers that can
be entered. The limits are:
For F, 0.1 - 20.0 cents.
For A, 2.0 - 16.0 cents.
For C, 2.0 - 12.0 cents.

If these numbers are exceeded, the FAC enters by default the maximum value
(eg., if you enter 16.7 for C, the FAC reads that as 12.0). For A and C, if
numbers between 0.0 and 1.9 are entered, the FAC interprets them as 2.0.
(Negative numbers are read as the maximum value, a strange quirk of the
program).

I have run across old uprights with actual measured and verified "C numbers"
as high as 16.0. For instruments like this, we must alter notes on an
individual basis to get clean double octaves up to the top, let alone a wider
stretch. (A wider stretch might break strings).

Harpsichords tend to have measured "A numbers" that are less than 2.0, often
less than 1.0. The FAC program will produce a stretch wider than you might
expect or want for a harpsichord. I have found it better to record aural
tunings of the harpsichords I tune on a regular basis, rather than use an FAC
created tuning as a template to work from.

I'm sure that plenty of readers (if there are that many who wade through all
this) who are thinking, "If it's all that complicated, why should I bother?"
Like any writing about tuning, aural or electronic, it is hard to convey even
the simplest ideas without getting bogged down and going on at great length.
In fact, what I have described in these four posts is fairly close to the way
I tune day to day, always when there isn't a pitch change involved, and often
when there is. It takes me about one hour to tune a straight FAC tuning,
start to finish (not hurrying, and being pretty picky about unisons and
stability). It takes about 1 1/4 hours to do a tuning with the alterations I
have described.

To compare with my 15 years of strictly aural tuning (I have had my SAT for 1
1/2 years now), the one hour FAC tuning would be the equivalent of my
standard 1 1/2 hour aural tuning, except (I blush to say) not as good from
the point of view of overall pitch, unisons, or stability. The 1 1/4 hour FAC
altered tuning I have described would be the equivalent of an aural tuning of
2 1/2 hours or so, or a 2nd or 3rd tuning before a concert; except that when
I am done with the 1 1/4 hours I have accomplished what I set out to do and
feel pretty satisfied with the result. More often than not, after the 2 1/2
hour aural tuning, I would have been overly fatigued, frustrated, and calling
it good enough because I had reached the point where things were more apt to
get worse than better. I am tremendously grateful for the miracles of modern
technology that enable me to come close on a daily basis to the goals I only
rarely approached without them (No, I have no stock in Inventronics).

The SAT is a tool which can be used in many ways, and the more you know, the
better use you can make of it. The FAC is a tool within a tool. Once you know
what it does and how, you can make it work for you as an aid to developing
your own style. I hope this series of posts has helped demystify the FAC
numbers and what they do. As for my own suggestions of how to use the FAC,
that was just a free bonus, and , as Dr. Jim would say, "satisfaction
guaranteed or 100% of your money back).

Whew! Now that all that is off my chest, I promise to sit back and stop
cluttering so much bandwidth with nonsense about ETA's and tenths of cents,
and other such twaddle of interest only to deaf tuners and numbers freaks.
;-)

Hasta Luego
Fred Sturm
Albuquerque, New Mexico